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The city of Gori was bombed and occupied, and a fierce battle further north in Shindisi left the station destroyed and the railway abandoned.

"In these streets we had Russians," says Mindia Goderdzishvili, running the campaign in Gori for opposition group Coalition for Change.

Ivanishvili visited Gori during the election campaign and promised an apology to the people of South Ossetia for the 2008 war, which he blamed on Saakashvili's government, rather than the Russians who bombed the city.

Gori's memory of Georgia's northern neighbour is not based solely on what happened in 2008.

Opposition campaigners in Gori say some voters retain a lingering affection for the Soviet period, but that most people have moved on.