TBILISI -- More than 1,000 angry investors blocked the main street in the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Tuesday after the directors of the fledgling bank in which they invested disappeared.


The Okros Tasi Bank failed to open for business Monday, leaving dismayed clients standing outside its headquarters unable to draw on deposits estimated at nearly $1 million.


A large crowd then blocked the city's main thoroughfare, forcing Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze to come out and try to reassure them.


"Please calm down. I will do everything I can to resolve this situation," he told the gathering.


They dispersed after he agreed to hold immediate talks with a delegation chosen from among the crowd.


Tbilisi police chief Demur Mikadze told investors earlier that authorities had blocked all routes into and out of the city in an effort to find the banks' directors, including chief Georgi Mgalobishvili.


Shevardnadze signed a decree calling for a special committee to investigate the country's savings and investment institutions last month after a scandal involving the collapse of one institution that bankrupted many depositors.