‘You’re in our home! So shut your mouth!’ A Georgian man who broke a Russian woman’s nose is released on bail after demonstrators in Tbilisi march in his support

For several days, the Russian-language internet has been discussing an attack on a tourist at a hotel in Georgia. On July 19, a wedding guest at the hotel entered a woman’s room and broke her nose. The victim’s friends say the conflict started because they were speaking Russian. The wedding guests say the women damaged audio equipment and provoked the fight. Police detained the man, and demonstrators later marched in his support in Tbilisi. On July 21, the man was released on bail. Arguments continue on social media over who started the conflict and whether Georgia is safe for Russian-speaking tourists.

Warning: this article contains explicit language.

On July 18, the victim’s friend Polina Kurta — a blogger and founder of the eyebrow-cosmetics brand Organic Brow — posted a video on Instagram (her account is now private). It shows an unidentified man bursting into a room at the Agarani Estate hotel in Kakheti and punching one of the tourists in the face. The video has been viewed more than 17 million times.

“In Georgia, men break into hotel rooms and beat the shit out of girls for speaking Russian,” Kurta wrote. She said the injured friend was Alena Nesteryuk. An ambulance was called, and Nesteryuk was taken to a hospital. The tourists also gave statements to the police. Nesteryuk later said the group of five friends had been celebrating a birthday.

On July 19, Georgia’s Interior Ministry said the man had been detained. According to the ministry, the conflict began after the women insulted wedding guests from a hotel balcony and poured water on audio equipment during the event. The case is being investigated on charges of intentionally causing minor bodily harm, and the detainee faces up to three years in prison.

An administrative case was also opened against the musician Alexander Mrelashvili, who was also at the wedding. During police questioning as a witness, he insulted officers and then damaged storage lockers at the station.

What actually caused the conflict

Kurta wrote in her Stories — no longer available — that the man had heard the women speaking Russian on the balcony: “Our vacation turned into this: a man who heard Russian being spoken at a hotel in Kakheti near Tbilisi burst into our room — the front desk told this man our room number — and beat my friend because she speaks Russian.”

Some users commenting on the video, however, said the conflict started over a wedding other hotel guests were holding. They claimed the women had poured water on the wedding table and equipment, touching off the fight.

“And why did you pour water on the wedding table, explaining that you were supposedly disturbed? That is exactly where the conflict began… I categorically condemn the fact that a man raised his hand against a woman. Hitting a woman is unacceptable under any circumstances and there is no justification for it. But what does the Russian language have to do with it? Tell the truth — what actually started the conflict,” reads one comment quoted by the outlet Paper Kartuli.

Other users also questioned the women’s account. One participant in the discussion asked how wedding guests could have heard the women speaking Russian if they were on the second floor while an event with music was taking place below.

The Telegram channel Baza spoke with Nesteryuk, who said she had stood up for her friends when the attacker insulted them, and that he had responded by breaking her nose.

Another friend of the victim told Baza that the group had checked into a room on the third floor whose balcony overlooked the area where a Georgian wedding was taking place. One of the women opened a bottle of champagne on the balcony, and someone below shouted that they had damaged the DJ’s equipment. The women spoke with security about the conflict and returned to the balcony, and then one of the wedding guests on the first floor rudely demanded that they leave the balcony. Later, another man came to their room and said the group was speaking Russian and ruining his brother’s wedding.

Mamuka Pipia, a Georgian businessman and one of the leaders of the pro-Russian political group Solidarity for Peace, also published Nesteryuk’s account. She said it was her eighth visit to Georgia and that she had never encountered anything like this before. Still, when the bottle of champagne was opened, drops could indeed have fallen below.

“I don’t think we provoked anyone. We didn’t do what people are writing online — we didn’t pour water, we didn’t dump a bucket,” Nesteryuk said. “Although, if you think about it, that’s unlikely: we have a roof and a balcony, we didn’t go anywhere, we were just looking out the window. That may be what caused the misunderstanding between the two sides.”

She said hotel staff advised them not to lean out the window or go outside but, in her telling, did nothing to protect them from the attack.

“We came to this country with respect, not for the first time, and we know how to behave here. But the other side was acting very aggressively. When the man burst into the room — we have video of everything that happened — his eyes looked unhinged, I’d say. We were all scared,” she said.

On July 20, new videos shot at the wedding on the day of the conflict appeared on Facebook. In one of them, a man addresses the women on the balcony: “You’re not at home! You’re in our home! So shut your mouth and get back inside your room, before you… [inaudible].”

The man who was detained turned out to be Giorgi Chigladze, the groom’s brother. His defense attorney, Lasha Kapanadze, who was also at the wedding, said the argument began after the women shouted “Gorko!” — a traditional wedding cheer urging the couple to kiss — down to the newlyweds from the third floor. The wedding party did not respond, which, Kapanadze said, angered the women, who then began spitting from the balcony and pouring champagne, damaging the audio equipment.

The women were asked to stop and go inside, according to Kapanadze. The wedding guests approached hotel management, who promised to handle the situation. According to the defense attorney, 10 to 15 minutes later, liquid again began pouring from the third floor, and singer Alexander Mrelashvili said he could not continue performing under such conditions and left the event.

Chigladze went up to the third floor and told the women in English that their behavior was unacceptable and that they had ruined his brother’s wedding. One of the women demanded that he speak to her in Russian, since he was in her room. Chigladze, by his own account, replied that he would only communicate in Georgian or English.

Kapanadze maintains that, before the tourists began filming, one of the women grabbed Chigladze by the throat and “caused him injuries.” According to the defense attorney, his client was the victim of provocation.

The management of the Agarani Estate hotel said the incident resulted from the actions of individual guests and did not reflect the hotel’s conduct or values. The hotel declined to share details of what happened, citing guest privacy. In a separate statement, the hotel condemned the violence and said staff had not disclosed guests’ room information and had not taken part in the altercation.

Users then began criticizing the hotel in the comments for not intervening to protect the women. Many are calling for the hotel’s rating to be lowered on Google Maps — 4.9 stars at the time of publication — and on Yandex Maps, where nearly all reviews now give it one or two stars.

On July 21, Chigladze, who struck Nesteryuk, was released on bail of 5,000 lari (about 150,000 rubles). At the hearing, he said he regretted what he had done.

Social media reaction

Users on Threads and X (formerly Twitter) began actively discussing the conflict. Some believe Chigladze was right to hit the woman, while others pointed out that in the videos, the women are being provoked and told not to go out on the balcony.

The role of hotel management became a separate topic of discussion. Users are asking why the Agarani Estate administration did not intervene in the conflict and whether it could have prevented the attack.

The story quickly moved beyond a debate about Georgia’s treatment of Russian-speaking tourists. Social media users began arguing about whether physical violence can be justified by provocation and where the line falls between self-defense and assault.

Many also discussed the broader question of how safe it is to travel to Georgia today. Others, however, pointed out that attacks on women occur in various countries and do not characterize Georgian society as a whole.

Discussion of the conflict spread far beyond Georgia. Users from other post-Soviet countries have been commenting on the story, including Kazakhstan, where the topic of violence against women has repeatedly dominated the national conversation in recent years.

“Kazakh guys have always been down to beat the shit out of women and straight up kill them. So yeah, congrats on that. What the hell is wrong with us?” a user wrote in an online thread devoted to violence against women in Kazakhstan. The debate was triggered when a commenter using a Kazakh flag as an avatar posted a one-word reply: “Congrats.” Others were quick to respond: “Do you break your wife’s nose as well?” “They kill wives there, too.” “It’s practically a signature move for you — beating and killing women is treated as normal.”

A user with an Uzbekistan flag as their avatar wrote under the video of the attacker’s release: “Even if that girl talked too much and openly provoked, that in no way gives the right to hit her like a man. There’s no situation in which a man may hit a woman. That’s what makes us Men. I’m speaking now on behalf of all men — this one is not ‘OURS,’ regardless of nationality.”

On July 20, a march in support of Giorgi Chigladze took place in Tbilisi. Participants chanted slogans including “We know how to treat guests, but don’t confuse guests with occupiers,” “Russia — fuck your mother,” and “Occupiers — fuck your mother.”

The march was organized by political activist Mariam Mekantsishvili, according to Paper Kartuli. She wrote that the rally’s goal was “to declare support for the guy detained because of occupiers, and to make clear to the Russian occupiers that their country is the Federation of Pigs. This is Georgia, and in Georgia we won’t allow Georgians to be mistreated.” Paper Kartuli estimated that anywhere from several dozen to several hundred people attended.

Of course, pro-Kremlin Russian media also picked up the story and focused their coverage on the claim that Nesteryuk was attacked for speaking Russian. Outlets frequently described the victim and her friends as Russian tourists. Kurta, however, said in her Stories that she speaks Russian “even though she was born in Ukraine” and lives in Russia, and that her friends from Ukraine also speak Russian. Georgia’s Interior Ministry neither confirmed nor denied that the victim is a Russian citizen.