Fakhralo


Fakhralo, also Talaveri is a village in the Bolnisi Municipality of the Kvemo Kartli region, Georgia.

Geographical location

Fakhralo is situated in the southwestern part of country, at 560 metres above sea level. The distance with the capital city Tbilisi is 40 kilometres and with district center of Bolnisi town it is 12 kilometres. It is the largest village in the Bolnisi municipality.

Population

According to population census of Georgia in 2002 its population was 6,889 in 1495 family. Thus an average family has 4.6 children, placing Fakhralo above the country's average. Gender structure of population is 47:53. Such kind of distortion in the gender structure of inhabitants associates with high level of labor emigration form the village since collapse of Soviet Union. In accordance with official statistics 99% of inhabitants are Azerbaijanis.

History

The first secular school was established in the village in 1919.
During the rule of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the village's name was changed to Talaveri. However the villagers refused to recognise the new name and sent petitions to the current president Mikheil Saakashvili to have the renaming decision revoked.

Mosque incident

In September 2009, an incident occurred between representatives of fundamentalist Georgian Orthodox groups and inhabitants on the repairs of a local mosque. According to Human Rights Report 2009 of the US State Department, radical fundamentalist Georgian Orthodox groups blocked the reconstruction of a 1905 mosque. They demanded to see the villagers' construction permit, despite not having the legal right to do so, and threatened them with violence if the construction did not cease. The situation remained unsettled and the mosque repairs unfinished as of the end of the year.