ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN ANCHOR: Jewelry is the universal symbol of wealth and social standing. According to Egyptian legend, Cleopatra dissolved a single pearl in a glass of wine, then drank it to show that she could consume the wealth of an entire nation in just one meal. How about that?</s>RALPH WENGE, CNN ANCHOR: No wonder she had such influence. In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, economic difficulties have put jewelry out of most people's reach and cut into the business of local craftsmen. Here's Georgia's MIR.</s>EKA BURJANADZE, MIR REPORTER (voice-over): The art of jewelry is a luxury for wealthy people. It is flourishing and developing in places where the most part of the population is not concerned only with problems of how to earn for a living. There is no surprise that in Georgia this field is facing difficult times. On the one hand, a number of Georgian jewelers are quite famous abroad, but on another, this jeweler, once regarded as one of the prestigious, now hardly makes for a living.
Georgian Jewelers Struggling to Make a Living