On November 18, the Facebook page “Realoba” [Reality] posted a video of a dance from a protest held near Tbilisi State University, in which, according to the post, two young people are performing the Lezginka dance. The comments under the video show that users perceive it negatively, calling the dance Russian or Chechen.
The video of the dance shared by the Facebook page “Realoba” has been overlaid with a fragment from a song by Chechen musician Madina Uzbaeva. It is heard from the original video that the young people are dancing to an instrumental version of “Gandagana.”
In the version published by the Facebook page “Realoba,” it can be seen that the music has been overlaid on the video. In the bottom left corner of the video, it can be seen that the music used is from a music library available on Facebook and Instagram, namely, a short segment from Madina Uzbaeva’s “Potpourri” (Мадина Узбаева – Попури) (from around 8:33). When uploading short videos (Reels) to Facebook and Instagram, it is possible to replace the original audio with fragments of songs and musical compositions available on these platforms.
The original version of the video, filmed at the protest, was posted on November 18 at 14:41 by the protest group “Daitove.” In this version, the young people can be heard dancing to an instrumental version of the Adjarian song “Gandagana.”
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