Thomas de Waal: “Batumi, the world’s first oil port, between 1917 and 1921”

Thomas de Waal, British journalist, author, and Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe, delivered a lecture titled “Batum/Batumi, The World’s First Oil Port, between 1917 and 1921: British Occupation, Turkish Invasion and Georgian Absorption” on June 26 in Batumi. The event was part of a symposium organized by the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

The 2025 Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia took place in Batumi, Yerevan, and Tbilisi from June 25 to July 13.