PERSONAL PROJECTS: House Divided (Shifting Borders): Shifting Borders

Local people and journalists stand and pass flowers over to Data Vanishvili's grandson Dato Vanishvili, 14, as he stands in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, during 88-year-old Data's funeral in the village of Khurvaleti, Georgia, March 22, 2021. Data Vanishvili, then already in his eighties, became a symbol of this fearful frontier existence after he, his wife and son woke up in 2013 to find a barbed-wire fence had been erected in the night, putting their home on the Ossetian side of the boundary. Vanishvili became well-known in Georgia for staying put and defiantly speaking out publicly. Despite the risks, he would cross the boundary to get his pension and to buy food. On his deathbed at the age of 88, his final words to his wife were a plea not to abandon their home. {quote}Do not leave the house, do not go anywhere, sit by the stove, the Georgians will help you,{quote} his family recall him saying. He was buried in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Shifting Borders

Local people and journalists stand and pass flowers over to Data Vanishvili's grandson Dato Vanishvili, 14, as he stands in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, during 88-year-old Data's funeral in the village of Khurvaleti, Georgia, March 22, 2021. Data Vanishvili, then already in his eighties, became a symbol of this fearful frontier existence after he, his wife and son woke up in 2013 to find a barbed-wire fence had been erected in the night, putting their home on the Ossetian side of the boundary. Vanishvili became well-known in Georgia for staying put and defiantly speaking out publicly. Despite the risks, he would cross the boundary to get his pension and to buy food. On his deathbed at the age of 88, his final words to his wife were a plea not to abandon their home. "Do not leave the house, do not go anywhere, sit by the stove, the Georgians will help you," his family recall him saying. He was buried in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.