Right. So I'm in the customization instance you all have access to and what I'm going to do is I will first click on the app's icon and then we'll go all the way down and select and click on this app all users, right? So once I click on users, you will see that we have three options here to select users, user roles or user groups. So in this part of today's session, I'm going to discuss about user roles. So I click on this tab called user role. So when I do that, I'm seeing that we already have different user roles that have been configured. Right. So, I mean, like in a live system because it's a kind of a demo system, we are only seeing, I mean, three user roles, we are seeing private tracker Academy, we are seeing super user and tracker data. But in a live system, it is quite likely that you are going to see many more user roles and probably like after doing today's session you will be able to figure out what are the different types of user roles that you can create. So let me kind of open this tracker data entry user role. So what I'm going to do is to click on this tracker data entry and it opens this user role. So here you will see that we have a name here. So this is the name of the user role and we have a description. Below that we have all the authorities that I mentioned in the presentation. So here you can see we have a huge list of authorities, right, a comprehensive list of authorities. So these authorities we can actually divide into five main sections, right. So you can see these individual, I mean, the boxes here are the sections that we can categorize them into. So the sections are we have metadata, we have apps related authorities, we have tracker related authorities, import, export, and authorities related to system, right. So let us, I mean, briefly discuss like what each of these sections are doing. So when it comes to metadata, the metadata section allows you to assign different permissions to a user role that allows for adding or deleting either public or private metadata objects, right. So you can see, we have different permissions, a list of permissions here and when we take on each of these boxes, we can provide public or private metadata permissions, right. For example, you could provide someone access to create and delete public data data element. So if you provide them access here just by ticking right like this, you can provide access to delete. Right. And also, you also have for example, something called external access, but this external access is only available to objects, which are, which are of report type so you can see here the documents event chart event report. And here maps. So these kind of event related objects you have you also have another type of permission for external access. So basically you can see here under this metadata section it's all about different types of metadata and providing them public and private permissions delete as well as external access. Right. And the next section we have is about apps. The app section allows you to give access to various DHS to apps that are within your instance. This includes all the core DHS to apps as well as any custom maps, you may have on your system. So for example, here you are seeing most of the core DHS to apps. So I'm seeing in this instance of course we only have the core DHS to apps but in case like sometimes you may install few custom apps like contact tracing relationships tracing application or scorecard. WHODQ apps so these are custom maps so when they are installed they will also be listed in this app section. And next we have the tracker section, which is of course the I mean the major main focus of this academy. So here we have authorities that have their own specific. So here with the tracker has their own specific section, mainly because it is unique to the tracker data model. So you may be wondering like why some of them are not probably like incorporated somewhere else under metadata later I will show like in the systems, but this has been done because they have their own unique data modeling tracker. So these concepts are much suited to be, I mean categorized under a separate section. So those are the, I mean what you see here are the authorities which are categorized under the tracker section. So here we have the next one which is import export. So here, these authorities are usually given to user roles that will be dealing with the import and export of metadata, or even data. So this is usually a kind of a specialized role and probably you will only grant these permissions to, I mean very limited number of users who are actually dealing with import and export. So here we have the systems section. So here you have authorities to allow the user to run various system level tasks and operations. So these kind of include operations like, as you can see data approval, you will workflow, generating min max value, right, moving organization units, replicating users, I mean tasks like that. So these are again some specialized tasks you are mainly assigning to users who kind of have a very higher level permission, probably system, system admins or high level implementers at national level, right. So as you can see here, we have a huge list of authorities so we don't have time to go through all of them. The thing is like most of these authorities are kind of self-explanatory but I understand that some of them may not really be that clear. So what you can do is, I will let me share the section of the documentation dealing with user roles. So you can refer that but I understand it again is not that comprehensive. If that is the case, so I'm pasting the link to the documentation here. So that's one option. Or else like if you're unclear about anything, I mean because these permissions, the authorities, I mean they can also get changed in time to come. So if you're unclear at any time, even after going through the documentation, the best would be to ask this issue in the community of practice. Okay, so let us try to know that we have opened this tracker data in free user role. Let's try to see, I mean what are the particular roles of the authorities that have been assigned to this particular user role. So that I mean as you can see here, most of these authorities, especially in like for example the metadata and systems, they have not been checked. So we have option here, selected authorities only so if we just select this one. It will only filter the permission, the authorities which have been assigned to this particular user role. So here, for example, this particular user role has been assigned to main sections of authority. So we have one section of authorities related to apps, and the other one related to tracker. So why have you done that, why is this particular user role has not been provided with any authorities related to metadata. I mean, probably you can understand like this is a kind of a data entry specific user role. So we don't really expect this person to create or add or delete any metadata in the system. So metadata is kind of like tracker attribute data elements, option sets, so we don't want these, the users with this role to do any of that, any of those activities, right. And then we have this app section. So what this means as I mentioned in the presentation is that here this user will need to have access to some apps, right for him to kind of carry out day to day activities, right. So the first thing is he needs to have access to the dashboard because the thing is like the dashboard is the first step that any person will land when you log into the system. So that's why we need the dashboard app. And you also need the browser cache green app because mainly because you know like we tend to do some modifications to metadata. And then this can kind of interfere with updating whatever the which I mean the present view of the tracker capture application so to do that. So we always, I mean, when we do when we do training programs for tracker or I mean any DHS to training program for end users we always. I mean, tell them about this browser cache green app and how to clear the browser cache. So for that purpose we need to have access to the browser cache green app and trigger capture of course is required because that's the main app. So he's going to perform all I mean almost all his tasks. Right, and then we have some tracker related permissions, right which we have assigned so we will discuss about them in a bit more detail in a while. And of course we are not going to assign any import export related authorities because he's just a data entry role so he's not going to do anything related to import export, and also same applies to the system level. Right. Okay, and one important thing to note is that so when you are when we are defining creating user roles, we should always remember to create user roles to cover a specific function. So for example, here, we are trying to cover the function of a tracker data entry. One mistake that we see in most of the DHS to customizations is that like, I mean like we tend to create user roles based on the specific job type so for example we tend to create user roles for data entry class reproductive health staff or else like we we tend to create user roles based on a geographical like for national staff, provincial stuff. But like that's not a kind of a scalable or recommended practice because like what we recommend is you should try to create a user role for a specific function. When you do that, you can always combine user roles. So for like if you have a kind of a user who is at a national level and kind of attend to multiple functions then what we can do is for that user we can assign multiple user roles, right, and together with the user groups will be able to achieve what we want. So this is the kind of recommendation of creating user roles in a DHS to setup. Okay, right. So let's now see what are the different permissions like we have already discussed about the apps that have been assigned to this user. And then let's see like what are the different tracker related permissions that are there. Okay, so let me briefly uncheck this so that I can see all the track related permissions. The first one we have is administer program dashboard configuration. So here this defines like if you can remember like when you kind of when you open the tracker capture application. For example you have different types of widgets right so sometimes like let me select. I'm just going to select one track instance just to show what I want to highlight so here you can see like we have we just related to indicators. Right and then we also have relationships nodes. So sometimes these widgets like we don't really want another implementation right. So if that's the case we can hide them and we can kind of like we want to kind of configure the particular dashboard in a way that we should I mean we expect the program people to see right. So these kind of activities you can determine and we can kind of like configure through a particular authority so that's the kind of authority that you have here. Administer program dashboard configuration. But then even though this is related to tracker we have to understand like who are the users to which we are going to assign this authority so we are not going to give this authority to each and every I mean every tracker data because then they might keep on changing it so I mean like your program I mean the visualization of tracker capture is going to get disorganized right so yeah that's what this particular authority does and then we have one for delete enrollment and associated events. So okay, another thing that you have to keep in mind is that in DHS to whenever any any user who has permissions to create an event has the permission by default to delete the right. So, if that is the case like then what does this particular permission or the authority defines. So it allows cascade deleting of an enrollment in a program, as well as all of its related events right so if we give this permission, you can delete enrollments, along with events so you don't have to actually I mean if you don't have this permission but you have to do is you have to delete events one by one, and then finally delete the enrollments right so but if you give this authority, he can delete the enrollment along with all the events right then we have the next one which is somewhat similar elite track entity instance and associated enrollments and events. So if they have this permission it kind of allows cascade delete offer track entity instance all of its enrollments in the in the programs as well as related events right. So it's again kind of like a higher level function. Then we have this manage program rule authority so this is kind of something to do with the the the metadata program program rule metadata. So it, it gives that particular user, the authority to manage the program rules right. And then we have search track entity instances across all org units. So this allows the user to search for track entity instances across all organization unit, regardless of the search organization units that they are assigned. Okay. Right. And then we have uncomplete events. So it allows the user to incomplete the previously completed event. And we have tracked update tracked entities, which allows the user to update an existing track entity. And finally, we've been even analytics. It's a, it's a it's a functionality, which allows user to be an analytics analytics data related to any events. So this particular the final role, final authority is kind of important.  So tracker analytics, you want to kind of, I mean, not let them have any access right so it is kind of useful to have this kind of authority when you want to achieve that function. Right. Okay, so I guess that's the kind of a brief overview of different authorities which are there but I don't think I can go through each and every authority that is listed here. So I really suggest you to refer the documentation but again like I understand like some of these concepts that are here may not be that self explanatory so if that's the case you can always ask in the slack or later on probably in the community of practice. Okay. Right. So, let's try to log in with the user. So what we can actually do is we have this user role which is the user called we have this tracker entry user. Right. So, when I open this tracker entry user and go all the way here, we will see that particular user has been assigned the tracker data entry user role. So, let me first show you how these user roles work and how these permissions are assigned. Right. And then probably what we are going to do is to create a user, and you will again do. I mean, go through the learner's guide and do the exercise of creating a user role as well as assigning it to a user. Okay, right. So here, this particular user, the tracker data entry user, who is already configured in the system is having the user role tracker data right. So if I go back and see the particular permissions in the tracker data entry user role, you will see this particular user has access to delete enrollment and associated events, delete track entity instance and associated events. And he can search all across the organization unit, uncomplete events and update track entities. Right. So let's see how these permissions are working when we log in using that. So what I'm going to do is I will share my screen again. Right. So I'm in the same customization instance. And I'm going to log in using this user tracker entry. So we're signing in. And then let me see like, I mean, like what are the different permissions this tracker user tracker entry user has as defined by his user role. So when I click on this apps icon, you will see that this particular user is only having access to these four apps. So by default, this menu management application will be available to all user user roles. So here you can see the tracker capture dashboard and the browser cash clean app are the are the only apps which are visible to this particular user. He's not having access to the common apps like the data entry or even any analytics apps like data visualize right. So this is how this happens is because like these are the only apps we have configured when we were configuring the user role. Okay, right. So let's try to open tracker capture application by clicking on it. Right. And you can see that this user is having access to the bird district. Right. And in this bird district, let me see. Okay, we have different, I mean, the organization units under the bird district. So I can see like, there are data to, I mean, under each of different, different organization units. So let me select say, for example, cardinal hospital gateway. Okay, or else probably we can actually take the TV program. So that you're like here. Okay, yeah, this is better. So I have clicked on the parent district hospital and the TV treatment card program right. Okay. So what I will do is I will just click and open one of these track entity instances which have been registered. Okay, I've done that. So you can see that we have different, I mean three different events, right, we have one on diagnosis one on continuation phase one, and then we again have one on continuation to right so let me click on this continuation. One event and when I scroll all the way down, you can see that this event is already completed. That's why we are seeing this as incomplete. This button has changed the label of the button has changed to incomplete because the event is already complete. So let me click on this incomplete button. If you can remember, when we were configuring this tracker data entry user role, we gave this use the permission to uncomplete event. Right. So, let me click on this incomplete button. Right. And it will ask, are you sure you want to edit the selected event. And then when I click, okay. Right. Yeah, it worked. That's why the label change to complete. But like, in case if this permission was this authority was not assigned, it wouldn't allow this user to perform this activity. Right. So he can do it mainly because this permission has been granted. Similarly, you may be able to remember that we gave that person access. To update attract entity instance. So what we mean by update is that so we we love them to kind of click on this edit button and change the attributes. So what we can actually do is like say for example, we can change the age so it was a mistake we can make it 31 right and we make it 31 and click on save. So it's getting saved. Right. As you can see here it has been updated as 31 that is because we have enable the authority to perform this updating of track instance. Right. Then we can also see something else that that has been assigned. So for example, let's try to see whether we can delete. So we have different. I mean like so one thing is here we have option to delete the person right and we have option here to kind of delete the enrollment right I think this particular user role had bought the permissions. So let us try one of them. So one option is to like try to delete this enrollment. So when I try to do that, it will it will prompt us saying, are you sure you want to delete the selected enrollment, this will delete all events associated with this So as you can see here for this enrollment. So this person has get enrolled to be treatment card and in that one we have three events. Right. So ideally we can delete each of these events one by one and finally delete the particular enrollment right that's the usual way of kind of deleting if this person is not having the authority to delete the enrollment along with the authority. But if he's having this authority, he will be allowed to delete right so the button is visible. So let me try to click here and yes. Right. So you can see like the enrollment has now got deleted. Okay, that was possible. Because we have assigned this authority to that particular user. So it was a kind of a lengthy session I did. I mean I did the presentation overview and then the initial part of the demonstration of user roles. So let me briefly stop here. And let us try to do the exercise one in the learners guide so you can use the same customization instance. So all the instructions are there. So I will give you about 10 minutes to do this task and wheels will meet again in 10 minutes. Right. So what we are going to do next is to create a user and assign the existing user role. Okay, so let me click on the app cycle and then select users. Then I proceed to users here and I click on the list and you will see the existing list of users. And I'm actually going to create a new user. So to do that I have to click on this last button. Right. And when I do that, I get two options. The first one is to create account with user details and the second is to email invitation to create account. So you can select whichever the options but like, like you have advantages and disadvantages of each of these options. So the first thing is like if you use the create account with user details what you have to do is, you have to fill out all the required or mandatory fields here like username password, you will have to generate and type a password and then you will have to type a password and put surname, first name, I mean all the mandatory fields and then assign a user role to that user and assign the tracker, assign the data capture and maintenance of unit as well as data output and analytic of unit and you can save. Right. So that's the first approach, but the disadvantage. I mean there are a few of them. The first thing is like you will have to manually generate the passwords. So it's a kind of a cumbersome procedure. And then you will also have to share these passwords with the with the with the selected user. And it's quite likely due to security concerns once this password is shared with the user when in the first login attempt he will change the password. So that way like I mean all this effort to create passwords and security sharing and I mean anyway that person is going to change the password is a bit of a cumbersome procedure and I mean like it might not really make that much of a sense. I mean but the thing is, it is kind of a very simpler way of creating users but a more sophisticated way of creating users would be to email invitation to create an account. So here what happens is we have to provide the mandatory details and we will also include the email address of the user. But then thereafter the user can, I mean, so basically once you create all once you input all this mandatory fields and click on the final step send invite. The user will receive an invitation by email and he will get a link via email which he can click and which will redirect him to our DHS to instance, and he can proceed with the remaining part of the registration as well as inputting his own password of his preference right so it's a kind of a secure animal. So that way of creating users. So let's try that method of creating users now. So I will give a user name here. So, let's put this this tracker. And then I will have to use users email so I will use this email address DHS to dot test one at right, and I will put. Check this disabled. This user and I will keep I will not going to, I'm not going to input any of these fields and I will keep the interface language as English. And, and here, I will have to select a role. Okay, so I am going to select this role that we have already been I mean going through, which is tracker data right so I double click that so that is selected as a role. And you can always see like we can add more than one user roles to a given user for this user. I'm not going to assign super super user role. We just assign a tracker data entry. So after doing that, we have to define the data capture and maintenance organization unit so as the name implies by assigning this so you need. The user will be able to capture data at this given open it or any open it below that, as well as he will have access if he's given the permission by the authority access to maintenance or maintenance application. Right, so I'm going to give this user the access at bird district. Okay, and here also I'm going to give him access for data output and analysis at the bird district right. Then, if I click on show more options, you have few more options like search organization unit I'm going to give access for training ran, and I'm not going to do anything for the user groups as of now because we will be discussing about it later. Right. Okay, so after doing all after configuring all these. I'm going to click on send invite button. And it says that user test users saved successfully and the invitation should have been sent right so let me log into the email account and see whether I have received the email. Right, there you go so I get this email. Right, and I'm, I will click an open and it says, this is an invitation to create customized user, a user account and I have the link. Yeah, right. So what I have to do is I have to click on this link, which I received through email so I'm going to do that. And once I do that. Right. I'm directed to this account. This this particular page where I have to give my first and last names. And the username of course I can't change because it has been already configured in the system.  Here, I have to type it again. Right. Mobile phone also I have to enter so I will put something like this. Put the organization as Ministry of Health. Right. I will do that and I click on create. So, yes, now I'm actually, I have been able to create this new user. And if you check here, you will see that I'm actually logged in with that newly created user. So this user, let's see like what what applications he has access so as you can as as you imagine is only having access to the applications tracker capture dashboard and browser cash cleaner, because these are the apps which are available, as defined, based on the authorities available to the capture user. So, what I'm going to do is like I will give you some time to do this, do this part of the exercise so please do the exercise number two in the learner's guide. So what we will also do is like, because we have a few lengthy sessions, you can take 20 minutes break, and we'll see you in 20 minutes so by the time you can also complete the exercise to let me share my screen. So I'm going to click on the users app. And then I will try to list all the users who are here so I can see like some of the new users. Now, probably the user roles that you have created already. So what I'm going to do is to click on this plus button and create a new user role. And this new user role is for the purpose of tracker data analysis, right. So we create a new user role for tracker data analysis. Right, so this user role is right. So next thing we have to figure out is like we have these five sections of different types of authorities and what are the authorities that we need to add for each of these user for this user role. Okay, so what we need to understand is that when we create a user or user role, in order to analyze data, he needs to have access for event and tracker data outputs, possibly via data visualizer maps event reports event visualizer and dashboards, and also he should be allowed to create public items from within these applications, right. So all these in the background, if we just think again, what are the types of roles we should run. So, number one, they should be able to access the various analysis applications, right, and secondly they should be able to see the event data. And thirdly, they should be able to add public reports from the analysis application right so we have these three requirements. And to achieve them we have to decide what are the authorities we are going to add. Okay, so let's focus on the first one which is like about the apps, the different apps that we have to assign to this user role. So we know like they need to have access to the dashboard application. And then we need to give them access to the data visualizer, right, and then probably they need access again to the event reports, as well as event visualizer. Finally, the maps application right so these are the applications that we that that is that that we require to give them permissions. And then, let's look at the different metadata that they need permission so for example they need to have access to create dashboard. For example, I, okay, so for this purpose I have added at update public dashboard permission, and they should be provided access to create event chart event reports. Let me take here event charts and event reports, and then they also need permission to create maps. And finally, possibly create visualizations right. So these are the metadata access we need to provide to a user role for our tracker data analysis. Right, and then let us move further down and we need to gain one crucial thing is to provide them tracker analytics access so here we have a permission called we've and we've event analytics. We need to also provide them that access. So these are the minimal authorities that we need to provide for this particular user role the new user role. And once we are done, we don't we don't actually need to provide any access related to import export or system related access.  So now we have this new user or a new user role tracker data analysis, right. So what we are going to do next is to add this new user role to an existing user. So the existing user we had, we had one user for data entry tracker entry this one right tracker entry user. So this was a user, let me open that user and see what other user roles already assigned. Okay, we have tracker data entry user role I assume someone must have already renamed the permission I have the user role I have added previously. So right. So let me now find the new user role I have created which is tracker data analysis right. So now we see the user role that we initially created tracker entry. He already had access. The previous user role was to enter data so we had that tracker data entry access. Now we have added tracker data analysis user role. Okay. So what we are going to do is we are not going to change anything else. And we will save it. Right. So we need to log in. Let's try to log out from this user and try to log in. Right. So now I'm logged in with the with the new user. I mean the same user we have tried before, who previously had only data entry access. Let me click on the upside can to see any new changes. Yes, we are seeing some changes previously that this user only had access to the dashboard tracker capture browser cache clean and menu management. Now he has access to this new apps event report event reports event visualizer data visualizer and maps, as we have configured in the new user role. Now he has kind of access to applications which are coming from both the user roles that's the most important thing to understand here. Right. So let us try to open one of these applications to be the tracker analysis data. So let me click on this event reports app. Right. Okay. Let me try to create visualization so probably I can get a table output using this event reports app. So what I'm trying to do is I'm going to generate a line list of all events. There are so many programs let me select the TV treatment card and let me just select this diagnosis and initial phase. Now I will just try to narrow down the metadata items available only for the program attributes and let me create the first name last name and age and gender and the registration right. Let me also see the org unit so let me try to select that bird district and try to miss down all the events which are available. I'm going to click on the update button here. Unfortunately, I don't have any data for this so units. I hope analytics must have been run. I run the analytics. Let me select another program. Let me try ANC possibly. ANC register whether there's any data or maybe the period I'm not sure the period I selected before. So let me try to see. Try to get both the years and the bird district. All right, there we go. Right, so what I have done here is I have selected the program TV treatment card in the diagnosis and the initial phase. And then I just listed out here the first name and last name as the attributes and the periods I have selected these two years, and then the organization and the organization unit as the bird district. So, with all this, I'm able to create this visualization. So this is possible because the particular user access to the event data event analysis date. Right. So this new, the previous user who only had tracker data entry access before is now having access to analyze data. So we know this because he has access to the new applications the analysis applications as well as he can create a visualization in this case a tabular visualization using the event report application. Right, so that's it what we have for even for the user role. So, I, yeah, so what we can do is we can do the final exercise user role, which is exercise three. So let us take a break off like 10 minutes to do this final exercise, and then after that we can proceed to use the groups.


Welcome back to Georgia's Fantastic Tavern, an online feast of Georgian culture. I'm Maya Jaggi, the artistic director in London, bringing you this festival with Writers House of Georgia in Tbilisi, in partnership with the British Library and Words Without Borders in New York. This is the final event in the British Library's two-day series for Georgia's Fantastic Tavern, but not, I'm happy to say, the end of the festival. There's another day of Tavern encounters, streamed tomorrow by Writers House of Georgia. And you can also read newly translated novel extracts from four festival writers, two of whom are speaking tomorrow in the Tavern, Archil Kikodze and David Gabunia, on the open access Words Without Borders.org. All details at georgisfantastictavern.com. I'm delighted to welcome Boris Akunin and Boyd Tonkin to the Tavern, whose last conversation in public five years ago in London opened where Europe meets Asia, Georgia 25, which was the UK's first festival of Georgian writers. Boyd Tonkin is an author, critic, journalist and broadcaster, and the 2020 winner of the Royal Society of Literatures Benson Medal for Lifetime's Outstanding Service to Literature, following recipients, including Philip Larkin and Tolkien. His prolific writing on books, art and classical music appears widely, including in the Economist Financial Times spectator, new scientist, New York review of books and the artsdesk.com. Until 2016, he was the independent senior writer and art critic after 17 years as literary editor. He refounded the independent foreign fiction prize in 2001 and co-judged it for 15 years. This unique prize for best novel of the year in English translation, split equally between author and translator, became the model for the Man Booker International Prize, for which he served as the special advisor and inaugural chair of judges. The hundred best novels in translation, his critical book spanning four centuries of global fiction was admired by Ian McEwen as a brilliant and extremely useful guide and by Ben Ockry as the work of a wonderful, thoughtful and conscientious critic. Boyd's chosen book recently on BBC Radio 4's A Good Read was Tolstoy's novella, Hadji Moritz, set in the Caucasus. Before I hand over to Boyd, a few welcome words from the British Library. Hello, my name's Janice Marotek and I'm head of European America's and Oceania collections here at the British Library. It's my great pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the library today. Over the years, we've developed close relationships with a number of institutions in Georgia, including the National Library of Georgia and also the Art Palace of Georgia Museum of Cultural History. So we were delighted when Maya Jaggi, artistic director of Georgia's Fantastic Tavern, approached us to be a partner in this exciting and inspiring festival. So many thanks, Maya. I first fell in love with Georgia and it's immensely rich culture when I spent time there in the 1980s as a student. So I've been reveling in this cultural feast that the festival has brought to us, including the marvellous Katie Melua, Nino Haratishvili, Akka Morchiladze and Dad Turashvili who we saw on Friday. And I'm really looking forward to hearing Barissa Kunin today. With one of the world's most international collections, with rare and unique items from an extraordinary range of cultures, languages and faiths, one of the British Library's key purposes is to enable people to engage with the world through writing and culture. And events like these give us the opportunity to reach new audiences and alert people to our collections. Pandemic restrictions mean we've been limited in what we can present to you in terms of highlights of our Georgian collections today. But please do visit the British Library website where our Georgian curator Anna Chalutze has written a great blog which outlines the history of the Georgian collection and shows you some key items which will hopefully give you a taste to find out more. So once more, warmest thanks to Maya Jagi, Writers House Georgia and all the participants, and I wish you an enjoyable festival. Thank you so much and welcome again to Georgia's fantastic tavern. Now, it's a huge pleasure today to be able to talk again to Barissa Kunin whom, as we were hearing, I last discussed his work with in 2016. Now, Barissa Kunin, many of you will know as a hugely prolific, entertaining and successful writer of crime fiction, the creator of Erast Fandarin, whom we can only describe as imperial Russia's answer to Sherlock Holmes, but if possible an even cooler and cleverer version. But Barissa Kunin has written many other books in many other genres and of course there's a mystery pertaining to his own identity as well because today I am talking to Barissa Kunin, the hugely internationally successful Russian author, but I'm also talking to Grigiri Chakateshvili, a Georgian-born writer and someone who moved at a very early age from Georgia to Russia. So maybe this is the place where I should start. Grigiri, how much does being of Georgian origin mean to you? How important was it when you were growing up in Russia? How important was it to the people around you? Good evening. Well, as long as I remember myself, I've been living in Moscow, so I'm a Muscovite. I don't remember, well, I lived Georgia when I was one month old, so I couldn't really remember it. For me, like for most of people who grew up on a huge mega-police, well, I don't believe we tend to have that ethnical feeling. When you grew up in a city like Moscow, you feel urban. I am Georgian on my paternal side. I'm Jewish on my maternal side. My native language is Russian. From early age, I majored in the language and culture of Japan. So it is all very mixed up. It makes me what I am. Speaking about what is Georgia for me? Georgia for me is the Georgian accent of my father. He spoke with an accent to the end of his life, although he left Georgia before the war. He could sing Georgian songs when he was drunk. What else? Georgian music and Georgian songs definitely touch a chord in me. I can feel that. And my favorite cuisine is Georgian. This is probably, well, this is as Georgian as I am. And when you returned to Georgia, as I know you did a few years ago, how did you find it? Did you live up to your expectations? What you thought, what you had read about? Were there things about it that surprised you? I was in Georgia actually twice. The first time I was there as a very, very young man in my early 20s. But I was silly. I was interested in absolutely other things. I don't remember much except that I was drunk most of the time. The only thing that impressed me was the loveliness of Georgian girls. So when I went there for the second time, more than 40 years later at 60, I paid attention to absolutely other things. I was very much curious. I was curious to see if I would feel something inside myself, some sort of response, and I felt it. And it was quite a strong feeling. I cannot explain it. There were a lot of things that even the right I cannot explain, but it was definitely, it was definitely there. I liked the country very much. I should say that it exceeded my expectations because, well, Georgia is not a rich country, but I thought that people there had two very important features. One of them is dignity, which is felt in everybody. And from my readings and from what I understand about history, this is probably the most important thing in a nation. The degree of dignity that people live there possess. It makes a difference. And another thing is this easygoing thing, because as you know, there is a lot of political tension in Georgia. The country is more or less divided into two political camps. And I was sitting there among Georgian intellectuals belonging to both camps, and they could argue in an absolutely friendly fashion without animosity, which is absolutely unthinkable, say, in Russia. Because I cannot even imagine sitting and drinking with a Putin supporter. This is totally unimaginable. Just think of, like in America, someone who is pro-Trump and against Trump, well, being friends, this is something. Well, Georgia is different. This is, I thought that this was very intriguing and promising. And that raises the question of what is the relationship between Russia and all the territories, the nations and the culture around its periphery. In other words, the old Tsarist Empire and then the Soviet Empire. Obviously, 30 years ago, we had the breakup of the Soviet Union, the independence of Georgia and many other places. So how has that relationship changed with that end of Empire moment? Have some things improved or is it a matter of more tension, more misunderstanding? Of course, there is much more tension because today is Russia. It is still an empire. It acts like an empire. It wants to be seen as an empire, but it is a herd empire. And the herd empire is like a herd beast. It makes all sorts of aggressive movements. And being near an empire like this is not a pleasant experience. It is dangerous. And Georgia was hurt, as we all know, not only Georgia, Ukraine. Well, this is what is happening. Empire is always the problem to itself and to its neighbors. But at the same time, as we know in Britain, empire can also inspire feelings of nostalgia, of loss. And these feelings can be powerful political actors. Do you think that's the case in Russia? And in which case, how do you get over nostalgia for empire? How long before it fades away or does it never fade away? I think that this imperial part of Russian mentality will stay there as long as Russia continues to be an empire. I am writing a multi-volume history of Russia. I have written eight volumes already. I started working on this project in order to try to explain what Russia is like, not to my readers or to myself. I didn't understand it. Now I understand Russia much, much better, I believe. And I see the essence of the problem. Why it is the way it is. Why is the Russian state again and again zigzagging between freedom and dictatorship, moving this way, then it backfires, and it goes back to being an empire. I do not think now that this is Vladimir Putin's blame. No. I think that this is a totally logical thing, because with a state like Russia, which is built on total hyper-centralization, no democracy is possible. The only way they know how to keep this huge, this diversified country together is by force and intimidation. This is incompatible, neither with democracy, nor with freedom of press, nor with rule of law. So all other branches of power except the executive one should not work. It is bad for the health of the state system. So if nothing changes, if Putin's regime falls down and there will be a new democratic leadership, it will very soon face the same problem like Yeltsin's government in 1990s. The moment you relax the reins, the country starts falling apart. Is this a kind of destiny that comes from geography? Is it because Russia is simply so vast, so diverse, covers so many time zones, so many potential cultures? And if so, what is the answer? Is it maybe a proper form of federalism in which centralization was replaced with more devolved control? Absolutely. I mean, historically, this system worked because this hyper-centralization, it helps to mobilize the country. It is very tough. It shows especially during the times of war or famine or some other huge disaster. People are used to suffering. They are long suffering, all of them. Well, Russia has shown many times in its history that it can, well, you know, fight and fight back with Napoleon, with Hitler and so on and so forth. But now we live in the world where there are mechanisms which work much, much better. So this is obsolete. In a country like Russia, it cannot be centralized. The only way out of this dilemma, I believe, is to make Russia a really federal state, maybe even a confederacy like Switzerland. Because regions of the country are so different, it's so far apart that at the distance between the people and Moscow is so huge, you have to bring the authority and the people closer to each other. If you live, say, in the Northern Caucasus, you have other problems that people who live in St. Petersburg. So most of the money, most of the decision-making should stay at the original level. So you have to rebuild this country from the foundation. Unless it happens, it will be again and again and again returning to autocracy and dictatorship. There are only two ways to hold this country together, either by force and intimidation or by good will. So the second variant has not been tried before. It should be. Now, tell me something about this remarkable project you're engaged with the history of the Russian state, because it consists, as I understand, not only of historical works but of fiction as well. And the fictions are in partnership or in parallel to the episodes of the history that you're describing. How do you manage to switch between the two genres? Is it difficult? And what does fiction give you that historical writing cannot deliver? Well, in the beginning, when I was discussing this project with others, I told them that we need the fictional part in order to attract readership to the non-fictional part, because people read just a historical novel, a thriller. And they hopefully become interested in this epoch and in the fact, and they go and buy the volume which corresponds to this epoch. So these volumes still are published in pairs. A volume of non-fiction of history, per se, is followed by a volume of fiction. So this is how it works. But this is very important for me as well, and it's considerations apart. Because when I write the history of Russian state, I need to stay unemotional. I'm not on this side, on that side, there are no good guys and no bad guys for me. I need to understand, I honestly need to understand what happened and why. You cannot belong to your party when you do this. But I'm human, I have my sympathies, I have my hate, I have my feelings, I have to channel them somewhere. So all this goes into the fictional thing, into the novel, which is about this epoch. So dividing all these thoughts and emotions in two streams allows me to make it more interesting for me myself. And what about the readers? Do your readers in Russia tend to concentrate on the fiction, on the history? Do you have different readers for the novel versions as opposed to the historical versions, or are they the same people? I just got the yearly report, the statistics, and it was interesting for me because I see that the readers of fiction are only a tiny proportion, more numerous than those of the nonfiction. So it means that it works. People do buy nonfiction. They do buy this quite monotonous and boring reading about all those Tsars and Laws and Wars and whatnot. So it works. Now let me go back to the writing that readers in Britain and the US will mostly know from your work, which are the Thanderen detective novels, which of course are not just mysteries. They're also remarkably colourful and detailed portraits of Russia in the late 19th and early 20th century. Why did you choose that period from the 1870s onwards? Are there parallels between that epoch in Tsarist Russia and where Russia has been recently? Is it a kind of mirror to the present? Or are you going there in order to escape from the present? I'm definitely not going there to escape. And when I started, the main reason was not history but literature. Those times, starting with the 1870s, was the time when Russian literature started to be at its peak. It is the epoch of the great Russian literature. So I wanted to live in this atmosphere of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Leskov, Chekhov, all those wonderful names. I wanted to play with their styles. I wanted to steal their characters and to use them in my novels. I wanted my reader to enjoy all the illusions, the game over with the plots and all that thing. It was more important to me than history. And did you attempt to write in a way that recalled the style and the atmosphere of the Golden Age literature of that time? Oh yes, I played a lot with that. In one of my novels, I rewrote crime and punishment completely. It is another series, not Eras Von Dorin. It is about Eras Von Dorin's grandson living in contemporary Russia. So he is looking for a lost manuscript by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The first variant of the novel Crime and Punishment, which was written as a detective novel. And he is discovering after chapter the real text of Dostoyevsky. So I became Dostoyevsky myself. I was trying to write in his style. I found a specialist in St. Petersburg who knows how to imitate Dostoyevsky's handwriting. And he wrote the manuscript on old paper in Dostoyevsky's handwriting with Dostoyevsky's drawings because Dostoyevsky used to draw faces and houses on the margins of his manuscripts. It now hangs on my wall, this manuscript. So it was like that. That's it. And as fans of the Van Dorin novels will know, they cover a big historical arc right from the 1870s up in the latest one, which is called not saying goodbye to the immediate post-revolutionary period after 1917. So when you have a serious character who covers more than 40 years, it creates problems for the author. How did you deal with that? Do you have him aging in real time or do you have to stop the clock to some extent? No, no, no, absolutely. I didn't want to make him an Erkut Kurok who is basically the same age or, you know, like we don't feel like Sherlock Holmes becomes older, don't we? No, I wanted to show a story of a man's life who starts when he's 20, when he's silly, when he's not a Superman, when he grows up, he learns things, he understands things, he changes. So Van Dorin changes from novel to novel to novel to novel and he lives life to its full in every season. This is the thing, because one thing is to be young, another thing to be 30, 40, 50 in the last novel, he is what, 64? Yes, yes. Was it more difficult to write about him in the revolutionary period when the culture of his youth has been completely swept away and all of the elegance, the politeness, the sophistication that you so enjoy evoking in the early novels has been replaced by something a lot more rough and brutal? Yes, it was, it is quite an unpleasant book, the last one. In one of the early books there is a novella which is called A Table Talk in 1882 and it is very polite salon talk with ladies and gentlemen and so on and so forth. In the last book there is a novella which is called A Table Talk in 1918. So, the contrast is incredible. It is like after the fall of Rome, something like this. And maybe that helps to answer my next question which of course is the one that has plagued every creator of a great character from Conan Doyle onwards which is will he come back? In novel form, no. I might, and actually I plan to do maybe a play, a theater play with Rass von Dornen, maybe a film script or something like this because I'm not going to write a real novel. I ran out of words having written 16 books on von Dornen. Well, my glossary is empty. The problem is not devising a plot, it comes easy to me. The problem is the texture, the fabric of the text. This is, you remember when I was writing the first novel it took me like, I don't know, six weeks to write the novel. It was very quick. Then it became slow. In the end it became very slow. I know the story, but it's not enough. Unless you find the right words, this story is not going to come alive. I know it only too well. So no more novels about von Dornen. So we can't look forward to an equivalent of the Hound of the Baskervilles when Sherlock Holmes returns. You mean the waterfall in Switzerland after he comes back? No, no. And if there are new plots it will be something from earlier periods. Now one other aspect of those books relates to your early training and your early career is Fandoren's Japanese assistant who has a very, very interesting sardonic outsiders take on imperial Russia at this time. Can you tell me a little about why Japan fascinated you when you were started out? Why you learned Japanese and what that immersion in Japanese culture and literature gave to you? I was 14. Our teacher of geography divided all the countries between us. Each of us got two and three countries which we were supposed to follow. Newspaper clippings and all that. So my lot was Tunisia and Japan. Nothing ever happened in Tunisia. I think my file was empty. But it was 1970. I was in the eighth form and in November the Japanese writer Yukio Mishima tried to stage a coup d'etat and then he committed seppuku, harakiri, and cut his own belly. And it impressed me enormously. I just imagined, I've seen a living writer only once. A writer from the Union of the Soviet writers came to our school to lecture us about October Revolution. To imagine someone like him committing harakiri, cutting his own belly seemed absolutely unimaginable. So I thought, what kind of country it is where writers cut their bellies? And this is how it all started. I started to read about Japan, watch movies, and then I wanted to learn the language culture and so on and so forth. Speaking about masa. And last year I thought that I am nostalgic for Japan. I need to go there. I was planning to. But then this whole pandemic thing started. Travel became impossible. Not only to Japan, but anywhere.  This is very productive in a creative way. You can pull out a book out of it. So I decided that I need to write a novel about Japan, a nostalgic one. And I did it. And it is a novel about masa without Fondoren. Going back to Japan where he hadn't been for 40 years. So it was for me very unusual. It doesn't belong to a series. It is a standalone. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun for me. I am grateful to Pundimi for that experience. And do you still read Japanese? I can read, but I don't think I'll be able to talk now because I haven't spoken Japanese for more than 20 years. So if I go back to Japan, maybe I think after a couple of weeks I'll start speaking again, but I don't think not now. Did you find an affinity between Japan and if you like the eastern side of Russia in the sense that we're always told that Russia is split between looking west and looking east. And if it looks east, do you find affinities with Japanese history and Japanese culture now? I do not. Well, this is not my feeling. I think that Russia has been always looking to the west. And I think that Russia should look to the east more because to the east they're very interesting neighbors. China, Japan, Korea. There was a lot to learn there. So now if we speak about the eastern side of Russia, it concerns Russian state, not culture, not mentality. Russian state is definitely built along the lines of Chinggis Khan's empire, definitely. It copies all the levers, the architecture, everything, but not the mentality. No. No. Mentally, Russians have always felt themselves to be a part of the west of Europe. Do you think that's the case even when they are politically opposed to the west or attacking the west? So in other words, is that a hostility that is based on kinship rather than on difference? Yes. They are still sizing themselves up against Europe, America. I do not know a single politician in Russia who would be interested in China and wanted to imitate China. No. Which is the loss in my view? Can I ask you a little about your other work as a writer of fiction? Because of course, as we were saying here in Britain, in America, we're dependent on knowing you through the Vandoren novels. But what about the historical novels you write under one of your other names, the novels about the immediate post-Revolution period and the 1930s? Why did you embark on that series? When I decided to write the history of Russian state, I understood very quickly that I'd have to stop in 1917, and I will. The reason is very evident to me. I would not be able to stay unemotional describing the events of the 20th century. It is too close to me. It is already the history of my family. So I would not be able to write about, say, Vladimir Lenin or Joseph Stalin in an objective manner. So better not to write at all. I decided that I'd reflect on this century, on the 20th century in another way. I write a series of novels, but not entertainment novels. Well, you know those gloomy, heavy Russian philosophical novels, something which I had never done before. And it would center around a family album of photographs. There will be photographs, real photographs, from a family album with a story tied to each of them. So I have written already four novels about the Civil War, about 1920s, about 1930s, about 1940s. And I plan to continue. When you're writing these novels, do you feel that you're tapping into a different literary personality to the one you have to operate when you're creating a mystery story? It's not another personality. It's not the mood. Because we all of us know and experience different moods, don't we? Sometimes we are hilarious, sometimes we are sad, sometimes we are silly, sometimes we unexpectedly become wise. So I'm trying to be wise in this instance. I don't know whether I succeed or not, but anyway, that is the intention. And how has the reaction to those novels been in Russian? Do you feel that you're reaching the same audience of readers? Or are you stretching out to touch other readers with this subject matter? Well, the first novel had a huge circulation because people were expecting me to entertain them again. Then the audience became much, much smaller. But this audience is very precious to me because these are people who are interested in the same things with me who want just to reflect. It is a very unpleasant reading, absolutely unlike from Dorian, because it has been a tragical century, especially for Russia. And I must say that I do not read these novels for my readers, for my audience. I read them for myself because there are some problems, difficult problems, which I need to understand. There are some questions which need to be answered. And for a writer, in order to answer a question, you have to write a text about it. You have to create a universe, a world, where people face this problem that you cannot solve. And then you see how they respond, how they react. And then hopefully you'll get your answer that how it works. You talk about Russia's tragic century and the century since the revolution. And I wonder, given that what's been happening in Russia recently, whether you thought there was anything new on the horizon or are we basically seeing a repetition of the patterns that we have seen over that century? It is definitely the repetition of the general pattern. Rebuilding empire after it was threatened by dissolution. Speaking, well, if I lived 100 years from now, and if I had to write the history of this period in Russia and stay unemotional, I would write something that in 1991, the first phase of the dissolution of the empire happened. The second phase, the dissolution of the second half of empire continued for another, I don't know, 30, 40 years. So I believe that we live now in this period. I do not think that Putinism will succeed acting the way it is to keep this country together. I don't think so. So we have now moved into the anticipated stage of life dictatorship by Putin. Then something happens to the dictator and the system falls apart. That's how it usually works in history. But from what you were saying about the cycles of Russian history, what we would expect afterwards is simply another figure to emerge of the same kind. Unless Russians do understand the importance of restructuring the state. I am very satisfied that there are two opposition programs, one created by Mikhail Khadarkovsky and another by Alexei Navalny and both of them insist on turning Russia into a federal state. This idea is a new one for Russia. It still has to find support in the country. But more and more people, I think, now tend to agree with that. So maybe at the next stage, Russia will finally reboot and start being something else, something better. About 10 or 9 years ago, you yourself took quite a prominent part in the protests at that time against the government and against the leadership. Can you imagine conditions in which you might return to again take part in organized protest? Well, even back then, I was not acting as a politician. I was not a leader or something. I was just helping. I was just helping political activists in whom I believed, whom I trusted. So that was my role. I'm still helping them now by my writing, and I will definitely. But I think that Russia needs a new generation of politicians, new generations with new brains without this Soviet-era experience. I think that the young generation in Russia is much better than we used to be in their age. This is probably the best thing that is happening in Russia these days. These new faces, new way of thinking. I have a lot of faith in it. And do you think it will be many years before those people come to be able to exercise leadership or could it happen very fast? I think that the regime is fragile. It is much, much weaker definitely than the Soviet Empire. It is corrupt. It is ineffective. When it wants to kill someone, as we know, even that they often fail because they would steal half of the funds on the way there. Another thing is it doesn't have ideology. And a dictatorship without an ideology is a dull and hopeless thing. So people in Russia, they do not really support Putin. They have no illusions about him. They just think that, well, life is bearable better this than a big change in the future. We don't know what it will bring us. So it will continue as long as, well, till a huge economical crisis or something like this. It can happen anytime. It can happen this year. It cannot happen for 20 years. So it's an aging, inefficient plutocracy. That's what it is.  And I wanted to talk about the great theme of the exile in Russian literature. I don't know whether you would describe yourself as an exile and expatriate. What would be your preferred term? I'm an expat, of course. I did not run, you know, from Bolsheviks or something. It was my choice. I haven't been in Russia since 2014. And for me, it's a matter of principle. I just don't want to be there. But I can buy a ticket when the lockdown is over and fly. So it's not true. So I don't believe I can be called an exile now. And there were a lot of people like me now, Russians living abroad, visiting Russia and coming back, especially people in professions, which are threatened by the dictatorship. If you have anything to do with freedom of word with... Well, it is like it's really, really difficult to be a journalist in Russia these days. Being a writer is the freest person in the world, probably. You don't need anything just to your head. Do you feel that there is a danger of any writer who lives outside their own country, that you lose touch with the... If you like the pulse of the community with the small changes that are happening and the way they build into big changes. In other words, can the distant writer perhaps get locked in a view of the country that brings to the past that gradually recedes? Well, it was definitely the situation in Turgenev's times. Because Turgenev lived in France. He wrote in France. After a while, he had a very vague idea of what was actually... He was living in Russia with his imaginations. Of his imaginations. These days, most of us live in the Internet. We get our information about what's happening around from the social networks. When I lived in Russia, my life was not so much different from what I have today. I was still sitting in my study and reading in the Internet what's happening around me. It doesn't matter whether it is one kilometer away or 3,000 kilometers away. It's basically the same. Do you have much to do with other Russians here in London? Do you feel you're part of some sort of community of not exiles but expats, certainly? Not this year. Not this year. But yes, there were a lot of Russians in London and UK. Interesting Russians, creative Russians. I think that Russian culture ways, London is probably third in line after Moscow and St. Petersburg. Would you say that there is maybe some kind of school of writers or journalists or filmmakers who have been shaped by living outside the country? And who may perhaps at some point return and add something new to Russian culture on its home territory? Yes, but it's happening now. A lot of directors, they work on contract in another country then they come back or they live between different countries. It has become quite cosmopolitan this milieu. And a lot of Russian writers, good writers live abroad now. I don't know. One of my favorite ones, Mikhail Shishkin, lives in Switzerland. Vladimir Sarotkin, who is very popular, lives in Germany. Ulytmila Ulitskaya, an excellent writer, lives mostly in Italy. There are writers who live in Israel and so on and so forth. Now, of course, one question that always arises when Russian writers are outside the country for a long time is, do they at some point give up the Russian language? Obviously, I'm thinking about Nabokov, for instance. Has that ever been a temptation for you? Nabokov didn't have a choice and he was much younger than me. So I don't want to lose the language. I live in that language. I haven't lost even the contact with my readers because thanks to the internet, I am connected. I get feedback every day. I ask them what they think. Sometimes I take polls like what do you think about this or that and so on and so forth. We live in an amazing world. We are very privileged compared to our predecessors. I usually live in three countries. Just now, I'm here in the UK because of the lockdown. Usually every two or three weeks, I move to my Spanish home, my French home, because I always write on three books simultaneously, each of them in a different country. This is the way I exist. So if you asked me where I live, well, I live here in my head. It doesn't change. Now you talked about this before, about writing different kinds of books in different countries. Could you say a little about which location favours a particular literary genre? What is France good for? London is perfect for nonfiction. Yeah, something in the air is very good for it. France, to be more precise, I have a house in the north of France, which is very unlike Côte d'Azur. It is good for serious literature. It is good for serious literature. It sets you just in the right direction. And entertainment I write in Spain, in the south of Spain. This year, when I couldn't travel and I had to travel inside myself, I discovered some new territories unknown to me. And I wrote some new types of books which I hadn't even imagined I'd be able to write. I wrote a collection of fairy tales quite unexpectedly for myself. I am because I'm stuck in London. I'm writing now a book which is called A Russian in England, which is an experiment for me. It is about all Russians from different epochs who lived here. What happened to them? What they felt, what they thought it is. It's interesting for me. And there are some other experiments that I'm going to try like online theater from a distance. Which wouldn't have been impossible without all this crisis. That's really exciting. And my last question before we move to the questions submitted by our audience. In general, has lockdown allowed you to do things creatively that you would never have done otherwise? You know, it is. I've had a slightly similar experience in the past. When I had my first, well, crisis. Literary, well, creative crisis. I went on a world tour, on a world cruise, on a ship three months in the sea. It was quite an ordeal because it was incredibly boring. Incredibly boring. You see only water each day. You understand that the earth is actually not earth but water. But from the sense of creation, it did me a lot of good. Absolutely new unexpected ideas. I started moving in a new direction. The same here. The same here. So I'm actually grateful to Pandemia and I do not even resent the fact that I had the COVID. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. We have some really interesting questions from the audience. And if you don't mind, I'd like to start with one from Tamuna, who asks about your influences, not from Russian, but from other European literature. Which writers, non-Russian writers, have affected the way that you write? And is that a particular period of other European literature that you appreciate? Oh, my head and my memory is like, I don't know, is like pizza. So there is a piece of all kinds of literary works and literary influences in it. Yes, I often do play with non-Russian authors as well. I have a novel which imitates Robert Liu Stevenson, Prince Floresel. I have a whole novel, a thick novel, with 30 or 40 chapters. Each chapter is a title of a certain literary work from world literature. And it starts or ends with the exact phrase by which this work starts or ends. So this is that sort of crystal grid for me. It was a challenge, it was fun. I have a collection of detective novellas, which are dedications to different masters of the genre. Charles Holmes, Semenon, Patrice, Highsmith, whatever.  So I do a lot of that. Thank you. Now we have a question from Marietta, going back to our discussion of your Georgian roots. And it is, how much Georgian literature do you know? Do you read Georgian writers, either contemporary or historical? Is Georgia part of your literary map? Unfortunately not. I read Soviet writers of Georgian origin when I worked in a literary magazine. I had two. But recently, no, well, I must say that I do not read any fiction. I haven't read it for 20 years. I read only nonfiction because reading fiction is not healthy for a writer, at least not for myself. You don't want to be influenced by other people's styles. Thank you. Now there's a question from Julia, which is about how much of your work we can read in English. And she's saying that apparently some of the fundraising works are currently not available in translation. And are we going to be able to read the entirety of the fundraising novels in English? The publisher skipped two books from Pandorian series because they are not novels, but collections of novellas. And they think that collection of novellas do not sell. All the novels have been translated and published in the English language. And there is also the series about Sister Pilagia, which has been translated. What about if I could follow up with the question of my own? You were mentioning these very fascinating sounding novels about Nikolai Pandorian, the detective grandson. Is there a chance that we might see them translated into English? No, I don't think there are any plans to translate it. There are four novels in the series. And a question from Boris, who asks whether you've been tempted to write a novel set in Georgia, perhaps. A novel, no. I don't know Georgia well enough. But when I went to Georgia five years ago, I went there with a purpose. I always travel with a purpose. I'm a very scheming writer. I needed to find a setting for a theatre play about Eras Pandorian in Georgia, and I found it. And I think that I'll probably do it this year, finally. Now a question from Kate, which goes right back to your early work about the nonfiction book that you wrote about suicide and the philosophy of suicide and suicide in literature. Why did that subject present itself to you? I'm very much surprised. I've been often asked this question. Why did you get the idea to write about suicide? Well, in my view, to be or not to be is the basic philosophical question. Whether life is worth suffering all its unpleasantness. Why do we need to see this film to the end? Sometimes it's a horror movie. Sometimes it's incredibly boring or whatever. So this is, you need to understand. I wanted to understand. So I wrote this book. I chose as my material the lives and biographies of writers who committed suicide, only writers. Not because I was interested in writers committing suicide, but because a writer is a human being which likes to explain everything that he does. And if a writer commits suicide, he'd always explain why he did it and sometimes beautifully.  A writer will always explain it. So they are very good to understand this whole phenomenon. Well, thank you. I think we're going to have to wind up the questions there. Yeah, but it was fantastic to talk to Gregory, to Boris, both of them, about a literary career that has spanned so many genres, so many forms, and taken him and his readers to so many different places. Now that is the end of the British Library hosted days for the George's Fantastic Tabin Festival, but I'm glad to say it's not the end of the festival. Tomorrow there'll be a series of events called Tabin Encounters, which are being hosted online by the Writers House of Georgia. So thanks to them and there's a lot more to look forward to. However, this isn't the end of our event today. We have a little farewell treat for you, which is a song, sung by Chella, the Cambridge Georgian Choir. So we can look forward to that and it only remains for me to say thank you so much to Gregory, Boris, for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you, Boyd. Hi, I'm Charlotte Collins, one of the co-translators of Nino Haratishvili's The Eighth Life. I also sing with Chella, the Cambridge Georgian Choir, and we're delighted to have been asked to prepare a song for you. We figured that after the long winter, everyone could do with a bit of cheering up, so we've prepared a city song called Ghazapuli, which means spring.


Today, we're talking about who sex offenders are and how to find out if there's one near you.   So, how can you find out if a sex offender lives near you? The first step is to do an online search. However, only felony sex offenders will show up there. To get a complete list of sex offenders, contact your local law enforcement agency. Keep in mind, the full list can be very big. Want to do your own search? Click that link to find sex offenders in your community.


go down to the reports again, and then I'm just gonna type in up top to find it. That's how I usually find the statement of cash flows. Statement of cash flows, there it is. That's the one we want. Let's change the range up top. We're going from 010122 to 123122 and run it. There we have it, the statement of cash flows. Now, when you're thinking about the financial reports, oftentimes we'll list the statement of cash flows as one of the major financial statement reports. So you got the balance sheet, you got the income statement, you've got the statement of cash flows. The reason we don't open it up every time we do the data input as we do with the balance sheet and the income statement is cause you can kind of think of the statement of cash flows if you were to construct this by hand as being constructed after you build the balance sheet and the income statement. So in other words, if I go back to the balance sheet, when we first set up our system, we're going to lay down the chart of accounts, then we're going to hit the plus button and we're going to enter these journal entries in the format of forms that then create the journal entries. These will have an impact on at least two accounts on the balance sheet or the and the income statement. And that is going to be keeping us in balance with the double entry accounting system. And it's nice to then go to the balance sheet and income statement drill down on the accounts affected to get back to the source document. So I would think of these as our major two financial statement reports being constructed directly from the data input. Then we're going to use this information or the system uses this information to create the statement of cash flows which shows activity, what happens over time in a similar fashion as the income statement you'll note on a cash flow type of basis. Now note that you might be thinking, well, what if I have my books, my balance sheet and my income statement on a cash flow basis is the statement of cash flows redundant?  There's still some components that are going to be accrual based. So if you have, for example, fixed assets, the tax code, even though it might be on a cash based system or you might be recording on a cash based system will force you to put assets on the books and then depreciate them. That's an accrual type of thing. If you deal with accounts receivable, then you're going to have, that's an accrual account in and of itself. You're on an accrual system and so there's going to be differences between cash flow and a accrual basis and then same with the accounts payable and then if you've got any kind of prepayments then also those are going to be accrual kind of items. The reason the accrual system is required oftentimes if you're publicly traded for example and is considered the go to for reporting purposes and projection purposes is if we go on the income statement it's often easiest to see that if you were to compare multiple periods if I hit the dropdown here and say we want to compare like quarters, let's say and if I was to run multiple quarters here and do a comparison of these last two quarters let's do it this way. Let's go back to the totals, let's run it. I'm going to go up here and let's just do, let's do one month. So let's go 12, let's 0122 to 123122 run it and then I'm do a comparison to the previous month and do a dollar change on it. So I'm going to run it. So if I was trying to think how did I do on December versus November then I would have distorted numbers if I recorded say a purchase of a building in December for a hundred thousand dollars then there would be a complete distortion of my comparison and it's not really fair to do that from one perspective because you'd be saying, hey look even though I bought the building in December let's say or let's say I bought it in November even if I bought it in November I'm still going to be using it in December and that's the idea of an accrual. So we're going to say to be fair to the two months so that I have a comparable amount of data if I buy something that's going to have an impact on multiple periods into the future I want to put it on the books as an asset and then depreciate it, record the expense when I actually consume it so I have more comparable data. Now in principle that's a great concept it allows us to have comparisons more accurately but we also want to have a cash flow statement so now I've lost my income statement it's not on a cash flow basis well now I can add on and have the best of both worlds in essence a statement of cash flows but the statement of cash flows is a little bit tricky because now I'm going to have to kind of take what I did on an accrual basis and basically adjust it to a cash flow basis.