In the former Soviet republic of Georgia, voters elected the 36-year-old U.S. educated lawyer Mikkhail Saakashvili to be the nation’s next president by a landslide margin. Saakashvili helped orchestrate the fall of former president Eduard Shevardnadze in November. The U.S. strongly supported the election of Saakashvilli. According to the Financial Times, the U.S. raised $14 million to help pay state salaries over the winter since Shevardnadze’s government fell. Saakashvilli is one of the most Americanized politicians to take power in the former Soviet Union. He is a graduate of Columbia University Law School and attended George Washington University. Georgia’s location has grown in strategic value for the United States in part because oil companies are building a new pipeline through the country to link the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean.