Giorgio Comai ita eng bhs

Giorgio Comai - Senior researcher and data cruncher

PhD at Dublin City University, MA in East European Studies and degree in Political Science from the University of Bologna. He is an expert on post-Soviet affairs, with research focusing in particular on de facto states and on different approaches for the bulk extraction and analysis of textual contents form the web in this context. He is the author of a text-mining package for the R programming language. He is member of the board of directors of Asiac, Italy’s academic association for the study of Central Asia and the Caucasus. Exchange student at Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland, and Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow, Russia; he has been visiting regularly Russia and other post-Soviet countries since 2000. He speaks fluently Russian and Romanian. 


Articles by Giorgio Comai

Abkhazia: Europe is close, on the other side of the Black Sea

09/06/2010 -  Giorgio Comai

Stanislav Lakoba is a well-known Abkhaz historian and politician. Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso met him in Sukhumi where he talked about Abkhazia's sense of belonging to Europe, the current situation in this self-proclaimed state, and its relations with Brussels

Mr. President’s answers

25/02/2010 -  Giorgio Comai Nazran

On 19 February, Ingushetia’s President Yunus-bek Yevkurov held a meeting with local university students. When responding to students’ questions, Yevkurov never tried to deny that this small republic in the Northern Caucasus is stricken with problems

Tbilisi: batons and metal rods

14/10/2009 -  Giorgio Comai

In Georgia, opposition activists are victims of aggression and suffer violent attacks, even at the hands of the police. The government minimises these accusations and speaks of a Georgia which is headed straight on the path toward democracy

Transnistria's Breakthrough

24/09/2009 -  Giorgio ComaiBernardo Venturi Tiraspol

Alena Arshinova is the leader of "Proriv"("Breakthrough"), a youth organization founded in 2005 in Transnistria, a de facto independent territory that, in Soviet times, belonged to the Moldovan SSR. We met her at the organization's headquarters in downtown Tiraspol. An interview

Inexperienced

18/09/2009 -  Giorgio Comai

Akaki Asatiani, among the signatories of the Georgian Declaration of Independence, reflects on the last 20 years, the civil war, tensions with Russia, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, and the inability to achieve ideals or search for compromise

It could have been different

25/08/2009 -  Giorgio Comai Tbilisi

On 9 April 1989, Soviet troops dispersed demonstrations in Tbilisi, killing 20 people. That event changed the political debate in Georgia and deeply influenced further developments in the two decades that followed, a period of great expectations and missed chances. An interview with Marina Muskhelishvili

Territorial Integrity and Democracy in Georgia

12/08/2009 -  Giorgio Comai Tbilisi

Twelve months after the conflict in South Ossetia, tension in the border area is running high again. In reality, Tbilisi does not expect renewal of the hostilities, but there is concern about domestic politics. An article by our correspondent

Points of view

03/08/2009 -  Giorgio Comai

Both Russia and Georgia have devoted considerable efforts to promoting their own points of view on the conflict of August last year. Narratives remain strongly contrasting

Caucasian Knot

14/05/2009 -  Giorgio Comai Moscow

Osservatorio met Grigory Shvedov, the editor-in-chief of 'Caucasian Knot,' the largest news outlet dealing with the region, to talk about freedom of the media, the role of international organisations in the Caucasus and his web portal

For the good of Russia

31/03/2009 -  Giorgio Comai Moscow

The organization "Russian Congress of Caucasian Peoples" was founded by members of different nationalities in the region that have united to guard their own interests, defend themselves from discrimination and for the good of Russia