Georgia’s Former President Is Living The Hipster High Life In Brooklyn

“We are all Georgians now,” Republican presidential candidate John McCain famously declared in 2008, after speaking to Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili amid a growing conflict between Russia and the post-Soviet nation. McCain’s campaign was playing up the conflict to paint candidate Barack Obama as inexperienced on foreign policy.

Six years later — and two years after he was ousted as president — it turns out Saakashvili is quite happy living the American life in a “self-imposed exile.”

In a richly detailed profile, the New York Times reports that the former Georgian president is now living in his uncle’s apartment “on the Williamsburg waterfront” in Brooklyn, where he rides his bike, frequents the bars and cafes and occasionally gets recognized on the street by a fellow Georgian — what he affectionately dubbed his “DiCaprio moment.”

He remembered living in Manhattan and attending Columbia Law School in the 1990s. Then, Brooklyn was “a place where hit men dump bodies.” Now, he has a different perspective on his neighbors. “They are hipsters,” the ex-president told the Times. “But they are still making tons of money, and they live a pleasant lifestyle and make it in life.”

Even though he’s surrounded by New York hipsters and schmoozes with prominent American and foreign leaders — like David Petraeus and former France President Nicolas — Saakashvili apparently hasn’t forgotten his home country, where human rights and embezzlement charges await him.

Saakashvili has written a series of opinion pieces for major papers like the Times and the Washington Post attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin and calling on the west to be more aggressive in reining him in.

He is currently working on his memoir.