Kidnappers, perjury and beauty queens: The stormy saga of Miss Georgia 2007

By Ana Datiashvili

Georgia’s biggest summer news story didn’t involve reneging ex-ministers. It wasn’t about malfunctioning missiles, state privatizations or government shakeups.


The country’s most urgent contretemps revolved around an 18-year-old divorcee and an international beauty pageant.


Unless you spent the summer huddled in a Vardzia cave, you’ve heard bits and pieces of the story. This is all of it.

A questionable victory
On July 14 in sunny seaside Batumi, the Miss Georgia beauty pageant crowned 18-year-old Nino Likuchova its lucky 2007 winner. But when Likuchova placed that peacock-esque diadem upon her head, she contravened five decades of international Miss World bylaws.
Ms. Likuchova was married. Or was she? In Georgia, a simple question often isn’t.

The unwilling bride
The first spark in an inflammatory controversy came when intrepid Alia journalist Dito Tikaradze dug up wedding photos and records of a bitter court case. When the Alia journo called Likuchova to ask about the nuptial stills, he says, Likuchova denied ever being married. The newspaper went ahead and published the story August 2. The abrupt scrutiny forced Likuchova to confront a trauma she would rather have left in her past. The embattled Miss Georgia retracted her denial, and went public with her story: she was bride kidnapped.


“I didn’t have a happy face, and anyone could guess after seeing my pictures that I was not a real bride,” she calmly told the cameras on an Imedi TV talk show. “I agreed to the wedding, because [his family] was menacing me, and I saw that this was the only way to get rid of them.”

He said, she said, he won
Likuchova never explained the history between her and Merab Abashidze. Wedding photos show a blue-suited man, young but with graying hair, half-smiling as he props himself upright with crutches. His 16-year-old bride wears a white veil over an inscrutable face. No one is saying what happened between the wedding day and Likuchova’s day in court. Their church wedding was never legally registered, so the court case was not for a divorce—it was to press charges against Abashidze for abducting her. But after learning her alleged kidnapper faced more than two decades in the slammer, Likuchova recounts, she had a change of heart.


“I would be pitiless, if I let sit him in prison for 22 years,” she later said. “That’s why I decided to change my testimony—but this kindness went against me.”


In a bitter turnaround, Likuchova’s recantation led to her being convicted of perjury and placed on two years’ probation. Abashidze strenuously denies having resorted to kidnapping his inamorata.


“I never did anything to her by force. If I wanted to become her legitimate husband by force, I would have taken her to [the Tbilisi registrar’s office], but we were in church, having our marriage blessed,” Abashidze told tenacious journalists as the story unfolded.


The court believed him. According to Alia, he won the case by showing the court his wedding photographs—and by pointing out the difficulties he, a physically handicapped man, would have in forcing a teenage girl to marry him.

The controversy continues…and continues…
Miss World’s preliminary national competitions are carried out by license holders from Brazil to Angola to Romania. Ia Kintsmarishvili’s Image Center is the license holder of Miss Georgia for five years running.


“I protest against the violence,” Kintsmarishvili said. “Nino [Likuchova] was a victim, so instead of discussing her eligibility, we should think about how many girls are stuck in the same situation, and how they’ll get out if it.”


Despite her apparent concern for victimized young women, Kintsmarishvili kept media attention on the Miss Georgia competition. The pageant organizer convened a series of coquettish press conferences throughout the summer, each time promising to disclose the professional fate of the unfortunate M(r)s. Likuchova—and repeatedly pushing off any final announcements for yet another Image Center-sponsored press event.

By September, the time had come to put the scandal to rest.

The Image Center matriarch went on live TV to make her announcement: the council of esteemed beauty pageant jurists had reached its decision. Miss Georgia Nino Likuchova would keep her sparkling tiara, the council decreed, and the prizes—including a shiny new Peugeot—lavished upon her as the most beautiful woman in Georgia. But she would not be going to China to vie for the global title. Instead, second runner-up and lifelong bachelorette Tamuna Nemsitsveridze will carry Georgia’s hopes and dreams on her size 0 shoulders.

And the first runner-up, Nino Lekveishvili? She too was wed in younger days, the 20 year old admitted. Organizers stripped her of her title, elevating Nemsitsveridze to second place.

Miss World’s international headquarters told the Messenger they’re nothing but sympathetic bystanders in the dramatic tale of Miss Georgia 2007.

“Our reaction here is one of sadness for both the Miss Georgia Organisation and Nino Likuchova and anybody else that is involved in forcing anyone to do anything against their will,” said Julia Morley, a Miss World spokeswoman.

A teenage girl, trying to move on

At just 18, Likuchova is burdened with memories of a tragic wedding and a wrecked modelling career. And yet, coming clean on national television, she asked for forgiveness and understanding.

“I want to apologize to the public, and to the pageant jury…I never felt like I was married. I consulted with priests, and they told me that an obligatory ceremony does not make a real marriage. Getting married was the only way for me to get out of that hell. I was just trying to get back to my family.”

Now, Likuchova is back at university in Batumi, trying to put the entire episode behind her.

She would not put up a fight if they decided to take her title, she says: it’s caused her enough trouble already.

Source: The Messenger