David Khidasheli Founded the Technical University Development Fund

National Agency of Public Registry of Ministry of Justice registered the fund on December 19, 2022. The chairman of the organization is David Khidasheli and the executive director is his business partner, Revaz Maisuradze, owner of Global Victory Georgia LLC.

Mikheil Janikashvili, a member of Technical University’s academic council, said that a million GEL will be the fund’s budget.

“That’s his own good will. He finances the fund himself. We will submit projects and the foundation will consider which ones should be financed. I don't care about his [David Khidasheli’s] interest, he invested money, he didn't even say what direction he wanted. He invested money and said – for the development of a technical university”, Janikashvili said in an interview with Formula TV company.

According to Revaz Maisuradze, executive director of the foundation, the purpose of creating the foundation is to support young scientists and “there is no business interest at all”.

David Khidasheli is the main character of the so-called “Cartographers’ Case”. Before the 2020 parliamentary elections, the Prosecutor’s Office arrested Iveri Melashvili, former head of the Service of Georgian State Border Delimitation, Demarcation and Border Relations of the Department of Neighboring Countries at the Foreign Ministry, as well as Natalia Ilychova, chief inspector of the Land Border Defense Department of the Border Police. In January 2021, the leader of Georgian Dream party Bidzina Ivanishvili while being on air on Georgian public broadcaster thanked Khidasheli for transferring the maps with which, according to Ivanishvili’s words, he “saved David Gareja, the most important monument of Georgian culture, from being cut in half”. Irakli Gharibashvili accused Melashvili and Ilychova of treason, as if they agreed on the border of Georgia in favor of Azerbaijan. The discussion of the “cartographers’ case” is still ongoing in the court.

On 11^th of March of 2022, 104,712 hectares of forest in the Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti regions were handed over to an investor by the Georgian government for 49 years to arrange a hunting farm there. The government kept this decision secret. David Khidasheli paid 1,151,832 GEL as license fee, which is 11 GEL per hectare. According to the contract, Khidasheli should invest 5 million GEL in 5 years and breed noble deer and Caucasian deer (European bison) in the forests of Racha and Kvemo Svaneti, and then organize a hunting farm. Green Alternative and Racha Community Organization appealed to the court with the request to revoke the license.

With 10 million GEL, which is 10 times less than the original cost of the project, David Khidasheli, bought the complex colloquially known as Rike jugs in Tbilisi - 14,591 square meters of land and buildings located on it.

David Khidasheli's company Global Victory Georgia LTD owns the 16-hectare Akhtala resort in Gurjaani. By the end of August 2022, Khidasheli was supposed to build a hotel complex with at least 120 rooms at the resort and employ people, but company did not fulfill any of its obligations. The Government of Georgia extended its term until the spring of 2024.

Russian oligarch Vladimir Yevtushenkov and David Khidasheli appear in a secret audio recording released on April 25, 2022. According to the record, Vladimir Yevtushenkov called Bidzina Ivanishvili in March to talk about the grain deal and told him that David would bring his “idea” to Georgia.