The July 5 article in The Independent was perhaps one of the most popular and most emailed articles of recent weeks. Called “Mikheil Saakashvili: Georgia on his mind, Moscow on his back” the story opens up the character of President Saakashvili in an excellent way, delicately weaving President’s personal traits into his political life.

One interesting detail which The Independent journalist mentioned is a peculiar watch President Saakashvili was wearing during their interview. The article opens with the following passage: “It's the watch that bothers me. Everything else is presidential – the pressed shirt and sharp tie; the aides tiptoeing in with overflowing bowls of cherries and mulberries, and the huge, book-lined interview room done out in soft woods inside a new, Reichstag-inspired presidential palace. But amid all this pomp, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is wearing a chunky blue plastic watch that appears to depict frolicking rabbits.”

And the interviewer goes back to the watch once again in the middle of the interview connecting President Mikhail Saakashvili’s taste to his political woes. “At the end of the interview, I ask him what is going on with the rabbit watch. 

"Yeah, it's a bunny watch, so what?" he asks jokily, giving a high-pitched cackle. During their recent protests calling for his resignation, the opposition had unveiled a banner outside the presidential palace saying that Saakashvili was like a scared rabbit, and had thrown carrots – and at one point a live rabbit – over the railings. 

"They had this banner in English, saying 'Saakashvili is a rabbit' – presumably for a foreign audience. I don't know what's so bad about this. Unless you keep rabbits at your apartment, they are pretty nice," he says, with a grin. The watch, which he's had for several years, is perhaps his way of showing that he can take the opposition's insults with good humour.”

Unfortunately The Independent does not show a picture of the watch. But we think we have found one. We think it is Swatch’s Bunnysutra which is a Swatch touch digital watch manufactured in 2004. It features several pictures of a male and female white rabbit. Touching the watch's face causes the hands to spin wildly and come to rest on different "Bunnysutra" positions before returning to the actual time. The posters advertising this caused some controversy in New York, being described as “disgusting” by some.

What do you think? Is this the watch President Saakashvili wears?