Recently, a group of Georgian high school students returned from a trip through cities in Russia and Belarus. For two weeks, the so-called “Memory Train” whisked them through sites of Great Patriotic War glory. At first glance, this might seem like an innocent field trip—but only at first glance.
A double-decker train, 200 schoolchildren from the post-Soviet space, over two weeks visiting 13 cities in Russia and Belarus, and just as much time dedicated to “patriotic education.” This cultural and educational project, launched at the initiative of Putin and Lukashenko in 2021, continues its journey despite the war in Ukraine.
In Georgia, the selection of schoolchildren for the “Memory Train” was conducted by the Russian Interests Section at the Embassy of Switzerland. The process was highly targeted and closed-door, without the involvement of Georgian official agencies and without unnecessary publicity. The trip cost the students nothing; everything was funded by the Union State budget of Russia and Belarus. And here, the old adage about where to find free cheese comes to mind.
Russian officials openly note that the schoolchildren who traveled on the “Memory Train” become “ambassadors of goodwill” and help “restore relations.” The calculation is simple. While official dialogue between Tbilisi and Moscow is frozen, the bet is being made on the younger generation. For two weeks, the children are taken to patriotic sites, surrounded with care, and shown a grand spectacle. Thus, quietly and without much fuss, a loyal generation is being shaped—one that will head to the polling stations in a few years.
With the same goal in mind, Georgian schoolchildren were sent to the Artek camp gathering in Crimea in 2017, and were hosted at Putin’s youth festival in Sirius in 2024; this is also why Moscow offers Georgian university applicants quotas for free higher education. To be sure, there would be nothing wrong with any of this if these so-called “benefits” did not come from a country that poses the main threat to Georgia’s national security—a country that occupies its territories and is waging a hybrid war.
The “Memory Train” is part of this war and part of the “Kremlin’s soft power.” The only question is when exactly Moscow will present Georgia with the geopolitical bill for these “free” trips.