On February 15, a press conference "Congress of Scientists of Georgia" was held at the Sputnik press center, in which employees of the Cultural Center of the Caucasus Yezidis - David Babaev and Iurii Smoev took part.
The speakers of the conference were the famous Georgian scientist Erekle Shonia and political scientist, Chairman of the NGO "Strong Woman - Strong State” Lali Moroshkina. Erekle Shonia presented a report aimed at bringing Georgia out of the crisis. The scientist touched upon sensitive topics that do not allow the country to get out of the crisis, such as unemployment, low university enrollment, especially applied sciences.

According to Shonia, competent people who understand industry issues need to be involved in solving issues.
To this end, Shonia contacted the Congress of Scientists of Georgia, which has existed since 2008 with the blessing of Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II.

"We are trying to reach out to different levels of government and the public. Do not wait for someone's instructions or advice. The people and the government need to wake up and start thinking for themselves. We need to see the potential of people, choose people who will be able to govern the country," Shonia said.

The main message of Mr. Erekle is the "awakening of the people" who are in a state of nihilism.

In turn, political scientist Lali Moroshkina added that the role of women plays one of the key roles to "pull" Georgia out of the crisis. However, the political scientist stressed that now the role of women in Georgian politics is nominal.

After the speakers finished their speech, the staff of the Yazidi Cultural Center of the Caucasus asked a couple of questions to the speakers.

The first question was from David Babaev addressed to Erekla Shonia:

"As we know pseudoscience and fake news are one of the main problems in the information age, how will the Congress of Scientists of Georgia deal with this?”

Erekle Shonia:

"You know, this issue is not on the agenda for our congress, because our goal is to save the country. Our scientific elite is mostly paid, sits silently and watches as the country collapses..."

David addressed the next question to Lali Moroshkina:

"Since your organization deals with women's rights in Georgia, in marginalized Yezidi families, girls are most often not allowed to get an education, how does your organization fight this, or maybe you have further planned to respond to such problems?"

Lali Moroshkina:

"You know, in 2001 I headed an NGO on ethnic minorities, that's when I realized that it was impossible to interfere in such problems, we have no right to do so. Most often, ethnic groups have their own internal laws that cannot be violated, of course, if their laws contradict and violate the laws of Georgia, then the state should intervene...".

Iurii Smoev's final question:

"Georgia is a multinational country and we Yezidis have been living in Georgia for several centuries, but as we know in recent years there has been a large outflow of Yezidis to European countries, people are leaving for a better life, now there are about 8 thousand of us Yezidis left here. We are witnessing the fact that due to the large emigration from Georgia, there are countries that are playing the game of "big expansion", sending their citizens to Georgia to Batumi, to Tbilisi. Therefore, my question to you is, what is our government thinking about, and why is it following such a large expansion?".

The speakers, answering this question, noted that the government is unable to control the expansion until they raise the standard of living in the country and bring it out of the crisis. Economic and political problems sometimes close the eyes of the state.