When in 1993 a citizen of the Dutch kingdom, Sandra Rulofs met with a pretty Georgian student Mikhail Saakashvili, no one could even imagine that in the future she was destined to become the wife of the president of the Caucasian republic. As the first lady of Georgia, she never openly intervened in politics, but at the same time she was always a reliable support for her husband.
Education and hobbies
Sandra Elizabeth Roelofs was born on December 23, 1968 in the Dutch town of Terneuzen. She is a Flemish by nationality. As a child, Sandra wanted to become a writer. She published her early stories under a false name. Studied at the Institute of Foreign Languages (Brussels) and the International Institute of Human Rights (Strasbourg). By profession - lawyer and translator. In addition to his native Dutch language, he speaks English, German, French, Russian and Georgian. He is fond of playing the piano and flute, is well versed in painting.
Meeting with Michael and the wedding
The first visit of Sandra Roelofs to Georgia took place even before meeting her husband. After graduation, the girl got a job in the Red Cross and in 1992 visited Kutaisi with a humanitarian mission, bringing with her 20 kg of garden seeds from the Netherlands. The following year, Roelofs prepared a fateful meeting with a handsome young Georgian. Michael and Sandra met in Strasbourg at the student cafe of the Institute of Human Rights. There, the future president of Georgia underwent an internship, and the girl attended courses before a working trip to Somalia. Introducing Sandra, Mikheil Saakashvili said that he had come from Georgia (the name of his native country sounds in English), but not from the one in America. The tall and prominent guy immediately liked Rulofs, and she fell in love with him at first sight. Since that time, young people almost never parted.
A few months after the fateful meeting, Sandra Roelofs flew to New York. The biography of this period of her life is very rich: she combined work in a branch of a large Dutch human rights company and Columbia University and was preparing for the wedding with her chosen one. The marriage of young people was registered on November 17, 1993 in New York. The ceremony was modest; the bride and groom wore ordinary clothes. The newlyweds arrived in Tbilisi to get married, and a magnificent wedding took place there. Sandra and Mikhail spent their honeymoon in the capital of Ukraine, where a young husband studied at the Faculty of International Relations of the University named after T. Shevchenko in Kiev.
Sandra's moving to Georgia
In 1995, Mikheil Saakashvili first became a father: his wife gave him the firstborn, Eduard. A year later, a happy father brought his young wife and son to Tbilisi. There, a woman got a job at the Dutch consulate and a branch of the Red Cross committee. Sandra learned the Georgian language and quickly adapted to life in her husband’s homeland. From 1999 to 2003, she lectured in French at the University of Tbilisi. In 2005 she gave birth to a second son. The boy was called Nikoloz. Then she published her autobiographical book, in which she talked about meeting her husband and living in America.
Life as a First Lady
After returning to Georgia, Michael began to take an active part in the political life of the country. In November 2003, the Rose Revolution took place in Georgia, after which President E. Shevardnadze resigned. Saakashvili was one of its active organizers. It was on January 25, 2004, that the Georgian people elected their president. Sandra Roelofs became the first lady of the country. From that moment, she began to feel the increased media attention to her person.
Always elegantly dressed and restrained, the Georgian wife liked Saakashvili. She did not go into politics, preferring to engage in children and charity. Trying to show her closeness to the people, Sandra went to work as a nurse in the hospital. From time to time, Rulofs confessed to Georgia in love, which contributed to raising the authority of her husband. But gradually the society began to become disillusioned with Mikheil Saakashvili. A wave of discontent rose in the country when it became known that the first lady with children was resting abroad, spending 15 thousand dollars each from the state treasury daily. Confidence in the presidential family began to decline. Various unpleasant rumors began to appear in the media about Saakashvili’s wife. Sandra was credited with Jewish descent, filming in porn films, working for US intelligence agencies. It was difficult to refute such allegations, so many people chose to believe them.
During her husband’s presidency, Sandra Rulofs founded the Soho charity non-governmental foundation, which helps children, people with disabilities, senior citizens and other categories of citizens who need protection. In 2007, Saakashvili’s wife in Kiev received the “Woman of the Third Millennium” Award, awarded to the most respected ladies of our time.
Departure from Georgia and further fate
The title of first lady Sandra was almost 10 years. On November 17, 2013, exactly 2 decades after his wedding with Rulofs, Saakashvili wrote a letter of resignation. After that, the ex-president of Georgia, together with his wife and children, flew to Brussels, and then to the United States. In 2014, several criminal cases were instituted against Saakashvili in his native country, as well as seizure of his family’s property and bank accounts. After leaving Georgia, Sandra wrote on social networks that she hopes in the near future to return back to the country, which became her second home. But so far her desire has not come true.
In the summer of 2014, it became known that Roelofs, along with her colleagues at the World Health Organization, was going to fly on a working visit to Australia on the very Boeing that was shot down in the sky over the Donbass. At the last moment, the woman changed her mind and decided to stay in Holland with her son, which saved her life. All her colleagues flying on the infamous plane died. Saakashvili said this on the air of the Ukrainian channel.
