adibas is set in August 2008, as the South Ossetian crisis escalated into full-scale regional war between Russia and Georgia. Life in the Georgian capital Tbilsi goes on more or less as normal for the narrator and his acquaintances in adibas, but the shadow of the conflict looms very large, from armored vehicles taking up positions on the streets to overheard radio and television bulletins about the fighting that crop up throughout the text. The narrator, Shako, barely addresses the war directly, yet it’s always there in the background (even more obviously for Georgian readers, for whom the date 8/8/2008 still resonates very strongly).
adibas presents a Georgia, and a lifestyle, that is caught up in imitating the West. Shako and his acquaintances are much like trend-setting modern consumers everywhere, and many of the modern accessories, from iPods to mojitos, feature here; the characters Skype, too, and contemporary pop culture and marketing are pervasive, right down to the Hannah Montana stickers. But this Georgia is also a fraud, an imitation-West — hence ‘adibas’ rather than ‘adidas’. Throughout the novel Burchuladze cleverly uses these alternate-fashion labels and doctored logos — ‘Everlost’, ‘Emporio Armeni’, and even a variation on McDonald’s Happy Meals — to hammer home both the superficialities of the brand name and the eager Georgian embrace of anything resembling it.
