Stories Untold - Return of Georgian Migrants: Lia Laiburishvili

I am a Georgian language and literature teacher and I worked as one, but then the school closed. I worked as a dressmaker in Telavi for 5 years, but the shop where I worked, closed as well. Then we had a shop for a little period, but we closed it too and then, we found ourselves in a desperate situation. I had no choice, but to leave and I went to Greece. I stayed there for exactly 9 years. I returned in December 2018; I have not thought of leaving since then. I would not be able to handle it and I don’t want to leave my husband either. We want to spend our remaining lives together.

My husband is very hard-working, he works all the time. We bought bees and now my daughter is helping with that too. We have a large vineyard, Saperavi and Kindzmarauli. We have 200 peach trees, we grow watermelons, melons, cucumbers and tomatoes. We have a large farm. We bought chickens with IOM’s assistance. We also have cows. We live in the village and naturally, we are engaged in agriculture. My husband works so hard; we only have one child, but despite the lack of help, he does not stop. We plan to continue breeding bees, because we had good harvest this year.
 

Photo: Dina Oganova