Armenia–Georgia border

A short war

After the Russian Empire collapsed, the new Democratic Republic of Georgia and the First Republic of Armenia both claimed the borderlands of Lori, Javakheti and Borchalo. Armenian troops moved into Borchalo on 5 December 1918 and war was declared two days later. People of both nationalities in the borderlands suffered from both armies.^[1]

On 31 December both sides accepted a British-mediated ceasefire. The disputed Lori district became a neutral zone, and it was divided between the two countries after both were taken over by the Soviets.^[1]

Javakheti

West of Lori the border runs past Georgia’s Samtskhe-Javakheti region, where about 250,000 ethnic Armenians made up 55 percent of the population in Georgia’s 2002 census. Russia kept a military base at Akhalkalaki until 2007. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, some Georgians worried about the region’s loyalty; residents rejected talk of separatism and asked for language rights.^[2]

In Akhalkalaki more than 90 percent of people are ethnic Armenians and few speak Georgian well, but by 2022 a state university programme for minority students was producing a generation of fluent Georgian speakers. Before, many young people studied across the border in Armenia.^[3]

“We aren’t separatists. We are Georgian citizens.”^[2]