Sukhum

Cafe Del Mar
Originally uploaded by ottovski

Remembering & celebrating vs. sorrow

27th September is a day of remembrance for both, Georgians and Abkhazians. However, there is a huge difference how we remember it. Abkhazians were celebrating the day as a day of Independence, while Georgians were grieving about fall of Sukhum. For blog such as ours, promoting brotherhood between people, is very difficult to write something about this event without making angry one or another side and without being emotional. We can't stand somewhere in middle. There is nothing in between, either you feel sorry or you celebrate. I feel sorry, sorry for everything that happened to people. And yes, it makes me angry, but yet I feel committed to friendship and well being of both, Georgians and Abkhazians. I hope that our future brings us other kind memorable days, that our next generations can remember all positive things and celebrate our brotherhood together.

Above on the picture you can see celebration of Independence day in Abkhazia. On the next photo you see how people fled from the region for their lifes in 1993.

Share your feelings about this day and let us now, if you could find golden middle between this two approach, could you?

NOTHING FOR NOTHING

By Giga CHIKHLADZE

Giga, грузинский журналист, был застрелен в Цхинвали

Нет ничего хуже, чем осознавать себя тем, кто ты есть.

Кем бы ты ни был на самом деле.

Я ничего не сделал.

Не посадил дерево.

Не построил дом.

Не родил сына.

Не сделал ничего стоящего. Того, чем бы мог гордиться. Честно гордиться.

Я не сказал ничего нового.

Делал очень мало добра и слишком много глупостей. Слишком много…

И еще больше я болтал.

Попусту.

Надо причинить, нет, создать боль, чтобы сбежать от боли…

Сбежать?

Да, наверное…

Я из тех, кто хотел бы изменить свое прошлое.

Но это невозможно.

Надо с разбегу. Как в море…

Когда летишь в воду в ожидании прикосновения воды. Удара о воду, ощущения холода, погружения в жидкую соль, смены красок, света, и потом идешь вниз, ко дну и прикасаешься к песку и кажется, что ты можешь и не выплыть, но ты уже не боишься. Уже все позади.

Только здесь не будет ПОСЛЕ. Здесь есть только ДО.

Надо просто разбежаться.

Но ты не знаешь, куда прыгаешь…

В никуда?

В новую жизнь?

В рай?

Или в ад?

Или в тоннель, где в конце виднеется свет, до которого никак не добраться? И ты – бесплотная тень, перегруженная глупыми мыслями, тщетно пытаешься продвинуться вперед, к свету. Как плохой пловец в волнующемся море…

Люди ленивы. Я – в их числе.

Я не умею радоваться.

И не могу научиться.

И, наверное, не хочу.

А все время жалеть о чем-то, сожалеть, плакать, грустить, скучать, ныть – просто нельзя.

Потому что –

Жизнь – не испытание. Это дар! Подарок свыше.

Мы просто не умеем им распоряжаться.

Да, это подарок. Но из тех, что приносят на день рождения случайные, ленивые, скупые или нежданные гости. Они ищут его дома, среди ненужных безделушек. Находят. И несут тебе. Формальность соблюдена.

И вот теперь ты не знаешь, что делать с громоздкой, постоянно попадающейся на глаза, ненужной вещью…

Подарки так редко бывают хорошими.

Нужно просто решиться.

И выбросить его…

Смогу ли я?

27.10.04

ღმერთი, სამშობლო ადამიანი (Lets Go to a Place Where Peace Prevails)

Russia Loves You reloaded

Russians dislike Caucasians most, shows survey carried out in 140 locations in 42 regions, territories and republics around Russia.

Seven per cent like Europeans. Only 4 per cent like Caucasians (the Adygei, Armenians, Georgians, Kabardians etc.). Three per cent have a positive view of Tatars, 2 per cent for the Bashkir and the Mordvin.

1 per cent goes to Americans, Buryats, Jews, Chinese, Moldovans and Japanese least of all. Finally, only 20 per cent of respondents said that they regard all peoples equally.

In times of S.U. at least people were getting lies about brotherhood, now even this mask is gone and you still think they are coming with tanks and army to hug you.

read more >>

Zugdidi: Will I ever go back?

Zugdidi: Will I ever go back?

Twice in the last fifteen years she had visited her native village. Both times she was travelling to family funerals. The first time, the Abkhaz border guard didn't want to let her through. It didn't matter that she could speak fluent Abkhaz, was Abkhaz herself, and had a large cohort of relatives waiting on the other side of the border, including her brother. The only documents she carried were a new Georgian passport and her birth certificate. All other documents had been left behind during their escape. On that first occasion, and the subsequent one, only bribes had made getting across the de facto border possible.
‘Yes, we want to go back,' she said with resolve. ‘All our children are learning Abkhaz, and we tell them about our old life there almost every day.'

Read more on http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/email/zugdidi-will-i-ever-go-back#comment-514650

Why Are the Russians Digging Tunnels in Abkhazia?

Why Are the Russians Digging Tunnels in Abkhazia?

by Giorgi Kvelashvili

Following Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s visit to the occupied Georgian province of Abkhazia in late August 2008, the Kremlin appears to be intensifying its military preparations in the South Caucasus.

On September 4, Georgian newspapers and TV channels reported that “the Russian occupation forces have been engaged for two months in constructing a one-kilometer-long tunnel deep in the Ochamchire district. Allegedly, the construction is highly secretive, only Russian military are employed and the local residents are not even allowed to approach the construction site. The Russians will use the tunnel to deploy military equipment and munitions.”

Television station Rustavi 2 showed footage of the tunnel construction “clandestinely taken on a cell phone by a Sokhumi resident.” According to Rustavi 2’ “the Russian occupation forces have been engaged for two months in construction work and that 700 meters have already been dug through the mountains near the town of Tkvarcheli".

Georgian Public Broadcasting (GPB) reported that it is not one but several tunnels that the Russians are constructing near the towns of Ochamchire, Gulripshi and Tkvarcheli in the central and southern zones of occupation. The Russian military in some places are enlarging already existing tunnels leading to abandoned coal mines for “serious military purposes”.

The Georgian government has not commented on the Kremlin’s new construction activities and the Russian and Western media have not reported the story. It is difficult to speculate on the purpose of the tunnels, but the secretiveness of the construction leaves ample room for guessing.

Dr. Nodar Natadze, a Georgian scholar and a former member of the Georgian Parliament whose Popular Front played an important role in Georgia’s national liberation movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s thinks that the significance of the tunnels for the Russians cannot be overestimated.

On September 5, he gave an interview to iTV.ge, in which he presented two possible reasons for their construction.

“Russia is digging the tunnels in Abkhazia to deploy powerful, possibly, nuclear missiles there.” He based this assumption on the fact that “Russian naval forces are extremely weak in the Black Sea, having only one modern missile launcher Moskva.” Given this disadvantage, “Moscow would like to increase its offensive potential by deploying missiles along the Black Sea coast.”

Abkhazia’s geostrategic location, in Dr. Natadze’s words, is the primary reason why the Kremlin would like to use it as a missile base in addition to the North Caucasus where Russia already has missiles.

The second hypothesis Dr. Natadze mentioned was that the Russians might need “to use the tunnels to bury their nuclear waste.”

The international community has been largely silent about Russia’s illegal activities in Abkhazia and Tskhinvali. Although there is an EU Monitoring Mission in Georgia (EUMM), and its monitors are entitled under their mandate “to cover the entire territory of Georgia,” they are denied the opportunity by Russia to enter the occupied territories.

Given the prerogatives allowed by the mandate to monitor “the withdrawal of Russian and Georgian armed forces to the positions held prior to the outbreak of [August 2008] hostilities” and “to contribute to the stabilization and normalization of the situation in the areas affected by the war”, the EUMM and Brussels have the right to demand from the Russian side unfettered access to monitor the situation in the Georgian territories currently held by Russia, including Abkhazia and Tskhinvali.

If the Russians are indeed constructing tunnels for highly sensitive military deployments which could potentially alter the military balance in the South Caucasus, this should concern not only Georgia, but the entire international community, especially the United States and the European Union, which should express their concern and demand an explanation from Moscow.

"Народ против" Андрея Илларионова