My mission is over
It is time for me to say goodbye to Agenda.ge

I am retiring as the editor in chief of Agenda.ge at the end of December 2021. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge

By Natalia Amaglobeli - Editor in Chief of agenda.ge

Agenda.ge, Dec 13, 2021, Tbilisi, Georgia

Today, December 13, 2021, English-language Georgian news platform Agenda.ge is marking its 8th birthday.

I came to the offices of the Administration of the Government of Georgia back in August 2013 to discuss their offer to create a web news platform in English for all who don’t speak Georgian but who want to know and understand the country better. I took my seven-month-old sleeping son Sandro into the negotiating room with me. Seven years later, both Sandro and Agenda.ge, are now more independent of me than I ever would have thought.

I am retiring as the editor in chief of Agenda.ge at the end of December 2021.

My mission and time as the head of Agenda.ge has come to its end. Starting January 1, 2022, I will no longer be the editor-in-chief. I am proud that together with our great team we have created an unprejudiced and neutral, fact-based media outlet with high professional standards, which stands above political or partial interests and serves only the national interests of Georgia.

At the presentation of Agenda.ge project in December 2013 in Tbilisi. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge

As the creator of the concept of Agenda.ge – a window into the country from the rest of the world – I am very proud that you can find Agenda.ge news and links in state reports regarding Georgia ranging from the EU, the USA and other countries, institutions, think-tank organisations and many foreign embassies in Georgia. We have had years of successful collaboration with large international organisations such as the UN, ENPARD, the World Bank, the Asian Devolvement Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and others.

All this would not have been possible without the trust of our readers and the daily work of the Agenda.ge team.

Where am I going?

Did you know that Italian travellers in ancient times gave the country of Georgia the international name ‘Georgia’? (We Georgians call it Sakartvelo, the land of ‘Kartvelians’.)

Or are you interested to know how Georgia looked to Europeans during their travels in past centuries, what their impressions were, and the first pictures made here?

Or how Georgians influenced French high fashion, starting with Chanel and up to Demna Gvasalia?

‘Not that Georgia’ is my new online cross-platform digital multimedia project, dedicated to Georgia’s culture, nature, all other types of diversity, history and the present way of life.

Project Not That Georgia is also targeted mainly at an audience outside of Georgia, both in the East and in the West. Photo by Nika Lebanidze/ Not That Georgia

Several months before the Russian-Georgian war in August 2008, I returned from an international training course ‘Internet for journalists’ tailored by the Radio Netherlands Training Centre in Amsterdam.

Thanks to my teacher and tutor Abi Daruvalla, I have a good sense of what will happen to journalism in the digital era. The media landscape and the way the information is used is changing rapidly. This opens new opportunities and offers new forms for digital storytelling. Immersive documentary, cross-platform reporting, online multimedia reports, social media, user generated content – all these words I heard from her for the first time and it has radically altered my understanding of modern journalism.

Now it is time for me to use all these tools, to open new windows and new doors to the world for my country, Georgia. If you are interested in Not That Georgia, you can follow our social media channels on Instagram and Twitter. Later content will be available on YouTube, Facebook and our website.

Who stands behind Agenda.ge?

And finally, I want to introduce you the team of Agenda.ge.

Gvantsa Gabekhadze, political editor of Agenda.ge, is the person behind the coverage of all political developments, elections and challenges of Georgia on its EU integration path.

Gvantsa Gabekhadze working remotely during pandemic in 2021, as her son Lazare was staying at home as his kindergarten was closed. Photo from Gvantsa's family archive.

Read the best by Gvantsa Gabekhadze:

Mariam Papidze, economic editor of Agenda.ge, has had the task of transforming all the data and financial reports coming out of Georgia and turning them into human stories.

Mariam Papidze working together with her doughter Kira from home during pandemic 2021. Photo from Mariam's family archive.

Read the best by Mariam Papidze:

Tornike Khomeriki, editor of art, culture and education, is the author behind all the stories grabbing social media in minutes. He has a phenomenal sense and style of writing and language and can easily suggest a myriad of synonyms in English without using any dictionaries.

Read the best by Tornike Khomeriki:

Josef Gassmann, Agenda.ge’s sub-editor, has ensured our articles tell a story rather than just the facts. He’s taken our Georg-lish and turned it into an English understandable for the rest of the world.

Lika Eristavi is a new reporter, starting at Agenda.ge in the difficult period of the elections of October 2021 and all the developments which happened after voting day. She has quickly made herself an invaluable member of our team.

Lika Eristavi joined the Team of Agenda.ge in October 2021. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

Read the best by Lika Eristavi:

Salome Shikhashvili, current news reporter, has taken official press releases and points of the Criminal Code and transformed them into human language and explained in a normal way what’s happening in the country and why.

Salome Shikhashvili is our current news reporter. Photo by Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.

Read the best by Salome Shikhashvili:

Nino Alavidze, photographer of Agenda.ge, is a professional standing behind the eye-catching images published in the section ‘In pictures’ and on the covers of most of the news articles on the website.

Nino Alavidze shooting the FIS competition in Gudauri restort, Georgia. Photo from Nino's family archive.

See the best shots by Nino Alavidze:

David Makaridze is the web developer of Agenda.ge, standing behind the best, in my opinion, online interactive project ‘Election Map of Georgia’. He can find solutions for all complicated cases of multimedia and wrote the software for Agenda.ge multimedia projects.

David Makaridze (left), Natalia Amaglobeli and her son Nikoloz Janikashvili before the inaugural presentation of Agenda.ge in December 2013. Photo by Nino Alavidze/ Agenda.ge.

Mariam Chalauri, who tragically passed away in the summer of 2021, was responsible for all visuals of Agenda.ge, including data visualisations, banners and web design.

Mariam Chalauri, web designer of Agenda.ge passed away in summer 2021 after the long fight with cancer. Photo from Mariam's archive.

Tata Khutsishvili is a project manager who knows how to deal with the working shifts of media working 24/7, and exactly knows how to balance the life of journalists between hard work and personal time.

Tata Khutsishvili is Agenda.ge project manager is working from the very first day in the media outlet. Photo by Nino Alavidze/ Agenda.ge.

I want to thank Agenda.ge’s former sub-editor from New Zealand, Genevieve Saunders (Helliwell), for all the years spent with us, for hard nights and for her ‘outside look on Georgia’ and understanding how to structure Georgian stories to clarify them for the rest of the world.

Genevieve Saunders was working for Agenda.ge from February 2014 until 2016 when she returned to her homeland New Zealand from Tbilisi, Georgia. Photo from Genevieve's archive.

I hope for a bright future for Agenda.ge and its perfect team, and thank all our readers for their trust, attention and collaboration.

My mission is over It is time for me to say goodbye to Agenda.ge

Where am I going?

Who stands behind Agenda.ge?

My mission is over
It is time for me to say goodbye to Agenda.ge