Kompromat by Giorgi Rtskhiladze

Author:Giorgi Rtskhiladze
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rare Bird Books
Published: 2020-03-30T23:52:26+00:00

9

Trump Invests in Georgia

Ivana Trump Hotel

In 2008, a month after the bloody Russian invasion of Georgia where the West stood silent as Russian tanks were butchering innocent Georgian lives, George Ramishvili, my good friend, and I founded Silk Road TransAtlantic Alliance (SRTA), a US company with a mission of strengthening US-Georgian relationships so that Georgia would be less vulnerable to another brutal Russian invasion.

Over the following years, SRTA was successful in launching Georgian entities for a number of iconic US brands including National Geographic, CNBC, and CNN. Bringing the Trump brand to Georgia was a brainchild of SRTA as well.

In 2009, Saaskashvili was still president of Georgia. He had made developing Batumi, a city on Georgia’s Black Sea Coast, into the Monte-Carlo of Caucasus and Central Asia one of the signature projects of his administration.

Silk Road had acquired a property in Batumi, and George and I started thinking about a strategy for developing this magnificent site as a hotel or residences and how to market it internationally.

My good friend Camilla Olsson is a master in PR, connecting some of the most powerful people. When on the rare occasion there was someone I wanted to contact whom I didn’t know, I asked Camilla, who was never more than one degree of separation from anyone.

For example, when I wanted to bring Roberto Cavalli to Georgia, Camilla organized a meeting in the middle of a New York winter storm. In no time, Roberto and I got along. I knew his creative and business-driven personality would be open to the idea of traveling to Georgia to add his magic touch to the Batumi development. He agreed. Soon after, Roberto came to Georgia on his private plane.

Camilla and I had met Ivana Trump, Donald’s first wife (and mother of Don Jr., Eric, and Ivanka). I wondered if we might develop an Ivana Trump Hotel on the Batumi Riviera.

I asked Ivana if she would be interested in branding a hotel in her own name, if that wasn’t a problem because she is a Trump.

Her answer: “Absolutely. It’s very interesting.”

First, I visited Ivana in her beautiful Manhattan townhouse. She was a gracious host, and served us an elegant high tea with a strong black tea and delicious sweets. She was there with her lawyer and we discussed a potential deal.

At the conclusion of our conversation, I invited her to Georgia so she could see the property, learn about Georgia. She accepted.

George Ramishvili and I hosted Ivana for three days in Georgia. Her trip was not without incident. To arrive in Georgia, Ivana flew first to Kiev, Ukraine, where her luggage was lost, including two (very expensive, as she described) chinchilla fur coats.

Ivana was upset. She is a wonderful woman, but you definitely don’t want to be there when she’s angry. She was very blunt: “If I can’t get my chinchilla coats back ASAP, I am canceling my trip and going right back to New York.” I told her that going back to NYC abruptly would’ve been very disrespectful to me, my partners, and to the president of Georgia (with whom a meeting was set up).

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