Musicians fleeing Russia find a new audience in Georgia

Musicians play during the first rehearsal with the small symphonic orchestra of fellow Russian musicians that Alexei Antropov, 29, is trying to build in Tbilisi, Georgia, December 26, 2022. Antropov is keeping his passion alive and has gathered a small group of classical musicians with a view to performing in Tbilisi and possibly Yerevan, the capital of neighbouring Armenia. "I do not have an orchestra now," Antropov told Reuters. "So I am building my own." REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Until September, Aleksei Antropov was playing double bass for the Russian Philharmonic orchestra in Moscow.

But when President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two to boost his faltering invasion of Ukraine, the 29-year-old fled to neighbouring Georgia where he now works as a hotel receptionist.