This wasn’t in Ukraine. This was the Republic of Georgia. The year was 2008 and Tsiklauri was 13 years old. Tsiklauri lives in Saranac Lake now, and he wants people to pay attention to what Russia is doing in Ukraine, because it’s exactly what he saw Russia do to his home country as a child.

As the world reacted to Russia’s invasion in Ukraine over the past few weeks, Tsiklauri took action locally. He and his partner Almy Barti reached out to village Mayor Clyde Rabideau to ask their local government to install Ukrainian flags on the main streets in the village to show solidarity with the country.

“They didn’t even hesitate,” Tsiklauri said. “They even covered the cost.”

The banners were installed on Thursday morning.

Almy Bartis, of Saranac Lake, has been creating art to show support for Ukraine. This poster of hers bears a Ukrainian phrase, which translates to “Glory to Ukraine.” The woman holding a garland of flowers is a rendering of the “Independence Monument,” a statue of a woman holding a garland of flowers. This statue stands in Ukraine’s capital city, Kyiv, and symbolizes Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, an independence they’re now fighting to maintain. (Provided photo — Almy Bartis)

But unlike the countless other towns around the world, including Lake Placid, where Ukrainian flags are now flying, in Saranac Lake the red and white flag of the Republic of Georgia is also raised, a reminder that one local man saw the same invasion and human rights abuses by Russia in his home country when he was a child.

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History repeating

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Tsiklauri’s been following the invasion in Ukraine through Eastern European and American news, but also through conversations with friends who live in Georgia and people who know residents of Ukraine.

“They tell me ‘my neighbor died today, my aunt’s daughter died today,'” Tsiklauri said.

He’s more personally connected to the violence than most.

It’s been frightening to see the invasion, he said. He’s seen this all before, in person.

“I know how hard it is to face such evil, especially as a young person,” Tsiklauri said.

Tsiklauri was born in the Republic of Georgia and was 13 years old when “Putin’s army” invaded the country.

“Everyone was so scared,” Tsiklauri said. “It was heartbreaking.”

Hearing helicopters flying and bombs falling, his faith in humanity took a hit, but it wasn’t crushed. He said he still believes in the good people can do.

“But we made it. Georgia survived,” he said.

Still, Russia occupies around 20% of Georgian land to this day and around 192,000 Georgians were displaced by the war, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization which researches human rights abuses and advocates for justice, has identified this as an ethnic cleansing. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had committed human rights abuses in Georgia.

Tsiklauri moved to Saranac Lake with his father in 2010.

He said Georgians knew Russia wouldn’t stop with them. Other countries, including Ukraine, were next.

Russia has been trying to invade countries, which became independent after the fall of the Soviet Union, to gain the power the country used to have.

“It’s as simple as it’s always been — power, resources, control,” Tsiklauri said.

He knows this current invasion has been building for a long time. Tsiklauri said there’s also renewed concern in Georgia that Russia will invade again.

The invasion of Ukraine had a very similar lead-up to the invasion of Georgia, he said. In 2008, when Georgia and Ukraine had requested to join NATO, Russia staged false flag events to try to justify an invasion and Georgian citizens were thrust into a conflict for their nation’s continued existence.

At a NATO summit in April 2008, then-President George W. Bush lobbied to accept Georgia and Ukraine into the intergovernmental alliance, but other member countries, Germany and France, opposed this, saying it would be “an unnecessary offense to Russia.”

NATO said it would accept the two countries, but never set a date. Russia invaded Georgia that August.

Tsiklauri said the world didn’t react properly then, and got busy with other things. When Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, he felt the world again didn’t listen.

Russia’s not going to stop, Tsiklauri said, and this lack of global action early on is what led to Nazi Germany’s expansion under Adolph Hitler. He does not want to be pessimistic, but he feels the world is now one step away from a world war.

“The biggest problem that humanity has always had … including myself, is ignorance,” Tsiklauri said.

He said when the world’s leaders ignore problems one day after another, they pile up and become unmanageable.

“More can be done, no doubt,” he said, adding that eventually, as with both world wars, America could be dragged in to war if Russia’s invasions continue. “The world is so connected these days.”

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Fighting for attention

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Tsiklauri regrets not doing more in the past and speaking up when Russia was invading other countries. But that’s what he’s doing now, getting Saranac Lake to make a visual statement.

“We wanted to show our solidarity with Georgia and Ukraine,” Tsiklauri wrote in an email. “We wanted our town to be vocal about the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.”

He said it can be hard for people here to care about a war going on thousands of miles away. They’ve got their own daily problems. But people can feel the effects of it on their comforts, as sanctions on Russian oil are affecting gas prices.

Tsiklauri understands — he’d rather not be troubled by this invasion. But he’s connected to it and he said a lot of people are suffering.

Tsiklauri said he thinks “Putin’s army” is targeting everyone indiscriminately, often killing civilians instead of military troops.

“It’s a war crime,” he said.

He’s been donating and bringing goods to the St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Albany, a Ukrainian church which has turned its basement into a medical supply warehouse to help refugees.

He said the country is not getting all the help it needs yet. Supplies are great, he said, but water bottles and cotton balls alone will not hold back a Russian invasion. He believes countries should consider providing soldiers to defend Ukraine or at the very least “close the sky.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked NATO to implement a no-fly zone over his country to keep Russian planes from dropping bombs.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Ukraine became an independent nation, there were thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons left in the new country, according to the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project. Ukraine had the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In 1994, many other countries came together to denuclearize Ukraine. Ukraine’s leaders agreed and signed the “Budapest Memorandum,” which held the U.S., U.K. and even Russia to assure Ukraine’s security.

Russia has violated that contract, Tsiklauri said, and he’s waiting for the other countries to hold up their end of the deal.

“This is the day that Ukraine needs that help, that promised help,” he said. “It’s time for the world’s support.”

Tsiklauri’s partner, Bartis, is an artist and has been creating art to show support for Ukraine. One of her posters says “No war in Ukraine” in English and bears a Ukrainian phrase, which translates to “Glory to Ukraine” — basically “God bless America,” Tsiklauri said.

Among the words is a rendering of the “Independence Monument,” a statue of a woman holding a garland of flowers which stands in Kyiv and symbolizes Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union, an independence they’re now fighting to maintain.

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CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the Ukrainian “Independence Monument,” depicted in a poster, as the “Motherland Monument.” Both monuments are in Kyiv and the their symbolism is the same, but the Independence Monument carries a garland of flowers instead of a sword and shield. The Enterprise regrets the error.