Georgia’s third president, Mikheil Saakashvili, has recounted daily life inside Rustavi Prison No. 12, where he and other political leaders are serving sentences.
On his Facebook page, Saakashvili published a post mentioning, with biting irony and sarcasm, former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, former head of the State Security Service Grigol Liluashvili, opera singer and one of the leaders of the autumn 2025 protests Paata Burchuladze, and Nika Melia, a co-founder of the opposition Coalition for Change who previously succeeded Saakashvili as chairman of the United National Movement.
“I must confess that as the ‘overseer’ of this prison for five years now—yes, Georgians, for five years you have meekly endured my confinement here—things have become so scrambled that I no longer recognize this place.
The ‘Prime Minister,’ alias ‘agent of France,’ ‘Tri-Tri Antoine’ Garibashvili, is begging Ivanishvili from his cell: ‘Don’t kill me!’ His family members are barred from visiting him. He bitterly regrets having abolished Londa Toloraia’s agency [the State Inspector Service] back in the day (because of me), and longs for Nino Lomjaria to be the Public Defender again instead of his placeman, Ioseliani.
Liluashvili, who is just as terrified, knows for certain how heavy metal poison is slipped into the food in this cellblock.
The former minister, ‘mafia whistleblower and snitch’ Burchuladze, who heaps praise on me at the top of his lungs in the presence of prison guards, insists that I am a ‘genius’ and that Georgia has never had a better leader, sends all kinds of warm regards, and marvels that ‘he has a computer for a head.’ He brags that supposedly ‘only Misha and I ever went skydiving while serving as ministers.’
And finally, Nikanor Melia—yes, that very same Melia who once practically worshiped me, and who now, every time I walk down the corridor, screams choice profanities at me from his cell (exactly how the common criminals cursed at me in Gldani). Since he makes no sound other than obscenities, I wouldn’t venture to guess what he is trying to achieve. The escort guards here are openly annoyed by this and bestow rather unflattering nicknames upon him.
And then there is me, having adopted the role of a political lecturer: every other evening, perched on a stool by the small prison window, I deliver lectures on Russian-Georgian relations to the guards and inmates of the adjacent block gathered in the yard, and they listen with genuine interest.
Add to this the daily gathering of crows at precisely 6:00 p.m. with their frantic cawing, while the real nightingale, Paata Burchuladze, languishes in silence behind bars—and you get the absolute picture of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ (flying over the cuckoo’s nest). Is it any wonder that while the psychiatrist used to drop by once in a blue moon, he is now practically on duty in our block, even though the prescribed ‘glucose tablets’ no longer seem to help anyone.
On top of that, the local plumbing appears to have gone on strike as well: there has been no running water in the prison for three days now,” Saakashvili wrote on social media.