The whole truth about abkhazia

THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT ABKHAZIA,
or
A PERFECT WAY TO SPEND YOUR SUMMER HOLIDAYS

The summer is over... But I think everybody still keeps the reminiscence of this beautiful, probably the best season. Anyway, I do.

To someone summer is the time without examinations, when he can do whatever he likes, to someone it is just a tedious period of being alone for all the friends go to their country houses, to someone it’s a perfect opportunity to travel. For me summer has always been both the period without examinations and a chance to travel. Yes, I like travelling a lot, and travelling in summer has much more advantages than travelling in winter. Sure, first of all, and it’s most important, you don’t need to take with you tons of baggage not to get frozen. Secondly (and this fact attracts me, too), you can do almost everything in summer, you can spend your time outdoors in cafes, restaurants, or just walking around the city...

For me travelling has always meant “a trip to another country”, I always thought that summer can be described as “not wasted” if I manage to visit some European country (for America and Australia, as well as Asia, are too “far away”), so up to now I’ve been to Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, France, Poland, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, Germany and some others... To go somewhere to the south of Russia (or the former USSR at least) was out of the question. Until the last summer.

It never occurred to me that such a thing can happen. Yes, somehow I had problems with my passport (its “deadline” was in October, and as you probably know, you can’t go anywhere if there’re only 3 months left). On the 27th of June I took my last exam. Now was the time to plan the summer! We (my mother and I) thought about a trip. My passport “allowed” me to travel around Russia, to Turkey and to Malta. What a wonderful choice! I don’t like south at all, so I decided that it would be better not to go anywhere at all. After all, we’ve got a small country house outside Moscow where I could spend the rest of the summer in peace and quiet.

But that somehow wasn’t what my mother wanted. Her idea was to go somewhere by all means, at any sacrifice. That’s why she booked to tickets without asking me. I learnt about it when there were 2 weeks left before our departure. I learnt that this time we would go to Gagra.

Well, I knew about this town from the XIXth century literature. At that time spending time there was a fashion. But now? What is it for a place now? It’s in Abkhazia, and in 1992-1993 there was a terrible war between Abkhazia and Georgia, which caused much damage to the houses and, of course, people’s lives. But what impresses you the instant you start talking to the Abkhazians, is the fact that they are not angry with the Georgians, they are ready to forgive them. I must admit that when starting on that trip I had a common idea of the people living in the south: I was sure that they all desperately keep their traditions, are very hot-tempered and very, very cruel. Now I can say: I’ve never seen such a peaceful nation as the Abkhazians. The influence of our mass media is so great that people go to such places with the thought that it’s extremely dangerous out there, that if you say a wrong word you’ll get shot immediately, but believe me: that’s ABSOLUTELY UNTRUE! There’s hardly a friendlier, a kinder person in the world than an ordinary Abkhazian.

But let me start from the very beginning. We arrived early in the morning (it was about 8) to the Adler Airport, which, as you know, is situated in Russia. There were no problems with passing the customs, and soon we stepped onto the warm southern ground. Sotchi met us not so friendly: it was raining cats and dogs so we could hardly leave the plane and later reach the car. It took us about 20 minutes to wait until the rain stopped, and then we passed into the car which transferred us to the border with Abkhazia.

The border line is about 3-4 km long, and you have to walk all the time stopping 4 times to let those on the border compare your face with the photo in your passport. If nothing goes wrong, you’re welcomed to a beautiful land called Abkhazia.

Abkhazia means “the land of soul”. And it is really so. As I’ve already mentioned, the people are quite friendly, they are ready to sacrifice everything just to please you, to make you happy, to make you fall in love with their land. The country itself is full of different (or better to say all kinds of) plants, here grows everything: bananas, apple-, orange-, tangerine-, lemon-trees, mangoes, kiwis, grapes – everything which comes to your mind when you think about warmth. Only that August (we went there in August) is not the best season here, because the fruit ripe much later, in October or in the beginning of November. Funny enough, the only fruit which can’t ripe here is banana. Funny because I always thought that bananas are typical for the south. You can’t help admiring the beauty of the nature, when you see the blue sea which turns into one with mountains somewhere behind the horizon, when you watch the seagulls in the cloudless sky, when you hear the birds singing sweet songs on the trees, when you feel the sun touching gently your soft skin...

Now as I turned to the nature I can’t avoid telling about the beach. Oh, it simply can’t be compared to anything! No matter how hard you try – you’ll never find sand there... or maybe if you’re lucky enough (I was!) to “catch” the storm, several days of rains, rough sea, you’ll manage to get a glimpse of the sand, but just for a couple of days – then it’ll be washed away and you’ll find yourself standing on the stones again! The water in the sea (by the way, for those who don’t know: the Black Sea) is quite salty, and if you’ve got some scar, it can hurt for some time. But, from the other hand, after several storms there’s nothing better than such water: it’s very useful for your health, it contains much iodine which does you a lot of good.

The nights... Nights come so unexpectedly there! At first you regret that the day is already over but then, then that you see the beauty of the southern sky, all your doubts go away and you can hardly wait for the next night. So, what is so special about an Abkhazian night? Everything: its blackness, its warmth, its magic! Just look up and everything will become clear: the stars are so big, so bright, and every other minute your eyes catch a falling star. And you start to wonder how many stars there are in the galaxy, if there are so many falling?! No, you’ll never get the answer, you’ll just take your breath and stare... stare into blankness, into blackness...

I could go on forever telling about the town of Gagra, the place known as New Afon where great caves are situated, some well-known hotels along the coast, about Lake Ritza and the so called Blue Lake (it’s really blue, just like the sky), but the nature of those places is very much alike, that’s why I’d better pass on to another interesting area, to be more exact, to the capital of Abkhazia, Sukhumi. In fact, it sounds like Sukhum, but for some reasons everybody adds “i” to the end. Some years ago it was (and it still can be seen) a beautiful, real beautiful city, but now most part of the city lies in ruins. An awful scene! People live in destroyed houses, without windows (actually there are windows but there is no glass). They thank the god for it being so warm that they don’t need to put the glass into the frames. I think no one would be able to forget this place. This feeling of pity and regrets is eased by the nature. You arrive to the Botanic Garden in the centre, and you get carried away by the number of plants there... Palms... Again fruit trees... Japanese bananas... and thousands of flowers. After that you follow to another famous place – every excursion tour includes visiting of this place – the monkey nursery. Before the war it kept about 6000 monkeys, now there are only 200 (!) monkeys. They say that most of the monkeys, of those 6000, managed to survive, but since the nursery was damaged, they ran away to the mountains. Some people still can see or hear the monkeys at the tops of the hills.

But all good ends some day. Our trip draw to its end. I could never have thought that I am so sentimental. I don’t know what made me feel like that: the sea? The sky? The nature? Something in the air? But I can definitely say that there were tears in my eyes. Though I returned more than a month ago, I already want to go back to Abkhazia, this magic land, this wonderful area... Actually I can’t believe that it’s over now, and that probably I’ll be locked from such beauty for nearly a year... I miss Abkhazia so much, and I don’t lie when I say that I not simply liked it, but came to love it. At first sight. No matter the people are poor. No matter it was raining all the time. I’m  absolutely sure that such beauty is a gift, a miracle, and it’s such a pity that we don’t appreciate it!

Many, many years ago the God was giving His lands to the people. He gave out all the lands and when He was ready to finish His “working day”, there came an Abkhazian and asked for his part of the world. The God got angry saying that the man came too late and He, the God, had no more lands to give. But He asked as well, why the man had come so late. And what do you think the man answered? He looked at the God, smiled and proudly said, “There came some guests to my house. I couldn’t leave them, so I welcomed them and gave them wine and bread, and did my best to make them comfortable and happy and glad.” The God was really impressed by the answer and said, that He had one more land, which was so wonderful that He didn’t want anyone to own it. But when He saw hospitality and friendliness and warm-heartedness of the man, He “handed” this perfect part to him without any doubts. And that is why the land is called “Abkhazia”, the “land of soul”. That’s how the legend goes. And I can totally agree with the God: there’s no other land with such incredible nature so perfectly matching the people!