Russia hopes that the victory of Georgia's opposition in parliamentary elections will help normalize Tbilisi's fraught relations with Moscow, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

"Clearly Georgian society voted for change," spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement. "We hope that in the end it will let Georgia move to a normalization and establishment of constructive and respectful relations with their neighbors. Russia would welcome this development."

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday welcome initial vote results in Georgia, pointing to a victory by the opposition as a sign of people wanting more "constructive" ties with Moscow.

"If this result turns out being real, the political landscape in Georgia will become multi-faceted," news agencies quoted Russia's former president as saying some four years after the two sides fought a brief border war.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili conceded defeat Tuesday in parliamentary polls that handed a shock victory to an opposition coalition led by billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili.

Although Saakashvili remains president, the defeat of his United National Movement to Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition in Monday's elections spells the end of his nine years of largely unchallenged dominance over Georgia.

Georgia's billionaire-led coalition was leading President Mikheil Saakashvili's ruling party in parliamentary elections Monday according to exit polls, but it was unclear which will win the final majority.

Two separate exit polls for Georgian television gave preliminary figures putting tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream coalition ahead in the proportional-vote section of the contest by five or 10 percent.

Tens of thousands of Georgians joined one of the biggest opposition rallies in the ex-Soviet state in years Saturday on the final day of campaigning before hard-fought parliamentary polls.

Huge crowds packed Tbilisi's central Freedom Square and the capital's main street to cheer billionaire tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili, whose opposition Georgian Dream coalition is challenging President Mikheil Saakashvili's ruling party in Monday's vote, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

Georgia on Sunday reopened a world-renowned medieval cathedral in the ex-Soviet state's second city Kutaisi which has been restored despite concerns raised by global cultural agency UNESCO.

The consecration ceremony was attended by Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II and President Mikheil Saakashvili as well as representatives of opposition parties which are challenging the ruling United National Movement in crucial elections on October 1.

Georgia on Saturday said it has detained a Russian militant fighter, one of the remnants of an armed gang that recently clashed with security forces near the enemy states' border leaving 14 dead.

"The Georgian interior ministry has detained one of the members of the armed group in the Lopota Gorge, Akhmet Chataev, a citizen of the Russian Federation from the North Caucasus," the ministry said in a statement.

U.S. senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham trampled grapes to make wine for Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili at his vineyard in the ex-Soviet state, the presidency said Friday.

The Republican senators picked the grapes with Western ally Saakashvili and then trampled them into pulp in a vat at the Georgian leader's country cottage on Thursday, video images released by the presidency showed.

Georgia's powerful Orthodox Church has assured believers that the ex-Soviet state's new electronic identity cards do not carry the mark of Satan after being petitioned by worried worshippers.

"The Holy Synod states that from the point of view of theological and ecclesiastical teachings, ID cards as they exist today do not represent the mark of the Antichrist," the Church's governing body said in a statement late Thursday.

Fifty-six people including six children have been hospitalized in Georgia with chlorine poisoning after a storage tank leaked overnight in a suburb of the capital Tbilisi, officials said Wednesday.

"At around midnight in the Lilo district of Tbilisi there was a leak from a chlorine container. As a result, 56 people were poisoned and taken to hospital," interior ministry spokesman Zurab Gvenetadze told Agence France Presse.