CRRC, ARISC and American Councils are pleased to announce the 11th session of the Spring/Summer 2025 Tbilisi Works-in-Progress series!
This week’s session will be in hybrid format in-person at the CRRC Georgia office (Chavchavadze Ave. 5, Tbilisi, Georgia, 0179) and online.
“The Birth of the Tea Empire: Tea Production under Stalin, 1928–1953”
Devi Khajishvili, Texas Tech University
This talk traces the transformation of Georgian tea from its late Russian imperial origins to its symbolic status in the Stalinist Soviet Union. While briefly noting early cultivation and production efforts in the 19th century, the focus is on how Soviet planners turned tea into a showcase of self-sufficiency, modernity, and national distinction. Once an imported luxury, tea was reimagined by Soviet planners as a domestically abundant good, with the Georgian SSR framed as both exotic and exemplary within the socialist project. Yet this performance of prosperity masked deeper contradictions – unequal access, mislabeling, and inefficiencies that challenged the image of progress. Through the lens of tea, the talk explores shifting relationships between state and citizen, and between ideology and material reality.
Devi Khajishvili is a PhD Candidate in 20th-Century European History at Texas Tech University, specializing in Soviet Studies. He is a Fulbright-Hays Fellow, and his research explores the intersections of nationalism, identity, consumer culture, and Cold War history. His dissertation examines the political, economic, and cultural dimensions of Georgia’s tea industry within the Soviet Union, highlighting how local agency shaped Soviet modernization efforts.
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Works-in-Progress is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the CRRC office at Chavchavadze Ave. 5 and online. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC) Georgia, the American Councils for International Education, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.
In observation of the spirit of the Chatham House Rule, the talks will not be recorded, and we courteously request that the other participants refrain from recording and/or distributing recordings as well or citing anything expressed therein in the press without explicit permission. The opinions expressed in WiP talks are those of the speakers alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC, ARISC or of American Councils.
