On March 26, 2010, residents of the village of Ergneti in the Gori district held a protest outside the Shida Kartli Regional Administration building, demanding government assistance to carry out agricultural work.

According to the protesters, the authorities had promised them a subsidy, but the promise was not fulfilled.

Residents of Ergneti said they would be unable to cultivate their farmland without assistance and would be left without a harvest.

Before the August 2008 war, the village received irrigation water from Tskhinvali, but this channel had long been blocked. In addition, farmland north of the village, near the Tskhinvali boundary, remained uncleared of mines, preventing villagers from accessing the area; for this reason, they were asking the government for compensation.

The villagers planned to hold a protest in Tbilisi, but according to them, police first blocked their buses and then transported the protesters to Gori to meet with the local governor.

The residents say that the meeting with the governor was unsuccessful, as the local authorities could not decide on compensation—this would have required funding from the central budget.

The governor of Gori Municipality, Davit Khmiadashvili, promised only that they would be provided with irrigation systems. After Tskhinvali cut off the irrigation channels, a dam was built near the village of Nikozi on the Liakhvi River to irrigate the Gori and Kareli districts, but because the dam was located downstream from Ergneti, the water could not reach the village by gravity.