![[Flag]](../images/g/ge-akhg.gif)
![[Arms]](../images/g/ge)akhg.gif)
Last modified: 2018-12-08 by ivan sache
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Flag and arms of Akhlagori - Images by The State Council of Heraldry at the Parliament of Georgia, 25 January 2011
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The municipality of Akhalgori (7,703 inhabitants in 2002, c. 2,000 in the town proper; 1,011 sq. km) is located in South Ossetia. Since 2008, the territory has been under Russian-South Ossetian control. The town was renamed Leningor, the name used in the Soviet period. The new municipal administration, not recognized by Georgia, was established on 17 August 2009.
In the 1920s, when Georgia became one of the Soviet republics, this
territory became part of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, and the
regional centre received the name of Leningori. The mountain range
separating it from Tskhinvali meant that this eastern region was only
formally part of South Ossetia. The only road went to the south,
towards Tbilisi, and to reach Tskhinvali, you had to take the central Georgian highway. The population was 80% ethnic Georgians, and Ossetians mainly lived in mixed families. So when the city was renamed Akhalgori in the early 1990s, and almost all the territory was
transferred to the administrative jurisdiction of the Mtskheti region
of Georgia, no one objected: neither in Tbilisi nor Tskhinvali, which
had proclaimed its independence.
In 2006, the Georgian authorities tried to resolve the South Ossetian
conflict by creating an alternative pro-Tbilisi government in the
republic, which had seceded. This was headed by the former prime
minister of the separatists Dmitry Sanakoyev. A Saakashvili decree
restored the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast and the Akhalgori
region was included in it, so as to increase the number of voters at
the alternative elections. The temporary administration of the
Autonomous Oblast was located in the village of Kurta, six kilometres
to the north of Tskhinvali and under Georgian control. After the
August conflict, the pro-Georgian officials were forced to move to the
centre of Tbilisi, where they were established in the "Chess Palace".
On 16 August Russian soldiers entered the Akhalgori region, which
Tbilisi itself had recognised as part of South Ossetia in the internal
political game. At the same time, local residents began to leave.
Initially only a few left, but by the end of August - when television
showed villages in the Gori region that had been burnt down and looted by the Ossetian militiamen following after the Russian soldiers - there were more than 2,000 refugees from Akhalgori. Almost two thirds of the population has left the region where no more than 9,000 people had lived.
[oDRussia, 25 November 2008]
Ivan Sache, 29 May 2012
The flag and arms of Akhalgori are prescribed by Decree No. 4, adopted on 26 April 2010 by the Municipal Council in exile.
The State Council of Heraldry at the Parliament of Georgia, 25 January 2011
The flag is horizontally divided white-red, in canton a red cross patty with an extnded base.
The coat of arms is "Per fess serrated, 1. Argent a cross patty fitchy gules, 2. Gules an armour argent. The shield surmounted by a three-towered mural crown argent fimbriated sable. Under the shield a scroll argent fimbriated sable charged with the name of the town in Georgian capital letters sable".
The colors of the arms are based on historical documents from the
18th-19th centuries, especially the two atlases published in 1745-1746
by Prince Vakhushti (Vakhushti Batonishvili, 1696-1757), which depict
several historical coat of arms.
The cross is modelled on the finial of an historical war flag found in
Akhalgori. The serration represents the two mountains depicted on the
coat of arms of the Dukes of Ksani, according to Vadbolsky's
Sakartvelos heraldikuri simbolika. In the medieval times, the Dukes
(eristavi) of Ksani struggled with their neighbours, the Dukes of
Aragvi, for the control of the eastern Georgian mountains. Akhalgori
was then a fortified town; the Duke's palace (photo) still stands in the town.
The cross and the mountains symbolize faith and power. The armour
argent also symbolizes power, as well as the commitment to defend the
homeland.
[State Council of Heraldry at the Parliament of Georgia]
Ivan Sache, 29 May 2012
