Abkhazia, the lost paradise

The war between Abkhazia and Georgia ended 25 years ago, but the conflict, still not resolved, and the life of the people is frozen at that time. Even if the war was won by Abkhazia, common people lost everything and they are unable to face a reconstruction of the socio-economic situation, now definitively compromised.

Abkhazia is one of the least known places on Earth, a 200-kilometer long, 100-kilometer-width strip of land lying on the Black Sea. During the Soviet period it was the VIP riviera for the Soviet élite, a subtropical paradise, with a very well developed tourism at the highest level. The politicians and the most important figures of the Soviet Union came here for their holidays: Stalin, Beria, Khrushchev and Brezhnev had their dacha here.
At the fall of the Soviet Union Georgia proclaimed the independence from Russia and, soon after on 23 July 1992, Abkhazia self-proclaimed its independence from Georgia. A fierce and tragic war began between Georgia and Abkhazia, which lasted for one year, devastating Abkhazia and the life of the people, with thirty-thousand deaths and tens of thousands refugees.
Today Abkhazia is a territory with a disputed status: the territory is independent de facto, but neither the UN nor the EU recognize its independence. The Abkhazian Republic is recognized only by 7 UN member states (including Russia) and 2 States which are themselves not recognized. Georgia does not recognize its independence and claims the entire territory (declared "territory occupied by Russia") as an integral part of the Georgian State.
Although more than 25 years have passed since the end of the war, half of the buildings and cities lie abandoned. Half of the population of Abkhazia, which was Georgian, escaped during the war. Moreover, an international embargo and the non-recognition of the Abkhazian State, as independent, from most part of the world, prevent the development of the economy and foreign investments.
Meanwhile, in the daily flow of a life enclosed within a limbo, these semi-abandoned places are collapsing under the weight of time, along with its historical buildings of the Soviet era: hotels, spas, sanatoriums, castles, old train stations and towns in the Stalinist neoclassical style, a cultural heritage that will be lost forever.
The Abkhazian government wants the recognition as an independent state. The Georgian government wants back its land that it considers "occupied" by Russia. Instead, ordinary people just want to live in peace and rebuild their lost paradise.