22 Facts About Zurab Zhvania

Zurab Zhvania was a Georgian politician, who served as Prime Minister of Georgia and Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia.

In 1993, Zurab Zhvania was elected General Secretary of Eduard Shevardnadze's political party.

From that point on until his death in 2006, Zurab Zhvania played an important role in Georgian politics.

In 1995 he became the chairman of parliament and maintained the post until his resignation in 1999, which was followed with the discharge of other ministers whom Zurab Zhvania had suspected of corruption.

In 2003, Zurab Zhvania united with other opposition leaders, mainly Burdjanadze and Saakashvili, to hold non-violent protests against the rigging of the 2003 presidential elections.

Zurab Zhvania became prime minister and served the post until his death in 2005.

Zurab Zhvania was born in Tbilisi into the family of Besarion Zurab Zhvania, an ethnic Georgian, and Rema Antonova, of mixed Jewish and Armenian ancestry, both physicists working at the Tbilisi Institute of Physics.

Between 1988 and 1990, Georgia's Green Party, which Zurab Zhvania co-chaired, was one of a number of opposition groups that took part in the country's drive to regain its independence.

In 1992 Zurab Zhvania was elected chairman of Eastern European Greens.

Zurab Zhvania joined the UGC in 1995, entering the Georgian parliament in the same year, and recruited other reformists to the party, notably Mikheil Saakashvili.

Zurab Zhvania had a wife and three children, and in addition to his native Georgian, he spoke Armenian, Hebrew, English, German, and Russian.

Zurab Zhvania is the only Georgian Prime Minister to have died while in office.

Zurab Zhvania was replaced on an interim basis by Zhvania's successor as parliamentary speaker, Nino Burjanadze.

Zurab Zhvania himself became a minister in the transitional government prior to fresh presidential elections held on 4 January 2004, which were won by Saakashvili.

In February 2004 according to the proposal of President Saakashvili Zurab Zhvania was elected as prime minister by the Parliament of Georgia.

Zurab Zhvania led a young reformist cabinet with 15 members with an average age of 35 years.

Zurab Zhvania was a key figure in the talks on the separatist republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Zurab Zhvania died early in the morning of 3 February 2005 from what officials claimed was carbon monoxide poisoning caused by an inadequately ventilated gas heater.

Zurab Zhvania was in a rented apartment with Raul Usupov, deputy governor of Georgia's Kvemo Kartli region, at the time.

Zurab Zhvania's death is a great blow to Georgia and to me personally.

Years after the incident, Zurab Zhvania's death remains at the center of Georgia's political life.

In 2015, several of Zurab Zhvania's bodyguards were convicted of neglect after they admitted that on the day of Zurab Zhvania's death they had left him alone, at his own request.