TBILISI. April 22 (Interfax) - Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili has advised Russia to speak more respectfully of Georgia.

Commenting on Sunday on a recent interview of Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov with The Financial Times criticizing the state of democracy in Ukraine and Georgia Merabishvili said to reporters: "There is more of it in Tbilisi than in Moscow."

Expanding on the idea he said that unlike Tbilisi in Moscow "skinheads are roaming the streets and brutally treating representatives of ethnic minorities."

"The Georgian police unlike Russian are not extorting money everywhere from Georgians and other arrivals, and unlike the Russian army Georgian army is free from hazing."

"Journalists and political opponents are not assassinated or poisoned in Georgia," Merabishvili said.

In a lengthy interview with The Financial Times Ivanov spoke on a wide range of home and foreign policy issues, including the ownership of natural resources, defense and upcoming elections.

Among other things he spoke of democracy saying that Russia will be a democracy but should be allowed to find its own particular form as others have done.

The article in The Financial Times said: "As for western-backed "beacons of democracy" around Russia's borders - Iraq, Georgia, or Ukraine, where parliament is engaged in a stand-off with the winner in the 2004 revolution - the tightened lips become almost a sneer. Ukraine "completely undermines democracy. Because people, having seen this total mess, will say, 'We don't need your democracy. Appoint us a tsar, give us our wages and stop bothering us with your democracy' ".