On November 14, 2017, Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili met with residents of the town of Borjomi, the settlement of Bakuriani and the village of Tsikhisjvari to discuss the challenges relating to human rights and other issues of the region.

According to the residents of Tsikhisjari, the persons working at the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline restrict them to freely move on the territory of the village. There is no natural gas supply or kindergarten in the village; the road infrastructure is out of order; the building of the outpatient facility needs to be repaired, due to which, the village doctor receives patients at home. Timely woodcutting is problematic for the locals due to complicated procedures, whereas firewood is the only means of heating.

Registration of land is the most urgent problem for the residents of Bakuriani; the school and kindergarten buildings need to be repaired; the population is dissatisfied with the implementation of the Law on Socio-Economic and Cultural Development of High Mountain Regions, as it selectively applies to certain groups of the society.

Ucha Nanuashvili also met with IDPs living on the Borjomi Plateau. According to the IDPs, their settlement is not supplied with clean drinking water, the block of flats is not well arranged and the elevator is out of order; the issue of registration of the area of common use is problematic; no lights are installed around the block of flats; there is no children's playground; the social assistance is not enough for utility bills, especially in winter, whereas the locals have no right to cut firewood.

Representatives of the Public Defender distributed information booklets on various forms of discrimination at the meetings.