Roma Festival in Tbilisi

The first-ever Roma Festival in Georgia was held at an open-air Museum of Ethnography in Tbilisi on May 21. The event, designed to showcase the Roma culture, was organized by the European Centre for Minority Issues, the Innovations and Reforms Center, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Georgian National Museum. There about 750 Roma living in Georgia, although no precise figures are available and some estimates put their number over 1,000. According to the Georgian Public Defender’s recent human rights report, covering 2010, Roma is “one of the most marginal” ethnic groups in Georgia.