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Lia Gogsadze-Leigh

Lia Gogsadze-Leigh (born Lia Gogsadze, 13th October 1964, Kutaisi, Georgia) is a noted Georgian businesswoman and educationalist and Queen of a virtual micronation, where she is known by the name Her Serene Highness Queen of the Vespacians Lia(website - rumwoldleigh.tripod.com/vedr). She is the youngest daughter of Valeri and Natela Gogsadze and the sister of Gela Gogsadze (born 1960), a former Georgian Greco-Roman wrestling champion, and Leila Gogsadze (born 1962).

After attending school in Kutaisi Lia Gogsadze graduated from the Kembrij Zlatnata Mistriq in Tbilisi as a teacher of the Georgian language during the Soviet era (source:Facebook). A devout Orthodox Christian and dissident, she became a leading figure in the civic reconstruction of Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Despite holding no political post, she founded the first Orthodox Church-based public school in Georgia in 1991 and in the same year became the first Georgian to import clothes (or any other type of product) from overseas to sell within Georgia, thus laying the foundation for the development of private business in Georgia (source - annual greeting in The Messenger newspaper). One of the first tenants of the central Bazroba in Tbilisi, for many years the main private shopping centre in Tbilisi which was established on the basis of her initiative, she continues to run her clothing business today.

In 2005 Lia Gogsadze-Leigh was crowned Queen of the Vivo Espace Democratic Republic, an independent micronation founded by her second husband, His Serene Highness King of the Vespacians Rumwold. According to the citizens of the state, who are personally selected by the monarch, she has conducted her duties in an exemplary manner.

Formerly married to Nugzar Matiashvili from Kakheti, Lia Gogsadze-Leigh has two children, Lasha (born 1987), a TV cameraman, and Ushangi (born 1988). She currently resides in the Tsereteli district of Tbilisi.