When Prime Minister Zurab Zhvaniya of Georgia was a child, he was given a full measure of his country's terrain, its gorges and lakes, its traditions and monuments, during hiking trips with his father every summer.
He was 10 months old the first time they went camping together. "By the time I graduated, I had walked all over Georgia," he recalled during an interview this week.
Prime Minister Zurab Zhvaniya of Georgia, received a National Democratic Institute Award from former Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright on Monday.
(Photo Courtesy Of National Democratic Institute)
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Zhvaniya, 41, received an award Monday from the National Democratic Institute for his commitment to democracy. As he accepted the honor, he applauded Georgians for defending their freedom last year in mass protests, known as the Rose Revolution, that toppled President Eduard Shevardnadze.
He also paid tribute to the thousands of brave and visionary Ukrainians who have rallied in Kiev's Independence Square, contesting the results of a runoff presidential election last month that was invalidated because of massive fraud.
"These are the people who deserve to share this award. They are striving not just for freedom in Ukraine. . . . Success of democracy in Ukraine means the end of the post-Soviet era," he said.
When he was 15, Zhvaniya refused to join the Communist Party, shunning the obligatory membership just as his mother and father, both physicists, had. The family listened to Radio Free Europe, and his parents gave him and his brother the writings of Soviet dissidents Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov.
Zhvaniya studied biology at Tbilisi University but ended up an activist and student organizer. After graduating in 1985, he formed the Ecological Association with some young scientists and like-minded activists, and later was elected chairman of the Georgia Greens, an environmental group.
In the early 1990s, Shevardnadze emerged as one of the architects of a new Europe and became president of Georgia, with the people believing that he could bring about true democracy and economic development.
In 1993, Zhvaniya helped form a broad-based political movement to support Shevardnadze as president.
While in New York in 1994, Zhvaniya recruited a young, bright man, Mikheil Saakashvili, to the movement.
"I was charmed by Saakashvili's temper, his patriotism and his knowledge," the prime minister said.
In 1995, Zhvaniya was elected chairman of the Georgian Parliament, a post he held until 2001.
After 10 years in power, it became clear that Shevardnadze had become hostage to a few clans, cronies and relatives who were milking the economy. In 2001, Zhvaniya resigned and moved to the opposition after Shevardnadze's government tried to shut down a very popular and independent television station.
"If Shevardnadze has decided to draw a line between himself and the rest of society, we are on the other side," Zhvaniya declared.
