I just got back from Abkhazia. Ask me anything!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I just got back from a trip to Abkhazia, a de facto independent but largely unrecognized country in the Caucasus. It’s still technically at war with Georgia, and there have been extended flare-ups of violence every twelve years or so.

I’ve travelled to a few other unrecognized states before (Transnistria, Northern Cyprus) but this was easily the most complicated trip I’ve made, both in terms of advance planning, actually getting in, and managing to stay healthy and comfortable. The most frequent question I got from the locals was, “How did you manage to get into the country/across the border?”

Still, the trip was very rewarding. Great food, warm sunny beaches, beautiful mountain scenery, and welcoming people. If anyone wants to know further details, just ask!

2

How did you manage to get into the country/across the border?

3

How does one come to say “You know where I would like to go? Abkhazia.”

4

That question needs an entire essay to answer, which I’m happy to provide below. The TL;DR version is “I got a double-entry visa for Russia by dint of travelling with Russian relatives, and then pre-arranged entry to Abkhazia with the Abkhazian foreign ministry, though all this turned out have been mostly unnecessary, and in any case didn’t make crossing the border any less painful.”

Abkhazia borders Russia and Georgia (or “the rest of Georgia”, depending on your point of view). As far as I know, the border with Georgia is currently closed. Russian citizens can normally cross the Abkhazian–Russian border simply upon presentation of identification. For non-Russian citizens, the normal procedure is to apply for an entry permit in advance from the Abkhazian Foreign Ministry (which can be done online); this permit allows you to cross the border but you must then travel to the capital of Sukhumi to purchase a proper visa. But of course, to even get to the Russian–Abkhazian border to begin with, you need to get into Russia, so normally you’d require a double-entry visa for Russia (once to enter Russia from wherever it is you live, and then once to re-enter Russia after your trip to Abkhazia).

I write “normally” because the rules are in a state of constant flux due to the coronavirus pandemic, and unfortunately neither the Russian nor Abkhazian governments make it easy to determine what the current procedures are. At the time we were planning our trip, Russia had closed its borders to nearly all foreign visitors, but were making limited exceptions for those with Russian family members, and it was on this basis that I was able to apply for a Russian visa. Furthermore, news reports indicated that Russian citizens could cross the Russia–Abkhazia border as usual (i.e., without presenting any coronavirus test results or vaccination/recovery certificates), but were silent on the question of what rules applied to non-Russians. Abkhazia doesn’t get many non-Russian tourists in normal times, and they’re almost unheard of now that Russia has closed its borders. So we called the Abkhazian Foreign Ministry and were told that foreigners also don’t need any coronavirus-related documentation, and to go ahead and apply for the entry permit, which we were assured was a mere formality.

So I filled in the online form and sent it off for processing, and meanwhile started booking all our travel tickets and accommodation. Then, the next week, I was horrified to get an e-mail from the Ministry that the entry permit had been denied:

Good day!

We inform you that due to the ongoing influenza epidemic, crossing of the state border is temporarily limited. Therefore, there will be no possibility to cross it. At the moment we do not accept any applications.

Sincerely, CD MFA RA.

So we immediately called the Ministry to point out the discrepancy. It turns out that the error was on my end: I had neglected to fill in the part of the entry permit form that lists my Russian relatives. The Ministry’s actual current policy is to deny entry permits to all foreigners who are not Russian or do not have Russian relatives travelling with them. Once we explained to them that I would be travelling with Russian relatives, they said that the border was open after all and that no entry permit was required. But not wanting to risk that the border police would have a different opinion, we asked for and received an e-mail from the Ministry confirming that no entry permit is required for me, and printed a copy to show at the border.

But this wasn’t the end of the legal loopholes. I was travelling with Russian family members who were living with me in Vienna, and the Russian government requires incoming Russian citizens (but curiously, not incoming foreigners) to take one coronavirus test on arrival and a second coronavirus test three to five days afterwards. That means we couldn’t travel immediately from Vienna to Abkhazia via Russia, but rather needed to stop over in Russia for at least three days.

So in the end, we took a flight from Vienna to Moscow, had the Russians tested at the airport, stayed in Moscow for a few nights, had the Russians tested once again, and then flew from Moscow to Adler in the south of the country. Our Airbnb host in Abkhazia arranged for a driver to pick us up from the airport and drive us across the border and onward to Sukhumi. The border is about 40 minutes from the airport.

Contrary to expectations, it was leaving Russia, not entering Abkhazia, that posed the greatest difficulty. I know that Russia is the guarantor of Abkhazia’s independence, though I was not expecting it to exert quite so much overt control over the country’s borders. (I know that Georgia and many others view Abkhazia as being actually occupied by Russia, though the situation is more nuanced than that, particularly in comparison to other “protectorates” like South Ossetia.) At the first checkpoint on the Russian side, I was asked if I was a journalist. When I made a credible denial, we were allowed through to the actual Russian side of the border, where we had to get out of the car with all our luggage and then stand in line along with scores of Russian tourists. We finally got to the Russian border guards after 30 to 45 minutes of waiting. It took the guards another 30 minutes or so to examine all our documents, much to the chagrin of the Russian tourists behind us in line. They checked and double-checked all the passports, visas, and ID cards, and made copies of absolutely everything, though that was the full extent of their scrutiny: they didn’t ask to see the letter about the entry permit, didn’t search our luggage, and didn’t ask us any questions about our trip. They took the Russian entry card I got upon landing in Moscow, but didn’t give me a Russian exit stamp, which caused problems for me when I tried to leave Russia again at the end of my trip.

After clearing the Russian border, we got back in the car and drove onward to the Abkhazian border, where we got waved through with the guards making only the most cursory of glances at our passports through the car window. As we drove off, one of the guards shouted a reminder that as a non-Russian, I had to apply for a visa in Sukhumi within three days. The ride from the border to Sukhumi was around two hours. The next day I wandered into the Ministry of Repatriation where I found a very bored-looking official sitting all alone in the Consular Services department. I paid him about 400 rubles (about $5) for a visa, after he asked me three times to confirm the purpose and duration of my visit. The visa was issued on a separate piece of paper rather than glued into my passport. I was told that it would be taken from me when I left Abkhazia, but as with entry, we just got waved through on exit, this time without the guards even looking at our passports.

Of course, all these legal and logistical formalities were only part of the reason the trip was so difficult. Actually finding a securing a place to stay in Abkhazia was just as much work.

5

Funnily enough, it all started when I was given the following (possibly fake) Abkhazian postage stamp in the mid-1990s:

I had never heard of Abkhazia but figured that if they produced stuff like this then they all must have a fantastic sense of humour.

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  • How do ordinary Abkhaz view themselves and their political situation vis-a-vis the Russians and the Georgians?

  • Culturally, do they stand alone in the Caucasus, or are there other nations they are close to?

  • Economically, based on your firsthand observations, how are they doing?

7

How far were you able to make your money stretch in Abkhazia? I’ve heard stories from my landlady, who briefly traveled to East Berlin, about how she and her family were able to eat in luxurious restaurants for the same price as going to McDonald’s in West Berlin.

8

That’s somewhat of an ambiguous question, because “the Russians” and “the Georgians” can refer to the people living in Russia and Georgia (or by extension, the countries themselves), or to the people with Russian and Georgian ethnicity who are resident in (and possibly citizens of) Abkhazia. And of course an “ordinary Abkhaz” might have either of those ethnicities.

To clarify, Abkhazia is a multi-ethnic state, with ethnic Abkhazians making up just over half the population, with most of the rest being Georgians/Mingrelians, Russians, and Armenians. Most or all of the local people I met in Abkhazia were ethnic Abkhazians or ethnic Russians.

I never initiated conversations on political topics with the locals, and nobody raised the issue of Russia with me. But from my observations of everyday life, I think it’s safe to say that Abkhazians in general have a friendly but clearly delimited relationship with Russia. The vast majority of Abkhazia’s income is from Russian tourism and Russian government aid, and so they’re generally welcoming to Russian tourists. But they clearly don’t want to be perceived as an extension or subject of Russia; there are Abkhazian flags and patriotic posters and monuments everywhere. Except in venues that specifically cater to tourists, signage tends to be bilingual or trilingual (Abkhaz/Russian/English), but always with Abkhaz the most prominent. Russia maintains a military base in Abkhazia but I saw no Russian soldiers anywhere. Russian flags were limited to the Russian embassy and cultural centre and to boats offering pleasure cruises (flown alongside the Abkhazian one). I have read that the Abkhazian government has taken pains to keep Russian influence to a minimum, such as prohibiting Russian ownership of real estate, though this has not always proved possible or practical. (For example, the Abkhazia was unable to continue operating its own rail service, and so turned over management to Russia for a ten-year period.)

As for Georgia, again, that’s not a topic I ever brought up, though one local I had lunch with started talking about it spontaneously. He was virulently and unashamedly anti-Georgian. He made a toast to the separatist fighters of the 1992–1993 war of independence and made it clear that he viewed the Georgians, then and now, as “fascists”. The other (ethnic) Abkhazians at the table were not as overtly enthusiastic about this, but neither did they show any disagreement or embarrassment, and drank to the toast.

At this same lunch I asked my hosts (all university staff) about the origins of the Abkhaz language, and they told me that it is most closely related to Circassian. As to whether there are any cultural affinities besides the language, I’m not sure. They do seem to have a fondness for the South Ossetians (who likewise broke away from Georgia) and for the Chechnians (who provided militias during the Abkhazian war of independence). In terms of cuisine there is clearly a lot of overlap with Georgia and with Russia.

I visited only the capital, Sukhumi, and two towns known as tourist resorts (Gagra and Novy Afon), and didn’t observe any dire poverty firsthand. That said, it’s clear that the country isn’t a very rich one, with lots of infrastructure (roads, sidewalks, buildings) in various states of disrepair or neglect, but also some very new and well-maintained construction, particularly that catering to tourists. The situation is comparable to what you’d find in poorer Eastern European countries such as Moldova. I understand that the situation is much worse in the southeastern part of the country, which is populated primarily by ethnic Georgians.

Salaries and wages can’t be very high, even for highly educated workers. One of the university lecturers I spoke with said that he has to supplement his own salary with contributions from his family.

9

Accommodation varies from “cheap but impossible to secure” to “plentiful but ridiculously expensive”. In Gagra we rented a somewhat rundown but very spacious apartment (bath, kitchen, foyer, living room, triple bedroom, double bedroom, and two sunrooms) in a downtown high-rise for about €32/night. However, finding such a great deal was a nightmare; rooms and homes are in such high demand that hotels and B&B hosts will routinely cancel your reservation as soon as they find another guest who is willing to pay more or stay longer. (And sometimes you don’t find out about the cancellation until you arrive at the property.)

Food is pretty cheap. You can get a large meal in a nice restaurant, including a drink, for €4. The same amount can feed several people in a stolovaya (Soviet-style cafeteria).

Taxis are ridiculously cheap, at least compared to Vienna. Trips within Sukhumi were a flat rate of €2. A minivan taxi from Sochi Airport to Sukhumi (some 120 km) was only €45, and that included two hours for the driver to wait for our late flight and another 90 minutes or so to wait at the border.

10

They sound like great, welcoming people… just so long as you’re not Georgian, Armenian, Greek, a moderate Abkhaz, or anyone else they don’t like.

Before the 1992 War, Georgians made up nearly half of Abkhazia’s population, while less than one-fifth of the population was Abkhaz. As the war progressed, confronted with hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians who were unwilling to leave their homes, the Abkhaz separatists implemented the process of ethnic cleansing in order to expel and eliminate the Georgian ethnic population in Abkhazia. About 5,000 were killed, 400 went missing and up to 250,000 ethnic Georgians were expelled from their homes. Slightly over 200,000 Georgians remain displaced in Georgia proper.

The campaign of ethnic cleansing also included Russians, Armenians, Greeks, moderate Abkhaz and other minor ethnic groups living in Abkhazia. More than 20,000 houses owned by ethnic Georgians were destroyed. Hundreds of schools, kindergartens, churches, hospitals, historical monuments were pillaged and destroyed. Following the process of ethnic cleansing and mass expulsion, the population of Abkhazia has been reduced to 216,000, from 525,000 in 1989.

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I like.

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That you omitted “Russian” from your own list (despite it being right there in the one you quote) indicates your awareness that Abkhazian treatment of ethnic Russians has changed over the past 30 years. I wonder if you are also aware of the corresponding changes respecting the other ethnicities you mention, or if your attempt to establish and claim a moral high ground is being made on the sole basis of a history article that has introduced you to this rather thorny topic for the very first time. At any rate, Great Debates (or if you must, The BBQ Pit) might be a better place for you to pursue this particular tangent.

13

Did the locals insist you come inside and meet their mother?

‘Zahadi dusha lubezniy! Moy dom, tvoy dom! Moya loshad, tvoya loshad!..’

14

No, but some of the first people I met were themselves old babushkas who almost invited me inside. They lived downstairs from our Airbnb in Sukhumi and we ended up consulting them occasionally for directions and borrowing a corkscrew.

15

That’s fascinating, @Psychonaut! What an experience. It’s great you were able to talk to academics, and I’m sure they were excited to talk to you. I’ve been to Transnistria too but haven’t yet made it to the Caucasus. Thanks for sharing!

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You’re right that I don’t know much about it, but I see that Russia recognises Abkhazia, and most members of the UN now consider it to be a Russian-occupied part of Georgia.

It seems to me that the human rights issues, atrocities, and ethnic cleansing can’t simply be swept under the carpet in any discussion of this territory.

These issues are not in the past. They are still continuing today. Human Rights Watch, the UN, the European Court of Human Rights, and the International Criminal Court still have serious concerns in 2021. Freedom House rated Abkhazia as 40/100 for Political Rights and Civil Liberties in 2020 (41/100 for 2019).

You said ‘ask me anything’, but apparently you don’t want to be asked about the existing serious issues, only the wonderful beaches.

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I’m sorry; I must have overlooked the question in your first post. Could you please restate it for me?

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There was no question my first post, just a note of the problematic history – which provoked a response from you that you considered it to be off topic and you didn’t want it to be mentioned here.

So what is your take on the present political and human rights situation? Where you exposed to any of that during your visit? Did you ask about any of that, or discuss it with people there?

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I don’t consider the problematic history as such to be off-topic. But snide remarks about it belong in the Pit, and a general discussion about the morality of visiting regions with unresolved historical (or even ongoing) ethnic violence or civil rights violations is better served in Great Debates, since it raises issues that go far beyond my own individual trip.

My own political views have been well documented on this board (and there’s even a monstrous thread about them with 423 posts and 26,300 views, back from when I was a candidate for the EU Parliament). To summarize their application to this particular situation, I oppose both sides in the conflict, as well as the status quo and the various proposals to modify it. I deplore both the violence perpetrated by the Abkhazian separatists and the decades of Soviet-sponsored Georgianization that triggered it. (And I am emphatically not trying to imply that the two are morally equivalent, nor that one excuses the other.) I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking, both before and after my visit, about why things got so bad in Abkhazia in comparison to other regions with similar problems. For example, just as the Soviet Union pursued a long-term policy of Georgianization in Abkhazia, so too did it pursue a long-term policy of Russification in Latvia, to the point where in both regions the titular ethnicity almost became a minority. Many regard this as a form of attempted genocide. Upon the dissolution of the USSR, the Latvians and Abkhazians seized power in their respective regions and enacted measures to undo the decades of cultural assimilation. (And many would say that these measures are also genocide, or at least “ethnic cleansing”.) In Latvia this took the form of stripping citizenship and other civil rights from the Russian and other non-Latvian population, causing hundreds of thousands to flee or emigrate, and leaving hundreds of thousands of those who remained stateless to this day. In Abkhazia, the situation erupted into open and bloody physical conflict. What led to such different outcomes? I don’t have any good answers.

As I mentioned upthread, I didn’t directly engage any of the locals in discussion of the political situation, though I probably would have liked to if the right opportunity had presented itself. Most of the people I talked with were ethnic Russians, but many of them were relatively recent immigrants to Abkhazia and in all cases my interactions were not of an extended nature. An exception was my visit to the university, where I had the chance to talk at length with ethnic Abkhazians. However, these were meant to be academic discussions about scientific and technological research, and so it didn’t seem right to start injecting politics into the conversation. One of the older academics nonetheless made hostile remarks about Georgia over lunch without getting into any specifics about human rights. I’m generally not shy about voicing my political opinions in informal settings but I didn’t feel that doing so at a business lunch, after only having just met him, was the right time.

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@psychonaut, I don’t have an immediate question, but I’ve read your fascinating commentary with interest and I just wanted to thank you for posting it! Sounds like quite an adventure!