![]() ![]() He has so far brought his X-wing out twice to raise money for medical supplies for Ukraine, including at a Kroger parking lot in Embry Hills this past Saturday. “Russia is like the evil empire and Ukraine the Rebel Alliance,” said Lekiachvili, who first came to the United States in 1994 as an exchange medical student at Emory University before starting his residency in 1997. He wanted to help and contacted the non-profit local chapter of the Ukrainian Congress Committee, which aims to build stronger ties between Americans and Ukraine. Lekiachvili was about finished with the X-wing when Russia invaded Ukraine. He was thrilled when actor Mark Hamill, who played Skywalker, liked one of his Tweets. While working on the X-wing, Lekiachvili spent several years posting videos on Twitter of the build out and teaching workshops about electronics, geometry and tooling, with dozens of kids helping do the work. In the film, Luke Skywalker flew the X-wing starfighter for the Rebel Alliance against the evil Galactic Empire and used it to destroy the Death Star. He didn’t see the original “Star Wars” until he was a teen in the late 1980s on VHS after glasnost made Western films more readily available. Lekiachvili, now 50, grew up behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union in the country of Georgia as a child and had no access to the “Star Wars” films. Akaki Lekiachilli helps Artimy Osadchiy, 5, onto his near life-like replica of an X-Wing Starfighter from Star Wars at Embry Village shopping center on Chamblee Tucker Road Saturday, April 16, 2022.
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