What Happened Demonstrations in Georgia stretched into their eighth straight day on June 28, with thousands of protesters massing in front of the parliament building in Tbilisi and another several hundred protesters marching from parliament to the home of the chairman of the ruling Georgian Dream party , Bidzina Ivanishvili. The protest storm gripping Georgia's capital began with a June 20 demonstration that erupted after news emerged that Sergei Gavrilov, a Russian lawmaker, had addressed an assembly of Orthodox Christian legislators from the parliament speaker's seat. Gavrilov's address from that symbolic position was viewed as a significant breach of protocol, especially among Georgians whose mistrust of Russia over its 2008 invasion of their country remains strong. The June 20 protest ended in violence when police clashed with protesters trying to storm the parliamentary building. More than 200 injuries were reported.