Pankisi Gorge Kidnappings Hint at Chaos in Georgian Government
By Jeffrey Silverman
NEW YORK. The breakaway Pankisi Gorge, in the Kakheti region of East Georgia, has attracted unwanted attention as a center of kidnapping, extortion, and the drug trade. Levan Kaladze, brother of a soccer star in Milan, was kidnapped in May 2001, and bandits abducted a monk, Father Basili Machitadze, at the Pankisi border six months later.