Davit Vanishvili, also known as Data Papa, who has lived isolated on the other side of the Administrative Boundary Line in the Russian-occupied Georgian village of Khurvaleti, since 2008 war, has died.
Data Papa has become a symbol of Russian occupation in Georgia because of his story of being isolated from the rest of Khurvaleti village by a barbed wire fence.
Back in 2013 Data Papa woke up to find that a barbed wire fence installed by Russian border guards had cut his house off from the rest of Georgia.
Not only the house but the agricultural land, his wheat fields, which formerly was his means of generating an income, were behind the barbed wire fence.
Data Papa was well-known for his activities against the occupation. He always spoke out loudly about the injustice and was not afraid of the Russian occupiers.
Last year his son Malkhaz Vanishvil was illegally detained by the occupying forces and was taken to occupied Tskhinvali.
In 2015 Agenda.ge’s photographer Nino Alavidze and a political editor Lali Tsertsvadze visited Khurvaleti and spent Easter with the people who live there and are affected heavily by the barbed wire.
At Easter the Khurvaleti neighbourhood and the Vanishvili family used to gather on both sides of the barbed wire fence. Because of the barbed wire fence which acts as an artificial border in Khurvaleti and nearby villages, locals are now unable to visit cemeteries and roll an Easter egg on the graves of their beloved. But the Vanishvili family helped the villagers to pay their respects by taking Easter eggs, traditional Easter bread called Paska and candles to each grave at the cemetery.
Khurvaleti now borders Tskhinvali region (South Ossetia), one of Georgia’s two breakaway regions, which was the epicenter of the short but deadly Russia-Georgia war in August 2008.
