2026 was a year of political crisis, polarisation, the erosion of democratic institutions, deepening social inequality, restrictions on fundamental freedoms, and growing international isolation in Georgia. Hundreds of protesters in the movement that emerged in response to the suspension of the country’s EU integration process faced fines and arrests, and some remain imprisoned. Pressure on independent media and civil society intensified further. The use of words such as "regime," "repression," “political prisoner," “unlawful detention," etc., became grounds for punishment. The Constitutional Court is reviewing a case seeking to ban opposition political parties. An already inhumane drug policy and its punitive practices became even more severe. The situation within the penitentiary system is extremely alarming: the prison population has increased by 43% over the past 18 months, while the incarceration rate is among the highest in Europe. Emigration remains an urgent demographic and social challenge. In recent years, more than 250,000 people have left the country, while over 100,000 citizens of Russia, which still occupies 20% of Georgia, have entered as long-term immigrants. The destruction of urban recreational areas, accelerated gentrification, and the commodification of real estate have imperilled free cultural spaces. As a result of property sell-offs, TES, Tbili Orgia, and Left Bank’s Space Two, vital spaces of musical experimentation and free self-expression, lost their homes. After 14 years, Mtkvarze, inseparable from Tbilisi’s club culture, is closing its doors, while the Rike Hall, of particular symbolic significance in BASSIANI’s history, has been demolished. The 4GB, Tkeshi, and Ezo festivals, along with Kibe in Batumi, have been forced to relocate. A city whose social, cultural, and urban fabric is disintegrating at such a pace is losing the core of its alternative movement, its capacity for self-organisation, its collective memory, and ultimately, its path towards change. 2026 was also a turbulent year for a world that continues to confront war, oppression, and systemic violence. Yet alongside the resurgence of far-right movements, fascism, and authoritarianism, the streets are full of rebellion, as people fight for justice and a dignified life. This year also bore witness to victories of those striving for freedom. The history of BASSIANI, too, has always been written in the tension between the craving for this freedom and the barriers erected against it: in struggle and celebration, rapture and melancholy, rage and care, hope and despair, fear and collective ecstasy. A journey like this calls for continuous devotion, for we stay steadfast in our belief that culture is a weapon of resistance and that imagination opens the door. The present resembles a harrowing nightmare, but perhaps such nightmares are the very precondition for awakening from a dream. And perhaps our ultimate New Year’s wish is simply to step out of the club into the dawn and find the world we spent our nights imagining. For this magical New Year’s Eve, BASSIANI family members, longstanding friends, and our traditional New Year’s first-footers will helm a 48-hour musical marathon united by the unwavering conviction that music is a source of liberation, unity, and resistance, and that the dancefloor is a haven of solidarity and struggle for a shared future. *** The year 2027 arrives without Juan Atkins, the founding architect of techno and one of electronic music’s most influential innovators. He forged a new musical language that irrevocably altered the course of history and laid the foundations for a culture that unites people worldwide. Sadly, our dream of welcoming Juan Atkins to Bassiani was never fulfilled, but his legacy stands as one of our pillars, and his voice will never fall silent—it will live on through new generations, on every dancefloor where music continues to meet the future.