From Georgia to Canada

The summer of 1994 became one of the most decisive turning points in Rezo Bakradze’s life. That year he left Georgia - together with his wife, his niece and 28 young people who were close to him.

The story later circulated mainly under the name “Rezo Bakradze and the 33 students”, accompanied by a great deal of rumour and myth. The published accounts contain inaccuracies so large that in some of them a photograph of a complete stranger appears under Rezo Bakradze’s name.

What matters for this story, however, is something else: in the summer of 1994 Rezo Bakradze left Georgia not alone but with his family, his niece and 28 young people close to him - people with whom he had years of pedagogical, intellectual and personal connection.

The decision did not take shape in a single day. Behind it stood many years of experience, his worldview, and the inner search that finally led him to conclude that he should continue his life in a free country.

At the same time, some of the young people who later travelled with him had independently wanted to leave Georgia, to live in a free country, to develop their own abilities and interests and to realise themselves fully. When they learned that Rezo Bakradze himself intended to leave, they came to him with a request: if it were at all possible, to let them go with him, as one group.

He thought about it for a long time. In the end he agreed - but on one important condition: each of them could take the step only with the consent of their own family and parents.

That condition was a matter of principle for him. He did not want the decision to be impulsive, or taken against a family’s wishes. His agreement rested on each person deciding for themselves, in accord with their family, and taking responsibility for their own future.

Only one of the young people was unable to meet that condition - and it was that family disagreement, and the parents’ dissatisfaction, that later became the basis for numerous rumours and myths in Georgia, which over the years significantly distorted the real picture of this story.

To understand what happened, then, it is necessary to look not only at what was said afterwards, but at how it actually began - who took the decision first, how the young people came to Rezo Bakradze, what condition he set them, and how events unfolded from there.

To understand this episode, one first has to see Rezo Bakradze himself. He was a free thinker whose worldview reached beyond traditional views and religious ritual dogma.

What mattered most to him was the person: their own choice, and their responsibility for their own decisions. Christianity, for him, rested first of all on biblical faith and a Christian worldview, not merely on religious ritual.

It was precisely the distance between that worldview and the environment he lived in that became one of the significant reasons he decided to emigrate to a free country.

But the story of that decision is not only about emigration. It is bound up with his teaching, and with the people who were around him for years.

Rezo Bakradze was trained as an art historian. At different periods he taught in school, at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, at the Georgian Technical University and at the Shota Rustaveli State University of Theatre and Film.

His interests were never confined to the history of art. He spoke about religion, philosophy, literature, art, theatre, culture, human relationships and the questions of ordinary life.

His meetings and lectures often went well beyond conventional academic teaching. A space opened up in which young people could ask questions, express their own views, argue, and discuss things that carried real weight in their lives.

It was out of these long relationships that the circle formed whose members would later decide to leave Georgia together with him.

In 1994 Rezo Bakradze finally decided to leave Georgia. His original aim was to move to a more developed country and begin a new life there. When the first attempt in that direction did not succeed, the first stage of the new road began in Turkey.

In Istanbul he already had a contact - a former student who was doing business in Turkey at the time. For the first month he gave Rezo Bakradze and those who had come with him a place to live.

That help was needed exactly for the transition, until they could find housing on their own. After a month they had found their own accommodation, moved into a new flat and started their first jobs - the first steps of building a life independently in a foreign country.

The years in Turkey became one of the hardest and, at the same time, one of the most important transitional periods of his life. Georgia was already behind them. Canada was still a distant goal. Ahead lay preparation for a new country, work, foreign languages, and building a life from the beginning.

Rezo Bakradze was older than the rest and far more experienced, and he felt the responsibility for the safety of these young people in a foreign country especially acutely. That responsibility became a heavy daily burden - many sleepless nights, unbroken worry, and days that could carry nearly twenty hours of mental and psychological strain. He took upon himself the concerns that came with each of them starting a new life abroad.

During this period he and the young people with him were occupied with various work. They studied languages, worked, and tried to establish themselves in an environment where an entirely new life had to begin.

Over those five years two of the young people returned to Georgia by their own decision. The rest continued.

It is important to note that contact with the families left behind in Georgia was never broken. Members of the group phoned home and, whenever possible, sent food to their families on the buses running from Turkey to Georgia. This mattered a great deal in a period when Georgia’s economic situation was severe.

Turkey, then, was neither the place where the past finally ended nor merely a temporary stop. It was five years of preparation for a new life.

One of the most significant episodes of this story came with the first opportunity to move to Canada, the entire administrative side of which Rezo Bakradze led himself. They approached the embassies of several developed countries; the attempts came to nothing.

At that point a friend of his living in Canada stepped in and hired a lawyer to help them. As a result every member of the group was summoned to an interview in Ankara, on the Canadian immigration track.

About half the group was able to move to Canada through free emigration. Those who had arrived immediately began looking for a way to bring over the rest.

At that moment Rezo Bakradze could have gone with the first group. He chose not to. He decided to stay, together with his wife, with the young people who remained.

That decision mattered to him. He did not want to leave alone the people he had been bound to for years. He believed that in the end a way to Canada would open for them too.

It was a decision that placed responsibility for other people ahead of his own comfort. And that hope was, in the end, borne out.

Those who stayed behind in Turkey had a far longer road to Canada. Rezo Bakradze and his wife stayed with them.

First they lived for about six months in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Then they spent roughly a year in Saint Petersburg, Russia. After that they returned once more to Istanbul, where they waited for the final opportunity to cross to Canada.

This period shows better than anything how hard their road was. Reaching Canada was not one straight journey. Rezo Bakradze’s family and the young people who stayed with him passed through several countries and had to live in very different circumstances.

Of the group that remained in Turkey, one young person travelled to London, England, with the help of a Turkish family, and lives there to this day; another returned from Canada to Georgia.

During this period the young people already in Canada began to look for help for those still waiting. Significant assistance came from a Georgian family who had emigrated to Canada before them, and who contributed a great deal to the arrival and settling of that first group.

Through them the group found a church - Rosdale Church - which took on, and contributed enormously to, the process of bringing the remaining people, Rezo Bakradze and his family among them, to Canada with the status of “Christian refugees”.

In the end those who had stayed in Turkey with him arrived in Canada too. The road that began in 1994 had finally reached the goal for which it all started.

The move to Canada turned out to be the start of a new chapter in his life. His central work, however, did not change. Education, people, art, religion, philosophy and culture remained at the centre of his interests.

This time he had different possibilities. In the new country he gradually continued the work he had begun in Georgia - sharing knowledge and ideas with people.

From 2001 his work became particularly bound up with creating and distributing Georgian-language educational and spiritual material. Under his direction many significant books were translated from English into Georgian.

One important strand of this work became the making of audio editions - of literary works, of the Bible in both Old and New Testaments, and of books already translated into Georgian. This material is then published on his YouTube channel, on Facebook pages and on TikTok.

Emigration, then, did not interrupt his work. On the contrary - it gave it new space and new possibilities.

While living in Canada, Rezo Bakradze also used the name Teofile Malakia for his work. His official name remained Rezo Bakradze, while in social and online spaces he is known as Rezo Bakradze (Teofile Malakia).

Under that name his educational and spiritual work continued. What mattered to him was still the person and their education. Christian thought, the Bible, philosophy, art and literature remained interconnected subjects in his work.

2008 marks another significant stage. From that point he began holding regular - often daily - lectures over the internet.

Dozens of people attend his online gatherings, and the number sometimes exceeds fifty. The lecture course prepared and edited from those conversations is published daily on his YouTube channel - 365 days a year - and each lecture reaches roughly 1,500 to 6,000 listeners a day.

The subjects are broad: art, literature, religion, theatre, philosophy, culture, and political and public affairs. Over time these lectures were recorded and grew into a large video archive. Today that archive is one of the important documentary sources on decades of his intellectual and educational work.

His work has not been confined to his own lectures. Together with Natalia Kutsia he also holds online biblical lectures. That course is nearly complete and the lectures are published online as well.

Under his direction the website kigni.ge was created, carrying the complete text of the Bible together with Matthew Henry’s commentary. Also under his direction, the translation of works of world literature, philosophy and art from English into Georgian continues, along with their audio recording.

The central idea of all this work can be put in a single sentence: advancing education in the Georgian-speaking world.

The lives of the young people who left Georgia with Rezo Bakradze in 1994 developed in many directions in Canada. They started families, began professional careers, continued their education and established themselves in various fields.

Some of them continued intellectual work. They translate books, record fiction, philosophy and Christian literature, and build their own web resources and YouTube channels.

They are also active in charitable work, which - among other things - takes the form of buying Christian literature they have translated and published at their own expense, along with Georgian editions of the Bible, and distributing them free of charge to Georgian speakers.

Part of that work is still connected to Rezo Bakradze’s guidance and help. The relationship formed in Georgia, in the years of students and lectures, did not end in 1994. It changed form.

The audience that existed in Georgia gradually became a new Georgian-language educational circle, in Canada and on the internet.

This stretch of his life cannot be read only as a story of emigration. The decision of 1994 was a kind of dividing line.

On one side stood Georgia - the country where he was educated both in state institutions and by teaching himself; where he taught, lectured on art and culture, and built years of professional and personal relationships.

On the other side a new road began - Turkey, Argentina, Russia, Turkey again, and finally Canada. Yet through all these changes of geography one thing stayed constant: his wish to learn, to study, to talk, and to share what he knew with others.

For that reason the story of his Canadian life should be read not as the end of a story of leaving Georgia, but as the beginning of a new and more consequential chapter of his work.

Today, decades after the events of 1994, we look at this part of his life from a historical distance. But the story is not finished. Rezo Bakradze continues to work.

His lectures, translations, audio material, biblical courses, videos and web resources form a large archive that belongs now not only to his own life but to decades of work in Georgian-language education.

When he left Georgia in 1994, Rezo Bakradze did not know what the coming years would look like. He knew only one decision - that he wanted to live in a free environment and continue the work he had spent his whole life preparing for.

The road proved hard. From Georgia to Turkey. From Turkey to Argentina. From Argentina to Russia. From Russia back to Turkey. And at last - to Canada.

But it is not merely a list of countries. It is the road of one person’s life, who decided, according to his own faith, choice and sense of responsibility, to begin a new chapter - and then, in a new country, gave his work to education once again.

Rezo Bakradze - Teofile Malakia. A man for whom changing countries never meant abandoning his vocation. On the contrary: the new country became a new possibility to carry education, culture, Christian thought and knowledge to people in Georgian.

And continuing that work is, today, his main purpose: advancing education in the Georgian-speaking world.