The Republic of Georgia’s culture is in tatters, and the young president has his eye on rebuilding. “Despite its devastated economy, Georgia boasts a rich cultural heritage and an operatic and choreographic tradition renowned worldwide. It produced Balanchine. And it is famous for its unique three-voice polyphonic singing. Nearly everybody sings in Georgia — usually at the dinner table — and culture is viewed as an crucial part of life by Georgians, who in the midst of the civil war in the early 1990s continued to flow to the opera to support their artists. Today, half the population of Georgia lives under the poverty line, but the opera still plays to sell-out audiences every night.”