The President of Georgia tells Kim Sengupta how he hopes to win support in his struggle against his nation's powerful neighbour, Russia – with a little help from Hollywood

They say singing is hard-wired into the Georgian soul, and when you hear a Tbilisi family break into perfect counterpoint in a "table song" – no matter how much alcohol they've drunk – you realise the truth of this. Factor in the intensity of Georgian musical training, and it's no surprise that this strife-torn land produces so many fine singers.

Russia accused Georgia of making up allegations of ethnic cleansing in its breakaway provinces after Tbilisi failed to regain control of the areas in a five-day war.

Alecky Blythe's latest verbatim piece is based on interviews collected at the Tserovani refugee camp, outside Tbilisi. A cast of five Georgian actors from the distinguished Rustaveli Theatre plays hundreds of characters, thrown together in a makeshift community following the 2008 war in South Ossetia.

Vladimir Putin’s favourite conductors both travel with excess baggage.

There is something leonine about Elisabeth Leonskaya as she sits down to play, and the arpeggiated first chord of Schubert’s F minor Impromptu heralds the most massive statement I've ever heard of its opening theme.

Vladislav Ardzinba, who died after suffering for almost a decade from a mysterious and increasingly debilitating illness, was a wartime leader and the first president of Abkhazia. He was born in May 1945 in the village of Lower Eshera (just north of Abkhazia's capital, Sukhumi), where his father taught history. He worked at Moscow's Oriental Institute under Yevgenij Primakov, who, as Russian Foreign Minister, was later to play a role in the post-war Georgian-Abkhazian negotiating process.

'Simulated' news report sparks public panic and criticism from opposition

He has already been dug up twice and it seems that Georgia's first president, the late Zviad Gamsakhurdia, will never be able to rest in peace.

A year after Georgia and Russia fought over the tiny territory, fears of a land grab are not unfounded. Shaun Walker reports

Independent correspondent Shaun Walker witnessed the terror of war in South Ossetia. A year later, he has returned – to find that anti-Georgian feeling is as strong as ever

After the disaster of last summer's war, the charismatic president of the former Soviet republic hopes it won't be sacrificed to improve US-Russian relations. Shaun Walker meets Mikheil Saakashvili

Georgia's hopes of joining Nato were dealt a blow last night, when Western European countries blocked a bid to offer it a path to membership.

The NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer condemned Russia's military action against Georgia but shied away from making any commitment to the ex-Soviet state on when it will be invited to join the military alliance.