NEWS

MasterChef & Carrefour Collaborate for the Second Season Running

The Sixth Season of the Much-loved Cooking Competition Closes on a High

MasterChef Georgia — one of the most highlyrated entertainment shows on Georgian TV — has wrapped its sixth season crowning Ruso Daushvili as the winner. Daushvili was up against fellow fi nalists Dimitri Rcheulishvili and Marika Kopaliani in a competitive fi nale which saw her walk away with the 2021 MasterChef title.

This season, like the last, received positive feedback and high engagement from audiences, in part thanks to the contribution of partner and general sponsor, Carrefour — who supported the show for the second year in a row.

A leading hypermarket and supermarket chain owned and operated by Majid Al Futtaim in Georgia, Carrefour supplied the MasterChef contestants with high quality, fresh, and healthy products for their dishes enabling them to impress the judges throughout the season.

Carrefour also assisted participants to prepare visually attractive, delicious and unique dishes in their quest to be recognised as the MasterChef champion.

To reward the winning chef and runners-up, as well as in celebration of its ninth anniversary in the Georgian market, Carrefour awarded the fi nalists with MyClub points worth 9000 GEL, along with exclusive French Carrefour products.

To further celebrate Daushvili’s win, Carrefour hosted a masterclass for MasterChef fans and loyal customers in one of its hypermarkets, in a special kitchen installed by the brand Ninja. Daushvili shared unique interpretations on traditional Georgian dishes popular during the festive season such as Satsivi and Gozinaki, to help attendees diversify their tables during the festive season.

The recent collaboration between MasterChef and Carrefour allowed loyal MasterChef fans to gain more knowledge about different types of ingredients and how they can be used to create a variety of inspirational recipes based on the examples of young and talented professional chefs. Moreover, MasterChef and Carrefour seek to further diversify and develop the outstanding and well-known Georgian cuisine among both locals and visitors.

The partnership also highlights Carrefour’s commitment to supporting the growth and prosperity of local communities. Many of the products provided by Carrefour to the MasterChef contestants were sourced locally and delivered straight from local partner farms.

POLITICS Hanna Shelest on the Russian Threat and the Need for Europe and the Eastern Partnership to Unite against It

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That is still the question to which, it seems to me, neither the US nor the Ukrainian Intelligence are ready to answer.

LUKASHENKO STATED THAT CRIMEA IS LEGALLY RUSSIAN AND HE WILL VISIT IT WITH PUTIN. WHAT KIND OF INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE DO YOU THINK THIS WILL GET? IN YOUR OPINION, IS THERE A CHANCE BELARUS WILL ALSO SAY THE SAME ABOUT ABKHAZIA AND “SOUTH OSSETIA”?

We understand that the Lukashenko rhetoric is becoming more and more outrageous. The international community is responding by non-recognition of him and by introducing sanctions. I think the situation with Abkhazia and South Ossetia is different, as the Russian Federation has not annexed them.

THERE ARE FEARS THAT CRIMEA WON’T BE THE LAST UKRAINIAN PIECE OF LAND THE KREMLIN WILL TRY TO SNATCH AWAY. JUST HOW FAR DO YOU THINK PUTIN IS PREPARED TO GO?

Let’s be honest, we know perfectly well that, for Putin, the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the biggest tragedy. So, for him, the bringing back of all the lost soviet territory is important. The question is, how is he going to do it? He understands that annexation might not be the way to do it anymore. Crimea is the only case- even Abkhazia and socalled South Ossetia have not been annexed. Transnistria several times asked to join the Russian Federation, but Russia has yet to agree, because for them it’s extremely important to politically control these territories. Incorporating the territories means being able to control that the countries themselves pay. He understands that he’s not ready to take responsibility for everybody. It’s always better to have local proxies who are pro-Russian, who will act as he would in bilateral relations or in the international arena, rather than bringing these territories as additional regions to the Russian Federation.

HOW SHOULD UKRAINE AND GEORGIA COLLABORATE WHEN FACING RUSSIAN AGGRESSION? SHOULD THEY REINFORCE THEIR COLLABORATION NOW, AS THEY ARE BOTH VICTIMS?

If we take the last several years of the bilateral relations, it’s very interesting how we collaborated in waves. In 2008, you may remember how the Ukrainian President immediately came in with the full support of Ukraine. In 2014, Ukraine made the mistake of presenting the Ukrainian case as a unique one, meaning it was not uniting efforts with Georgia and Moldova, not emphasizing that it was a pattern of Russian behavior, that Russia was not only against Ukraine. By 2018, we had understood our mistake, we had top-level visits, we signed strategic partnership agreements, we started presenting with a single voice our position in the UN, OSCE, Council of Europe, NATO. It was very important, and we saw how foreign partners took it positively, as they realized that it was not only a single case. ACTING MORE PASSIVELY IN THE FACE OF RUSSIA’S ACTIONS THAN IT SHOULD, EVEN WITH CONSIDERATION OF ITS OWN SECURITY?

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin in Sochi during a video call with US President Joe Biden. By Mikhail Metzel/SPUTNIK/AFP/Getty

We have the institutional level and we have the individual countries’ level. We understand that it is a consensus decision, and it is very diffi cult to persuade countries like Portugal that they should care about Russia- they have other problems. However, let’s be honest, as soon as a country feels direct actions against them, they start paying attention. The UK became pro-Ukrainian after Sailsbury; countries like Poland are so active because they feel personally what it means; for Germany, it depends which camp you’re from, you can be more or less sensitive towards these issues. Now Spain became interested, unlike several months ago. So, at the individual level, it is very important to work with these countries, for them to understand what their vulnerabilities are. It seems to me that the cyberattack against European countries really had an effect, as did provocations against their ships during different exercises. The energy pressure we had within the last months also infl uenced some countries’ perceptions; information campaigns during the elections really had an impact; and the spy scandals. When we’re working with the EU, it’s important not just to demonstrate that we are victims, but to show that it is about their security as well. PROPAGANDA “TRICKS” USE TO HAVE THE KREMLIN’S INTERESTS MET AND TO GET THE DESIRED RESPONSES FROM THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY?

Church affairs is a huge issue where Russia spreads a lot of propaganda, for example, when Ukraine started the process of gaining an independent Church. The second is anti-Western sentiments, all these anti-Soros, anti-vaccination, anti-West, anti-International Monetary Fund or World Bank fi nancial institutions; anti-US, and anti-EU are very strong on their agenda. Most of these messages are alike throughout the region. For example, let’s remember the “American labs created the virus” narrative that we had when the pandemic started – we found exactly the same wording in Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova. It was like a copy-paste. The same with antiSoros narratives, and the narrative “they want to control our governments”, etc. All these narratives are the same.

And Russian propaganda works with “traditional values”, the gender issue, for example, and LGBT rights; they are behind a lot of campaigns that prevent the spread of gender rights. For them, traditional family is not just the issue of a man and woman, but is also about the suppression of woman.

Regarding NATO, in Ukraine, Russia is portraying itself as so strong that NATO will never be able protect it; that if Russia was to attack, in just two hours they would be in Kyiv. So, they don’t try to show that they are weak or a victim, they are trying to show that they are a global power everybody should respect and that NATO is a “nobody,” targeting proNATO sentiments. It also cultivates proRussian ideas that “oh, you need to compromise with Russia”, because you certainly won’t be able to fi ght them.