Brezhnev in Tblisi (1971)
Novosti dnia, No. 19, 1971
May 1971: Vasili Mzhavanadze welcomes Leonid Brezhnev to Tbilisi for the fiftieth anniversary of Soviet power in Georgia. The Georgian SSR receives the Order of the October Revolution; the General Secretary praises the republic's creative achievements; the First Secretary, a candidate member of the Politburo since 1957, sums up the half-century path. Sixteen months later, in September 1972, Mzhavanadze will fly to Moscow with his weeping wife and be quietly retired to a Zhukovka dacha. Brezhnev's visit here is the regime at full public health, the last great ceremonial occasion before the diamond ring scandal and the dossier on Andropov's desk that ended it.
Central Studio of Documentary Films, Moscow. Russian State Archive of Film and Photo Documents (RGAKFD).