Abkhazia - a stirring child of Causasus

Abkhaz were mainly farmers and cattle-breeders, their basic dietary staples were corn, millet, and dairy products. In the past, wild game and edible plants growing in the wild were a significant part of the diet, but today they are rarely on the table. One Abkhazian staple dish is mamalyga (abysta), or corn meal boiled in water with no salt added. There is a number of variations on mamalyga, such as mamalyga with soft fresh cheese (ayladzh), or mamalyga with milk and cheese (achamykva).

Abkhazia's coat-of-arms is a shield divided vertically into two halves colored white and green, with green symbolizing youth and life, and white symbolizing spirituality. The contour of the National Emblem and an episode composition is goldish. In the lower part of the shield, there is an eight-point star. In the top part, against the white and green background, are two more symmetrically placed eight-point stars. In the center of the shield is a horseman, the Nart Sasrykva, a protagonist in the Abkhaz Nart sagas. He is galloping on his magic steed, Arash, and pointing his bow and arrow toward the stars.

The national flag of the Republic of Abkhazia consists of alternating green and white stripes: four green and three white stripes symbolize the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians.

Victor Yerofeyev, a writer well known in Russia and the West, published an article in the International Herald Tribune last July in which he stated, among other things, that Abkhazia is “a country with a human face, not a bandit’s squint. Abkhazia’s problem is that it cannot get the international community to listen to the reasons why it declared independence, or to appreciate the democratic principles of its ‘illegal’ governance.”

After 2008, money poured into the destroyed republic, partially to develop the area ahead of the 2014 Olympic Games in neighboring Sochi. The role of Abkhazia’s infrastructure in this project cannot be overstated – ever since the Soviet era, Abkhazia and the greater Sochi area have been considered a single tourist complex.

For the first months and years after it proclaimed independence, Abkhazia was focused on securing its borders with Georgia. Now that this task is mostly complete, the republic is focusing on constructing government institutions, but this process has proved no less challenging than the question of security.

Following the Five-Day War of August 2008, the republics declared their independence and were recognized by Russia, Nicaragua, Nauru, Venezuela and Tuvalu. The rest of the world has continued to call for the maintenance of Georgia’s territorial integrity, despite the fact that the republics rely on Russia for financial support and many of their residents hold Russian passports.

Before the falling apart of the Soviet Union, when the national liberation movement was on the rise in all republics, Abkhazia was fighting for a higher administrative status. Georgia's parliament began to unilaterally pass resolutions (acts of 1989-1990) that ignored the intergovernmental nature of the relationship between Abkhazia and Georgia, and, in essence, led to the abolishment of Abkhazian national identity.

In the 19th century, Russia and Turkey were at war, each trying to strengthen its foothold on the Black Sea coast. In July 1810, Russian navy took Sohumkale fortress by storm. Abkhazia, with the exception of free highlander communities, was annexed to Russia.

Abkhazia is one of the recognized centers of winegrowing culture. Favorable geographic and climatic conditions contributed to the spreading of wild sorts of grape in the territory of Abkhazia. The Main Caucasian mountain ridge protects Abkhazia from the northern air masses in winter and from hot withering winds from Central Asia in summer, which is creating a mild subtropical climate.

Besides, the sun warms the blankets of the Black Sea in spring and summer, and in autumn and winter the sea water emits the heat energy, warming the surrounding to the coast area.

Abkhazian natural heritage is magnificent and diverse, unique in its fascinating, harmonious combination of the scenery of the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea coast. A stretch only fifty kilometers wide between the shoreline and the Greater Caucasus Mountain Range encompasses all existing climactic zones, from rainforest to perennial snow and glaciers.

Abkhazia's history has millennia-old roots. The fertile lands of Abkhazia were actively settled in the late Paleolithic Age, 35 thousand years ago.

Abkhazia is a disputed territory on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.