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Tens of millions of people in the former Soviet Union and beyond, who have visited Abkhazia, it is difficult to forget about the sea and palm trees in Gagra, the smell of the needles of the relic pine grove in Pitsunda, Lake Ritsa, the Sukhumi embankment, the underground beauties of the New Athos karst cave ... But in August 1992 The cypress-oleander paradise suddenly turned into hell - Abkhazia was plunged into the abyss of war.

On September 30, 1993, Georgian troops, who had seized most of the territory of Abkhazia a year earlier, were utterly defeated. About 2 thousand defenders of Abkhazia laid down their heads on the altar of Victory. More than a quarter of them are not Abkhazians, they are Russians, Ukrainians, Armenians, Greeks, Turks, representatives of the North Caucasian republics, Cossacks and others. The Georgian side suffered even more, tens of thousands of inhabitants of this blessed land became refugees, and the army lost about 2,000 killed and 20,000 wounded.

What are the reasons for this war? Could it have been prevented? Was there a chance to find a compromise in all the complexities of the Abkhaz-Georgian relations? We will try to give answers to these questions.

The fertile land in which the Abkhazians lived has long attracted the eyes of neighboring peoples, was a crossroads of cultures. The ancient Greeks sailed here and founded their states, there were Roman and Byzantine fortresses, from the 8th to the 10th centuries. there was an Abkhazian kingdom, which in 975 became part of Georgia. In the 16th-18th centuries, the political influence of Turkey increased in Abkhazia.

On February 17, 1810, Abkhazia, separately from Georgia, voluntarily became part of Russia. In the centuries-old history of relations between the Abkhaz and Georgian peoples, there was a joint struggle against the conquerors (Arab Caliphate), and territorial disputes, wars. However, a qualitatively new situation in Georgian-Abkhazian relations began to take shape in the last third of the 19th century, when, after the Caucasian War of 1817–1864. and the uprisings of the Abkhazians in 1866, their mass evictions to Turkey began. This phenomenon was called "mahadzhirstvo".

The depopulated part of Abkhazia was settled by Russians, Armenians, Greeks and especially by the population of Western Georgia. And if in 1886 the Abkhazians made up 86% of the population on their territory, and the Georgians - 8%, then in 1897 already, respectively - 55% and 25%. After the establishment of Soviet power, Abkhazia was an independent Soviet Socialist Republic. But under the pressure of I. V. Stalin, it first concluded a federal treaty with Georgia, and in 1931 entered it on the rights of autonomy. In the 1930s–1950s the repressions of L.P. Beria and the mass resettlement of Georgian peasants brought the Georgian population in the republic to 39%, and the Abkhaz to 15%. By 1989, this figure had reached 47% and 17.8%, respectively. In Sukhumi and Gagra, the Georgian population was even higher. This was accompanied by the extrusion of their language and culture from the everyday life of the Abkhazians. The protests of the Abkhaz intelligentsia and the growth of the national Abkhaz self-consciousness peaked by 1989 during the period of Gorbachev's perestroika, after the XIX All-Union Party Conference.

The meeting of the Abkhaz public in the village of Lykhny and the appeal to the Central Committee of the CPSU to restore the status of Abkhazia as a union republic were used by Georgian nationalists to their advantage. On April 9, 1989, a rally began in Tbilisi demanding to stop "Abkhazian separatism", and ended in fact with a demand for Georgia's secession from the USSR. On March 17, 1991, 57% of the population of Abkhazia voted for the preservation of the USSR. Elections to the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, which was headed not by a representative of the state party apparatus, but by a scientist, doctor historical sciences, director of the Abkhaz Institute of Language, Literature and History Vladislav Ardzinba, also split it in half. Follow-up in December 1991-January 1992 Civil War in Georgia and the overthrow of the nationalist Gamsakhurdia only worsened the situation. Under the guise of fighting the Zviadists of Gamsakhurdia, the State Council of Georgia partially sent its troops into the territory of Abkhazia and tried to dissolve the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, elected on January 6, 1992. The subsequent parade of sovereignties, instead of negotiations and the conclusion of a new treaty between Abkhazia and Georgia, as a result of the collapse of the USSR, did not defuse the situation. The leadership of Abkhazia was in the mood for negotiations between V. Ardzinba and E. Shevardnadze, but in response shots rumbled, tanks moved forward, blood was shed ...

The forces that brought E. Shevardnadze to power in Georgia, led by people with a criminal record Kitovani and Ioseliani, did not want to wait.

The commander of the Mkhedrioni detachment, Jaba Ioseliani, in an interview with Nezavisimaya Gazeta, shortly before the start of the Georgian-Abkhazian war, highly appreciated the contribution of E. Shevardnadze to the destruction of the USSR: “Shevardnadze destroyed the empire “from within and from above”, “sneaking in there.”

By this time, Ioseliani was known for wide punitive campaigns against South Ossetia.

Historical Russia(The Russian Empire, the USSR, the Russian Federation), which claims succession, instead of uniting peoples around itself, acted differently: contrary to its own interests, the allied, and then the Russian leadership made remarkable efforts to alienate their allies - by no means, of course, without acquiring an ally represented by Georgia.

Chairman of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia Stanislav Lakoba would later have every reason to say: "It seems that Russia is ready to sacrifice its national interests for the sake of the territorial integrity of Georgia."

The highest expression of Georgia's gratitude can be considered the intensive shelling of Russian military units stationed in the village of Lower Escher. The Russian servicemen were forced to return fire from the BMP to suppress the Georgian firing points.

The war on the part of Georgia was unleashed when the possibilities for a peaceful solution to the conflict were far from being exhausted. Alas, instead of an agreement, the Georgian leadership decided to solve the national problem by force, up to the genocide of an entire people. The far-fetched pretext of bringing in troops to protect communications and defeat the remnants of the "Zviadists" turned into a repetition of the "experience of annexing South Ossetia." But the troops of the State Council of Georgia also had their own characteristics. This is a combination of primitive criminal violence with the widespread use against the civilian population and civilian objects of combat helicopters equipped with rockets and bombs, tanks, howitzers, installations of the Grad system, as well as weapons prohibited by the Geneva Convention of 1949 - "needle" shells and cluster bombs. This was especially evident during the destruction of places of compact residence of the Abkhaz ethnic group in the villages of the Sukhumi and Ochamchira regions and remained characteristic of the actions of the armed forces of the State Council of Georgia throughout the war.

At the same time, the war that began on August 14, 1992, combined the features of almost all local wars that had already unfolded on the territory of the former USSR by that time. The swiftness and cruelty of the aggression with the use of powerful military equipment made it look like the just ended war in Transnistria; rampant criminal terror against the civilian population by the Georgian army already had a precedent in South Ossetia; many months of occupation, the prolongation of hostilities for more than a year had an analogy in Nagorno-Karabakh. The common, generic feature of these wars was also extremely sharply expressed in Abkhazia: the screaming inequality in armaments, legalized by the allied, and then by the Russian leadership. Republics of the "first class" received their share in the division of the Soviet Army, autonomy - nothing. They were forced to solve their own security problems already in the midst of the conflict.

This was especially pronounced in Abkhazia, in view of its historical connection with the peoples of the North Caucasus and the resonance that Georgia's attack on it caused here.

In the aggregate of all these signs, the war of 1992-1993. in Abkhazia still occupies a special place in the chain of wars caused by the collapse of the USSR. The paradoxical combination of different, seemingly mutually exclusive elements in it has no analogues. Here it is called "domestic". All over the republic there are monuments and honor its defenders. And this name has two plans. The first, obvious one, of course, is the defense of their small homeland. But the second one was also quite clearly indicated: a semantic and spiritual-emotional connection with the memory of the Great Patriotic War, which was still universal and alive in the country. This found its expression in many features: in the name of Marshal Baghramyan, given to the Armenian volunteer battalion, and in the likening of Tkuarchal to besieged Leningrad, and in the inscription “fascists”, on bridges, buildings, etc. in relation to the troops of the State Council of Georgia.

Finally, there was no alienation of "Sovietness", which by that time had flooded the territory of Georgia and Russia itself. On the contrary, Abkhazia, like South Ossetia and Transnistria, was a territory that tried to protect the Union as a universal value, and this was bizarrely combined with the wide participation in the Abkhazian militia of volunteers from the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (KGNK), not very alien to Russophobia, and the Cossacks, known his ability to defend the interests of the state.

It remains an indisputable historical fact, which can be confirmed by documents and evidence, that the battalion of the KGNK (highlanders) and the so-called “Slavbat” (Cossacks and volunteers from the Russian regions of Russia) provided real assistance to Abkhazia. It was they, about 1.5 thousand people, including the battalion of Shamil Basayev (286 people), together with the Abkhazian militia, who took shape in the regular army, and not the mythical large-scale support of the Russian army, turned the tide of the war.

Fighters of the women's Abkhaz battalion

The true reason for the failure of the war for Georgia was shown even by the authors of the “World History of Wars”, Ernest and Trevor Dupuis, who are very unfavorable to the Abkhazians. Having an overwhelming superiority in forces, the Georgians failed to take advantage of it. The Georgian army showed absolute helplessness on the battlefield. There was no unified command in it until very recently. Quarrels and grievances between military leaders became in the order of things.

During the more than a year of the war in Abkhazia, the Georgian army has not carried out a single operation that was more or less competent from a military point of view.

The entire course of hostilities confirms the correctness of this assessment.

In the early morning of August 14, 1992, Georgian troops entered the Republic of Abkhazia. Up to 2 thousand Georgian "guards", 58 units of armored vehicles and buses "Ikarus", 12 artillery units participated in this action. The column stretched for several kilometers along the highway from Gali to Ochamchira. In addition, the offensive was supported from the air by four MI-24 helicopters and naval forces.

During the operation codenamed "Sword" in Tbilisi, according to Abkhaz intelligence, they planned that the main forces would follow the railroad, land their garrisons at all key points, and the awakened Abkhazia would be in their hands. Another grouping was sent by sea from Poti to Gagra on the night of August 14-15. The amphibious assault, numbering several hundred national guardsmen with four armored vehicles, moved on two landing ships, two Comets and a barge. On the eve of the inglorious campaign in Abkhazia, according to experts from the Center for Caucasian Studies, Georgia received from the warehouses of the former ZakVO about 240 tanks, many armored personnel carriers, about 25 thousand machine guns and machine guns, dozens of guns and rocket and artillery systems, including "Grad" and " Hurricane". These weapons, which previously belonged to the 10th motorized rifle division, were transferred in accordance with the Tashkent agreements. The then Minister of Defense T. Kitovani promised not to use it in Abkhazia, but he did not keep his word.

The amphibious assault at dawn on August 15 stopped in the roadstead near the village of Gantiadi (now Tsandryti), 7 km from the border with the Russian Federation. The administration of Gagra had already been notified of the landing. Behind him in different places visual observation was carried out from the shore, but there were too few forces and means to prevent his landing. At about one o'clock in the afternoon, the amphibious assault force rapidly approached the shore and landed at the mouth of the Khashunse River. Among the fighters of the Abkhazian people's militia who prevented him, some were with machine guns, most with hunting rifles, some were unarmed at all. Nevertheless, the militias fought. The defense was held until seven in the evening, and then they received an order to retreat to the sanatorium "Ukraine" - a section of the highway convenient for defense on the western outskirts of Gagra. But there was a danger of a strike from the rear, from the side of the village of Psakhara (Kolkhida) on the eastern outskirts of Gagra, where members of the local Gagra group “Mkhedrioni” who had settled down by the road and employees of the Gagra police department of Georgian nationality who joined them fired at passing cars and killed several civilians.

Part of the Georgian landing moved to the river Psou. After a short skirmish at a post near the border, eight servicemen of the internal troops of Abkhazia had to withdraw to the Russian side, where they were disarmed and interned.

But the main events of the outbreak of the war developed in the Sukhum direction and, of course, in Sukhumi.

Shortly before the war, at the insistence of the head of the Gat region, the Abkhaz leadership removed the post on the bridge across the Ingur River. In Gala, local "guards" joined the Georgian troops. Further, the Georgian column moved to the first patrol post near the village of Okhurei, Ochamchira district, where nine reservists from a separate regiment of internal troops (OPVV), created on the basis of the disbanded 8th regiment of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, were on duty. They were taken prisoner by fraud. At about 12:00 on August 14, near the village of Agudzera, the reservists of the local OPVV battalion resisted the attackers. But it was quickly suppressed by superior forces, and then the Georgian troops moved freely.

By 12 noon, the Georgian troops were in Sukhumi, in the area of ​​​​the camp site named after the XV Congress of the Komsomol. Here they were joined by local Georgian formations. Subsequently, the column moved towards the center of Sukhumi. The Georgian guards attacked the positions of the OPVV fighters, who, under the onslaught of a significantly superior enemy, were forced to retreat to the Red Bridge. Here, the military commissar of the republic, S. Dbar, took up the organization of defense. The Red Bridge was blocked and mined. The reservists, against whom tanks and helicopters operated, were armed with Molotov cocktails made during the battle. In addition, snipers and machine gunners, who had settled in the nearest high-rise buildings, acted against the defenders of the Red Bridge. After the Georgian tanks went on the offensive, the lead one was hit by the Abkhaz fighters, and then the tank was delivered to their positions. After the repair, he began to terrify his former owners. On the same day, August 14, after an appeal to the people of the republic by the Chairman of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia V. G. Ardzinba, the Presidium of the Supreme Council announced a general mobilization of citizens from 18 to 40 years old.

“... The troops of the State Council of Georgia invaded our land... Our proposals to resolve issues of mutual relations peacefully were answered with tanks, guns, planes, murders and robberies. And this shows the true role of the current leadership of Georgia. The world resolutely condemns this barbaric action, and its moral and material support is provided to us. I think that we must endure in this difficult hour and we will endure. - V. G. Ardzinba said in an appeal on television.

In these first days of the war, the first casualties appeared on both sides. As a result of shelling from a helicopter of the beach of the sanatorium of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, killed Russian officer and several members of military families. All vacationers were then urgently evacuated to the territory of Russia.

Already on August 15, the Georgian side is undertaking a diplomatic maneuver. On the initiative of Georgian Defense Minister T. Kitovani (head of the armed group of the State Council), negotiations began. An agreement was reached to prevent further bloodshed on the withdrawal of the armed forces of both sides from the line of confrontation outside the city. However, already on August 18, Georgian troops treacherously captured Sukhumi, which was left unprotected by the Abkhaz formations that retreated across the Gumista River. The guards of Tengiz Kitovani solemnly hoisted the state flag of Georgia with the autograph of their patron on the dome of the building of the Council of Ministers of Abkhazia. In the "best traditions" of the Middle Ages, Kitovani gave them the city for 3 days. Massive robberies of shops, warehouses, private houses and apartments of non-Georgians began, as well as murders and abuse of civilians on a national basis. The troops of the OPVV were forced to start creating the Gumista defensive line.

On August 18, the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Abkhazia adopted a Decree on the establishment of the State Defense Committee (GKO) of the republic, chaired by V. Ardzinba. Colonel V. Kakalia was appointed commander of the Armed Forces of Abkhazia, and Colonel S. Sosnaliev, who arrived in Abkhazia on August 15, 1992 as a volunteer from Kabardino-Balkaria, was appointed chief of staff.

From the first days of the war, at the call of the Confederation of the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus (KGNK) to provide fraternal assistance to the Abkhaz people, volunteers began to arrive in Abkhazia from the North Caucasus and the South of Russia through the Main Caucasian Range in groups and alone. Volunteers poured into the Abkhaz armed formations. Some of them, especially Chechens and Cossacks, had good field training. Shamil Basaev was appointed commander of the 1st battalion of the KGNK, and Ruslan Gelaev of the 2nd. Nine years later, R. Gelaev, together with a group of Georgian saboteurs, unsuccessfully tried to check the strength of his former brother-soldiers. Such zigzags were made by the history of the war between Georgia and Abkhazia.

In turn, snipers from Lithuania and Latvia, mercenaries from the western regions of Ukraine began to fight on the side of Georgia.

From the very beginning of the war, a very difficult situation arose in Abzhui Abkhazia - the Ochamchira region and the city of Tkuarchal. These regions were cut off from the main part of the country, where the military and political leadership of the republic was stationed.

From the first day of the war in Abzhui Abkhazia, partisan detachments began to be spontaneously created, which did not allow the Georgian troops to capture Tkuarchal. Aslan Zaktaria commanded these groups.

After the capture of Sukhumi by the Georgians, the leadership of the Supreme Council and the Council of Ministers of Abkhazia were evacuated to Gudauta, a regional center 35 km west of Sukhumi.

Thus, by August 18, the Armed Forces of Abkhazia controlled the area from the Gumista River to the village of Kolkhida (turn to Pitsunda) and the mining village of Tkuarchal with a number of Abkhazian villages in the Ochamchira region in the east of the republic. But in these areas there was practically no Georgian population left, which in Sukhumi met the tanks of the State Council with flowers.

But the Georgian troops, instead of developing their military success, engaged in wholesale robberies, looting and drunkenness. The looted property of citizens of the Abkhaz, Armenian, Russian nationalities, state institutions, museums, scientific institutes was taken out, as a rule, towards Tbilisi. The bronze monument to Lenin in front of the building of the Council of Ministers of Abkhazia was removed and sent for melting down, the rest of the monuments were fired from tanks and machine guns. Traces of this vandalism throughout Abkhazia are visible 10 years later - in 2002.

Even Givi Lominadze, who was appointed chairman of the Provisional Committee for the Stabilization of the Situation in Abkhazia and did so much for their arrival, was discouraged by the behavior of the “brave victors”: “I heard and could imagine what war is, but the guards attacked the city like locusts.”

The Georgian military committed atrocities in the city and in the countryside, raped women, and killed them. Dozens and hundreds of people were taken hostage, beaten and abused. All this caused a massive flow of refugees. The world community could not but respond to the misfortune of little Abkhazia. On August 20, a delegation of the Supreme Council of Russia visited Gudauta, Tbilisi, Sukhumi. The demonstrations swept through the cities of the Middle East, Europe and America, where representatives of the numerous Adyghe-Abkhazian diaspora live. The Confederation of Mountain Peoples began to send volunteers to Abkhazia. Russian President B. Yeltsin did not want to come into conflict with E. Shevardnadze. But a trilateral meeting between Russia, Georgia and Abkhazia was scheduled for September 3rd. At the same time, the Georgian military leaders tried to solve the "Abkhazian problem" by their own methods.

A clear idea of ​​how they saw it, and at the same time about themselves, is given by the speech of the then commander of the Tetri Artsivi special forces brigade, later the commander of the troops of the State Council of Georgia in Abkhazia, a former captain Soviet army 27-year-old Colonel (then Brigadier General) Georgiy Karkarashvili, which sounded on August 25 on Sukhumi television: “If 100 thousand Georgians die out of the total number, then all 97 thousand of yours will die, who will support the decisions of Ardzinba.”

The crew of the legendary BMP "01 Apsny" of the Abkhazian army, recaptured from the enemy in the battle near the Red Bridge in Sukhumi on August 14, 1992

It was an open threat of genocide against the Abkhaz people. In response, V. Ardzinba stated that this struggle of a well-armed and trained army against, in fact, the civilian population is deeply immoral, inhumane, that "we will defend the Motherland to the end, if necessary, we will go to the mountains and wage a guerrilla war."

During late August - early September, Georgian troops unsuccessfully tried to break through the defenses of the Abkhaz forces on the Gumista River and seize the remaining Abkhaz territory before negotiations began. But they did not succeed either before the negotiations or after the conclusion of an agreement on the withdrawal of Georgian troops. The Georgian side did not comply with it, and, in turn, the Abkhazians, mountaineers, Cossacks on October 2, 1992, themselves went on the offensive near Gagra. Heroically defending his land, knocking out a tank, Gudautian Sergey Smirnov died, the young commander Artur Shakhanyan, a graduate of the 17th Sukhumi high school. Side by side with the Abkhazians, Armenians, Russians, Greeks, Ukrainians, the Georgians also fought, who later became the heroes of Abkhazia and deserved orders and glory.

Special mention should be made of the Cossacks. Once upon a time, during the uprising of 1866, the Abkhazians, who had risen against tsarism, destroyed a chapel in the village of Lykhny, near the walls of which Cossacks had been buried before. In 1992, a Cossack who came to fight for Abkhazia was buried with honors inside this ruined chapel - a gesture symbolizing a new page in the relationship between Abkhazia and the Cossacks.

All these people, regardless of nationality, stood up for justice, against the barbarism of the Georgian leadership and its methods of warfare (on August 29, 1992, the Abkhazian positions were fired from howitzers with needle shells prohibited by international conventions).

The Russian leadership as a whole in relation to the conflict between Georgia and Abkhazia took a "balanced" approach, balancing tactics.

At the same time, the session of the Supreme Council of Russia on September 24-25, 1992 adopted a resolution "On the situation in the North Caucasus in connection with the events in Abkhazia." In particular, it was said in it: “To strongly condemn the policy of the leadership of Georgia, which is trying to solve the problems of interethnic relations through violence and demand from it an immediate cessation of hostilities, the withdrawal of military units from the territory of Abkhazia, and observance of fundamental human rights and freedoms. Suspend the transfer of weapons, military equipment, ammunition, units and formations of the Armed Forces to Georgia Russian Federation, as well as to stop the transfer of weapons, military equipment, ammunition to Georgia under previously concluded contracts. Refrain from concluding economic agreements with Georgia until the settlement of the conflict in Abkhazia.” It is noteworthy that this resolution was adopted by an overwhelming number of votes and reconciled both the “right” and the “left”, including such ideological opponents as S. Baburin and M. Molostov.

Even greater troubles awaited E. Shevardnadze on the fronts of the Georgian-Abkhazian war. The English military magazine Caucasian World (Caucasus World) published a lengthy article “Abkhazians. Military aspects of the war: a turning point” (author - Georg Hewitt), dedicated to the battle for Gagra. It is of exceptional interest for the history of military art. Before the start of the offensive, the Abkhaz forces did not have superiority either in manpower or in equipment, but the Abkhaz detachments controlled all the heights above the city. The strategy of the Abkhaz and North Caucasian volunteers was to cross the Bzyn River south of Gagra and occupy the strategically important village of Colchis. The invasion of Gagra itself was carried out by an attack in three directions, from the southern passages to the city. One group followed the coastline and attacked the city from the beach and swampy area through a tourist camp located in the southern part of the city. The other two Abkhaz detachments made their way through the city along parallel axes (along the Old and New Highways). The Abkhaz detachments breaking through along the Old Highway were supposed to make their way to the city center and unite with the detachments advancing along the coast. The detachments advancing along the New Highway were to shorten the road to Gagra, heading towards the northern edge of the city in order to block any Georgian reinforcements that might arrive from the north. Thus, the Abkhaz detachments sought to trap the Kartavelin forces defending Gagra. The attack went according to plan. Both detachments of Abkhazians met in battle against the Georgian forces defending railway station. The struggle for it lasted three hours (from 6.00 to 9.00). On October 2, the Abkhaz detachments continued to advance throughout the day. The next place of determined resistance was the sanatorium opposite the supermarket. But by 17.35 this position was surrounded and destroyed. Other Abkhaz detachments proceeded down along the Old Highway through the center of the city, and by 1600 all the main strongholds of the Georgian defense were under the complete control of the Abkhaz, including the Abkhazia Hotel and the police station. An hour and a half later, Gagra was completely under the control of the Abkhazians.

The battle for the police station was extremely fierce, as it was defended by local Georgian policemen and members of the elite White Eagle squad. Abkhazians took 40 prisoners near the Rehabilitation Center.

In the early morning hours of October 3, Georgian helicopters arrived from Sukhumi, but there were too few of them to stop the Abkhaz advance.

One of the Abkhaz detachments at the training ground. In the background is an interesting "home-made" - an infantry fighting vehicle with ten tubes for launching shells from the Grad MLRS (apparently, the M4 Sherman with PU 114-mm Calliope rockets served as a prototype)

Captured Georgian soldiers. In the foreground - General Zurab Mamulashvili, taken prisoner on July 4, 1993 at the Sukhumi hydroelectric power station

Subsequently, the Georgian defense of Gagra turned into a large-scale retreat. The Georgian population fled in the thousands towards the Russian border.

At noon on October 3, a Georgian SU-25 bomber attacked Abkhaz positions at the intersection of the old and new highways in the Ukraina sanatorium. The Georgians, with the forces of the White Eagle formation, began to prepare for a counteroffensive. 60 detachments were to go around the sanatorium through the mountains and attack it from a height. At the same time, part of the Georgian forces (military police, Kutaisi and Tetri Artsvi battalions) advanced south of the highway, seizing Old Gagra and attacking the sanatorium. But this offensive failed after the Georgians saw two ships on the coast and Abkhazians landing from them on the coast.

The next day, October 5, the Abkhaz drive the White Eagle into a very difficult mountainous area. By 18:00 these elite Georgian forces were defeated. After that, the Georgian formations were dispersed in the surrounding villages, and at 8.40 on October 6, the Abkhaz reached the border with Russia and raised their flag.

The remnants of the Georgian formations suffered heavy losses over the next twelve days, including the death of Gogi Karkaroshvili, brother of the commander-in-chief of the Georgian troops. The head of the State Council himself miraculously escaped by helicopter, which made two flights and took away 62 militants.

Abkhaz formations captured 2 tanks, 25 infantry fighting vehicles, a radio station, a boat and thousands of prisoners.

Near Gagra, selected Georgian battalions were defeated: Didgori, Tskhaltub, Rustavi, Gagra 101 and other elite units of the Mkhedrioni. The defeat of the Georgian units foreshadowed, ultimately, defeat in the war.

Abkhazia got the opportunity to receive weapons and volunteers through the mountain passes and its northern borders.

The Georgian units were unable to organize defense in depth, their forward positions were instantly broken through. In street battles, the Georgians could not use their heavy weapons, discipline and morale were low in their ranks, small detachments of 10-12 people defending individual buildings had no communication between themselves. Each detachment only watched its sector and knew nothing more. There were many disagreements between the leaders and their units.

In a word, the Georgian army showed real helplessness on the battlefield, there was no single command in it until very recently. A characteristic touch - in 1992, Gagra was defended by Georgian detachments, which carried out the orders of several commanders and did not interact with each other. Like mushrooms after rain, battalions (Zugdidi, Khashuri, etc.) appeared, numbering 7–8 people each, headed by self-proclaimed colonels (no one agreed to a lower rank and position). Quarrels and grievances between military leaders became in the order of things. So it was when Giorgi Karkaroshvili, after the defeat, began to accuse Colonel-General Anatoly Kamkamidze of incompetence and made it clear that he would not get along with him. (For information, unlike Major General Georgy Karkaroshvili, behind whom there is only a higher military school and the post of chief of staff of an artillery division in the former Soviet army, Anatoly Kamkamidze went in this army from a cadet of a military school to lieutenant general, deputy commander of the troops district for combat training, and the rank of colonel general was awarded to him by Eduard Shevardnadze.) The choice was made in favor of Karkaroshvili. But, having become Minister of Defense in May 1993, he never managed to put an end to indiscipline, discord, and parochialism in the army. Against this background, his repeated promises to "punish the Abkhazians with a large-scale offensive" could only cause a smile. In the end, in the summer of 1993, in an interview with one of the news agencies, he was forced to admit that "there is no order and discipline in the Georgian army."

As the intensity of hostilities increased, the Georgian army turned into an army of vagabonds, blaming each other for the defeat. The Abkhaz detachments, which included volunteers - representatives of the diaspora from Turkey, Syria, Jordan, the highlanders of the North Caucasus, were much better prepared for joint actions. They had a well-placed intelligence, they were distinguished by experience and knowledge of the highlands.

There is an opinion that military aid Abkhazia was also provided by the Russian army. But such accusations are unfounded. Shamil Basayev declared that he was fighting on the side of Abkhazia until Russia started a war with Georgia. In this case, he will fight on the side of Georgia. In total, according to various sources, there were about 500 volunteers on the side of Abkhazia near Gagra. Georgian forces were much larger.

The Abkhaz ensured their superiority with the most different ways.

A curious and very expressive detail: even before the start of hostilities, having no combat vehicles, the Abkhaz formed crews for them. The captured combat vehicle was handed over to one of the crews and immediately entered into battle. This allowed, eyewitnesses say, first to equalize the forces of the attackers and defenders, and then to create an advantage in technology on the Abkhaz side. By the evening of October 1, the Abkhazians took the village of Colchis and quickly advanced towards Gagra, which caused panic in the Georgian units, even detachments had to be used.

In practice, the battle for Gagra was a battle for Abkhazia itself. It showed the inability of the Georgian troops to conduct large-scale operations. There were subsequently 4 significant offensives (January 1993, March 1993, July 1993 and the final offensive in September 1993). All of them were carried out by the Abkhaz side. On October 11, 1992, by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia, the Ministry of Defense of Abkhazia was formed, headed by Colonel Vladimir Arshba. On the same day, the air defense of Abkhazia near the village of Eshera shot down a Su-25 aircraft of the Georgian Air Force for the first time with a surface-to-air missile.

The defeat of the Gagra group of troops of the Republic of Georgia caused panic in Sukhumi. But in general, the war took on a protracted character. On the part of Abkhazia, there were attempts to land an amphibious assault in Ochamchire from Gudauta. The Abkhazians inflicted significant damage on the Georgian side, but were forced to retreat. After several unsuccessful, however, and not persistent enough attempts to "clean up" Ochamchira, the Abkhazians counted on the Zviadist detachments that controlled Western Georgia, and were not mistaken. Colonel Loti Kobalia did not get involved (and he did promise) in active hostilities in Abkhazia. Moreover, he put up a lot of obstacles to government troops, along the way, not missing the opportunity to profit from heavy equipment and weapons at their expense. And, when the decisive hour came in the battle for Sukhumi, the units of the 1st Army Corps of the Georgian Army got stuck somewhere on the outskirts of Ochamchira. A little later, on November 3–4, the Abkhaz army carried out reconnaissance in force on the northern outskirts of Sukhumi near the village of Giroma. At the end of November, an agreement was concluded between the Abkhaz and Georgian sides on a ceasefire for the period of evacuation from Sukhumi of some units of the Russian army - the 903rd separate radio engineering center and the 51st road depot. The leadership of Abkhazia faced two interrelated tasks: the liberation of the republic from Georgian troops and the provision of a more or less tolerable life for the population in the territory under the control of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia. This was especially true of humanitarian aid to the mining district of Tkuarchal. The whole world was shocked by the tragedy of the downed Mi-8 helicopter, which was taking out on December 14, 1992 from the besieged area civilians(women, children, old people). The helicopter, controlled by the Russian crew, was shot down over the village of Lata, Gulriksha district, by a thermal missile "Strela" from the Georgian side. The crew and more than 60 people died. civilians. Today, a photo exhibition dedicated to this barbarity is on display at the State Museum of Abkhazia. But the world did not shudder at this barbarism. Ruling Russia also remained without any special emotions.

It is not surprising that on May 26, 1993, the tragedy repeated itself - a helicopter was shot down over Saken with flour and medicines for the besieged Tkuarchal. As a result, the squadron commander L. Chubrov, helicopter commander E. Kasimov, navigator A. Savelyev, flight mechanic V. Tsarev and radio operator E. Fedorov were killed. And again silence from official Russia. By that time, she had transferred the port of Poti to Georgia with a large amount of equipment.

In total, during the war years, about 50 Russian servicemen and members of their families died from the actions of the Georgian side.

Subsequently, the Russian army immortalized the memory of the dead Russian peacekeepers by engraving their names on the memorial installed in the sanatorium of the Moscow Military District in Sukhumi.

The coming year of 1993 was marked by a new offensive of the Abkhazians against Sukhumi. They managed to seize several areas on the left bank of the Gumista. But deep snow contributed to the growth of losses among the attackers, and they were forced to retreat under heavy artillery and mortar fire. The bodies of 23 dead from Abkhazia were exchanged for captured Georgians. In mid-March, the Armed Forces of the Republic of Abkhazia made a new attempt to liberate Sukhumi by forcing Gumista in its lower reaches. The preparations for the attack were meticulous. The equipment was also thought out - body armor and waterproof suits - which in this situation saved the lives of many Abkhazians. But at the same time, having learned from the bitter Gagra experience, the Georgian command took the most serious measures to strengthen the defense of the city from the proposed offensive. And yet, on the night of March 16, after intensive artillery preparation and air bombardment, the Abkhaz units (including the Armenian battalion named after Marshal Baghramyan, created shortly before) crossed to the left bank of the Gumista, broke through the defenses of the Georgians in several places and started fighting for mastering strategically important heights. Separate groups seeped into the city.

However, the Abkhaz offensive failed, although, according to the Georgian leaders, "the fate of the city hung in the balance." Many groups that went forward were surrounded, stayed on the left bank for up to 2-3 days, but managed, in the end, to get to the right bank and carry out the wounded. Since the beginning of the war, the Abkhazian army has not suffered such tangible losses in any combat operation, there were three times more than on January 5. The Georgians also received great damage.

Again, a rather long period began, lasting this time three and a half months, when the fighting on the Gumista front was reduced to fierce artillery skirmishes, and the Abkhaz and Georgian armed formations entered into direct contact only on the Eastern Front, in the Ochamchira region. During this period, the number of Cossacks increased in the Armed Forces of Abkhazia, and new mercenaries from Western Ukraine appeared in the Georgian army. The presence of a group of Russian troops on the territory of Abkhazia during this period was a deterrent. At the same time, Russia's shuttle diplomacy represented by Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev, Minister of Foreign Affairs A. Kozyrev and Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation B. Pastukhov in Tbilisi, Sukhumi, Gudauta did not give the desired effect. There was a threat of the division of Abkhazia, and not the end of the conflict.

Since it was not possible to agree on the withdrawal of Georgian troops from the territory of Abkhazia, the leadership of the Republic of Abkhazia had no choice but to continue the struggle by force of arms.

On July 2, 1993, the Armed Forces of Abkhazia again launched offensive operations. At night, in the village of Tamysh, Ochamchira district, an amphibious assault force of 300 people was landed. Having united in the area of ​​the Black Sea highway with units of the Abkhazian army that fought on the Eastern Front, the paratroopers cut the highway and brutally held a corridor of about 10 km for a week, preventing the Georgian military command from transferring reinforcements to the Sukhumi region. But the main actions of the offensive operation are unfolding north of Sukhumi. Having crossed Gumista in the region of the two rivers, the Abkhazian forces occupied the villages of Gunma, Akhalsheni, Kaman, as well as the village of Sukhum-HPP, within a few days. The Georgian General Mamulashvili was taken prisoner. By July 9, the strategically important village of Shroma was captured. Georgian troops tried to regain Shromy again, but failed.

There were stubborn battles for possession of the heights dominating the capital of Abkhazia. Shevardnadze himself flew to Sukhumi, and new minister Defense of Georgia Gia Karkarashvili presented an ultimatum to Abkhazia on the withdrawal of troops from the village. Scars.

The talks between the opposing sides with the participation of the representative of Russia, Minister of Emergency Situations S. Shoigu, led to the signing of an armistice agreement. The Georgian side undertook obligations to withdraw its troops and heavy equipment from the territory of Abkhazia. In turn, the Abkhaz side also undertook to demilitarize its territory and reduced its military formations to a regiment of internal troops to protect communications and important facilities. On August 17, Abkhazia saw off its defenders - volunteers from the republics and regions of the South of Russia - to their homeland. But the Georgian side was in no hurry to fulfill the agreement. Heavy equipment was not withdrawn, and on September 7, an armed group of supporters of Z. Gamsakhurdia invaded the Gall region.

In response to this, on September 16, on the Eastern Front, the Abkhaz forces made an attempt to lift the blockade from Tkuarchal on their own and reached the Kodor River (3 km from the Sukhumi airport). The expansion of the bridgehead for the attack on Sukhumi from the north also began. Georgian forces made attempts to break through from Ochamchira and break through the corridor to Sukhumi, but to no avail. By September 20–21, the Abkhazian units closed the ring around Sukhumi. After stubborn fighting, Georgian troops were driven out of the supermarket area at the entrance to Sukhumi and blockaded in the New Microdistrict. By September 25, the Abkhaz units captured the TV tower and Train Station. Starting September 25 Russian ships, by agreement with the Abkhaz side, began to take out thousands of refugees. But the Georgian army led by E. Shevardnadze refused to leave the city voluntarily.

As a result of the offensive on September 26–27, the operation to liberate Sukhumi was completed. During the 12-day battles, the Abkhaz troops defeated the 2nd army corps of the Georgian army, numbering more than 12 thousand people. Many tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, etc. were captured as trophies.

On September 29, the Sukhumi airport was taken and the troops of the Gumista and Eastern fronts joined near the Kodor River, the blockade of the Tkuarchal region ended.

Map-scheme of the Georgian-Abkhaz war

At 8.30 on September 30, the Armed Forces of Abkhazia attacked and captured Ochamchira and by evening entered the empty Gall. By 8 pm on the same day, the Abkhaz detachments reached the Ingur River and the border with Georgia. Victory has come for the people of Abkhazia. The landslide flight of most of the Georgian population of Sukhumi, Sukhumi, Gulriksh, Ochamchira and Gall regions outside of Abkhazia during last week September 1993 is, of course, also a huge human tragedy. But if there had not been an attempt to bring the Abkhaz people to their knees by force, there would have been no catastrophe that befell the Georgian population of the Republic of Abkhazia in September 1993. After all, never and nowhere, at any level, in any statement of the Abkhaz, seeking the sovereignty of Abkhazia, they did not raise the question of the deportation of the Georgian population from it, of ethnic cleansing. Only thanks to Shevardnadze, by October 1, 1993, the share of the Georgian population in Abkhazia returned to the level of 1886. Shevardnadze himself fled in disgrace with Russia's "last" helicopter to the south, leaving his army dying in Sukhumi. Russia once again rendered an invaluable service to Georgia by saving its president. Chairman of the Supreme Council of Abkhazia V. Ardzinba forbade, in order to avoid international conflict, shoot down this helicopter. The Russians in the helicopter with Shevardnadze became a human shield for him, a guarantee of his personal safety during this last flight. At the same time, he left his old friend and associate, the head of the administration in Abkhazia, Zhauli Shartava, to die in besieged Sukhumi. “E. Shevardnadze himself could not help but know how hated he and his friends are for the Abkhazians and North Caucasians - one could hope for indulgence only if respected people stood up for the prisoners - S. Shamba, S. Soskaliyev or Vladislav himself Ardzinba... But to the question of a major Russian official: - Where is Shartava? - followed the answer of the head of Georgia: - Everything is fine with him ... ".

Even to the most unbiased Russian observer, it is clear that the Georgian forces defeated non-Russian troops and that the victory of the people of Abkhazia was deeply logical. The decisive role in the fact that Abkhazia survived was played by the courage and heroism of its sons and daughters, all honest and courageous people of different nationalities who came to its aid.

In Abkhazia, the “Book of Eternal Memory” was published under the editorship of V.M. Ukrainians, Greeks, Circassians, Lazs, Adyghes, Tatars, Karachays, Abazins, Germans, Jews).

From the point of view of military art, this war is indicative of the fact that the July and September offensive of the Abkhazians was active, decisive, highly maneuverable, the front was 40 km wide and 120 km deep. The Abkhaz units and subunits, created on the basis of the people's militia, skillfully hit the Georgian positions with fire, broke through their defenses at a high pace, saturated with a large number of anti-tank and armored weapons, smashed them in a head-on battle with daring blows, forestalling them in opening fire. Already the first months of the war showed that the Abkhaz used the tactics of guerrilla war only to get time to mobilize their forces. After the Gagra events, their actions were dominated not by blind chance or luck, but purely strategic. This was especially important at the first stage of the war, when they were limited both in strength and in the means of waging it. In these battles, the Abkhaz fought back tanks, combat vehicles, artillery mounts, ammunition, in a word, fought for trophies, replenishing their military arsenal. And what about the Georgians? Paradoxically, but the fact, having an overwhelming superiority in strength, they failed to use it. Abkhazians showed themselves confidently in close and contact combat. This was especially evident on the Eastern Front. As a result of the 1993 military campaign, the command and personnel of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Abkhazia gained experience in fighting in specific conditions, both in urban and mountainous areas, and learned to storm strong strongholds and centers of resistance.

The actions of the Air Force, Naval Forces and Air Defense Forces of the Republic of Abkhazia, which solved common strategic objectives during the 1993 military campaign.

On August 27, 1992, the combat use of the Abkhaz aviation began from two AN-2 aircraft in the Gudauta region. Prior to this, the Abkhazians, led by military pilot Oleg Chamba, used only hang gliders, and the aviation of the troops of the State Council of Georgia dominated the sky: Su-25 attack aircraft and Mu-24 helicopters. With impunity, they bombed settlements, ships with refugees, including an ordinary passenger ship, plying along the Poti-Sochi line. The paradox of the war was that the first Abkhaz hang-glider on September 19, 1992, which carried out the bombing of Georgian armored vehicles in the Gagra region, was controlled by the Georgian O. G. Siradze. The news that the Georgians bombed the troops of the State Council of Georgia spread all over Abkhazia. Subsequently, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Abkhazia and one of the Sukhumi schools was named after him.

Hang gliders, piloted by pilots O. Chamba, Avidzba, Gazizulin, successfully carried out reconnaissance and bombed Georgian positions, and operated in such hard-to-reach places where neither helicopters nor planes can operate. In total, the Abkhaz pilots spent about 150 hours in the military sky.

An analysis of the combat experience of the Abkhazian hang gliders showed the need to equip the vehicles with a light machine gun and a landing headlight. The war confirmed that such aircraft are detected only if the pilot at low altitude increases the engine speed. The best way to avoid fire is to descend quickly and fly at low level. The war showed the undoubted effectiveness of motor hang gliders and the possibility of teaching a physically strong man to fly them in 30 hours. Considering the report that in 1998 Georgia also acquired hang gliders, it is possible that combat hang gliders can be used in local military conflicts, and not only in the North western part of Transcaucasia.

As Naval Forces in the war, for the landing of amphibious assaults and the protection of the coast and communications, both sides have used boats and other watercraft since August 1992.

The air defense forces of Abkhazia began counting victories on October 11, 1992, when Sergeant Oleg Chmel, a native of New Athos, shot down a Georgian Su-25 aircraft bombing ancient Christian churches. By the beginning of hostilities near Gagra in September 1992, the Abkhaz units had two 120-mm mortars and two Alazan installations delivered by the highlanders. By the end of the war, at the expense of trophies, the Abkhazian army had cannon, anti-tank and mortar batteries. The Abkhazian army acquired armored vehicles by blowing them up and capturing them from the enemy, then they were repairing them, and tanks and infantry fighting vehicles fought on their side. In the final operations of the war, carefully prepared and planned by the Abkhazians, ground forces, aviation, and warships acted according to a single plan. The directions of the main and auxiliary strikes were skillfully chosen.

It should be noted that, unlike the beginning of the war, the last offensives of the Abkhazians were fully provided with equipment, weapons, uniforms, food and ammunition. Commander-in-chief V. Ardzinba, generals S. Soskaliev, S. Dvar, M. Kshimaria, G. Arba, V. Arshba skillfully led their armed forces.

It seems to us that after the war Russia should also draw certain lessons for itself.

For centuries, the Caucasus has been in the zone of interests of the leaders of various state formations both from the West and from the East. Being on the border of Europe and Asia, possessing a unique nature and raw materials, it was partly part of the Roman Empire, then the Byzantine Empire, the Arab Caliphate and the state of Genghis Khan left their traces here. It has been divided among themselves since the time of Prince Svyatoslav by Russians, Persians and Ottomans.

But the North-Western Transcaucasia is of particular national interest for Russia, and not for the United States.

Firstly, at the beginning of the 19th century. the Christian principalities of Abkhazia and Georgia voluntarily, unlike some Muslim territories, became part of the Russian Empire. Abkhazians are still striving for Russia, since they are closely connected with the Adyghes, Karachays, Circassians and other peoples of the North Caucasus.

Secondly, if Russia withdraws from this region, then the Americans will occupy it in order to have access to the raw material wealth of the Caspian Sea, to control this troubled region. In terms of explored reserves, it ranks third in the world after the Arab East and Western Siberia. This is 40-60 billion barrels of oil and 10-20 trillion cubic meters of gas. And Georgia is one of the most convenient corridors for transporting oil to the world market, bypassing Russia.

Third, the Muslim factor is increasingly entering the Black Sea region. Under the auspices of Turkey, the descendants of the Crimean Tatars are increasingly settling in the Crimea, and mahajirs - businessmen from Asia Minor and the Middle East are restoring the economy of their historical homeland and exporting relic forest - sawlogs by sea routes in tons for a pittance. And this is not indifferent to Russia in the light of the ambiguous attitude of the Arabs to the Chechen problem. When the 1st war in Chechnya (1994-1996) turned out to be a failure for Russia, Georgia turned away from its northern neighbor, turning its eyes to the NATO countries. The far-fetched strategic partnership has come to an end. Moscow was not only weakened, but also deceived.

Fourth, the total redistribution of the world by force under the pretext of combating terrorism is bringing NATO ever closer to our borders. Georgia, through Shevardnadze, declared that by 2005 it would join NATO. The current state of the Georgian army, armed with Russian weapons in the 1960s–1970s. (T-72 tanks, Su-25 aircraft, anti-aircraft missile systems that shot down even Powers) are no longer satisfied with the Georgian leadership. Georgian Defense Minister David Tevzadze, a native of Sukhumi, graduated from three military colleges - in Italy, Germany and the United States. Only in Lately In addition to the American special forces from the Green Berets in the Pankisi Gorge, Germany handed over 150 trucks and 500 sets of uniforms to the Georgian armed forces. Türkiye supplies kerosene for aviation and diesel fuel for armored vehicles. The Americans gave 6 Iroquois helicopters and 4 more such machines were allocated for disassembly for spare parts.

And finally After the collapse of the USSR, Russians and Russian citizens who found themselves outside the Russian Federation found themselves, for the most part, in a difficult and humiliating situation. But to such regions of the so-called Near Abroad as Crimea, Abkhazia, where there are a significant number of Russian citizens, and although, so to speak, the body belongs to Ukraine and Georgia, but the soul and heart are with Russia, we should have a particularly reverent attitude. Moreover, under certain circumstances, the nationalists of Ukraine and Georgia have already united more than once and are ready to unite again against “Russian imperial thinking”, and in last resort- give these territories and peoples to a third force that defends its interests all over the world, energetically destroying bin Laden and all potential terrorists.

Therefore, Russia should take a clearer position with regard to Western Transcaucasia. After the Russian peacekeepers were taken hostage in March 2002, the State Duma of Russia made a balanced but firm statement. The territorial integrity of Georgia is not denied, but there is no room for a forceful solution to the Abkhazian problem.

The Belgian researcher Bruno Conniters, in his book Western Security Policy and the Georgian-Abkhazian Conflict, expressed a rather independent point of view on the events in Western Transcaucasia. He says that "in the end, Georgia may not be able to build its own statehood." Georgia is essentially a state without territory, without Abkhazia, without South Ossetia, with the independence of Adzharia, the hidden bitterness of Mengrelia, the isolation and isolation of the Armenian and Azerbaijani enclaves.

Conniters is also supported by compatriots - Olivier Pay and Eric Remacle, that the UN and the OSCE may change the policy of "double standards" in the future and "not deny statehood to peoples who have been waging a painful war for independence for a long time."

The Georgian people, who have lived in friendship with Russia for centuries, and the current Georgian leadership are two different concepts.

But until we revive our economy, maintain powerful and combat-ready armed forces, we will not be seriously considered either in the Caucasus or in the international arena as a whole.

Notes:

15 developing countries are armed with ballistic missiles, another 10 are developing their own. Research in the field of chemical and bacteriological weapons continues in 20 states.

The engineering structure itself, bearing this name and including a high wall of reinforced concrete slabs, was installed in August 1961 and lasted until 1990.

Imre Nagy was a freelance member of the NKVD from 1933.

Dupuis E. and T. The World History wars. St. Petersburg: Polygon, 1993. Vol. IV. S. 749.

Sharia V. Abkhaz tragedy. - Sochi, 1993. S. 6–7.

Sharia V. Abkhaz tragedy. - Sochi, 1993. S. 41.

Myalo K. Russia in the wars of the last decade of the XX century. - M., 2001.

Pavlushenko M. Icarus of Abkhazia / / Technique of youth. No. 11, 1999.

Conniters B. Western Security Policy and the Georgian-Abkhazian Conflict. - M., 1999. S. 70.

Pe O., Remacle E. UN and OSCE Policy in Transcaucasia. disputed borders. - M., 1999. S. 123–129.

The magnolia flower is flawless. Refined and austere, snow-white and modest - without the bright multicolor characteristic of the subtropics, full of purity and dignity. Such a flower is only worthy of a bride. Abkhaz bride, of course! Do you know the Abkhaz wedding - when a thousand people of relatives and neighbors gather!? When half the city rises to the ears: someone puts firewood under huge boilers, someone cuts bulls, someone builds tables and tents - a knock, a roar, a roar. And then a holiday, a feast, and all the men in turn from a liter drinking horn - for a new family, for new lives! For the harvest, for the vine! For the progenitor mountains visible from everywhere in Abkhazia! Pour it: here is "Psou" - white semi-sweet, you can not have a snack, although the grape churchkhela lies nearby on a plate; but "Chegem" - red and so dry, only for its fragrant juicy shish kebab. Here in the glass "Amra" (in Abkhazian - the sun) sparkles with purple highlights, and when drinking songs start to sound, all other sounds will die down. Luxurious thickets of magnolia, tall eucalyptus trees, chic spreading palm trees, twisted impudent lianas, ready to burst right into the house, will be heard in a friendly Caucasian polyphony. After all, Abkhazia is Apsny in Abkhazian, the country of the soul. The country that God left for himself, distributing all the lands to different tribes and peoples. And when the late Abkhazians appeared, God did not even ask them - where were they? Of course, the guests were again welcomed. I had to give them this fertile land, and go to heavenly distance. snooty mountain rivers, noisy, like Abkhazian weddings, beat with acceleration directly into the sea, but calm down right there, tamed by the immortal power of the oceans. And the people here are unusual. Sacredly honor traditions, laws of ancestors. Proud, strong, intolerant of injustice. Next to the Abkhazians are their good Georgian neighbors. For centuries they lived side by side, shoulder to shoulder fought off the Romans, Arabs, Turks. Loved the same food. Corn porridge - hominy; stewed beans - in Georgian "lobio", and in Abkhazian - "akud"; khachapur and khachapuri, satsivi and achapu. And in hospitality, will Georgians yield to Abkhazians?! Millions of vacationers Soviet Union fell in love with the magnificent Abkhazia, and came there again and again: to the Ritsa, to the waterfalls, to the New Athos Monastery, languid Gagra, fragrant boxwood Pitsunda with its the purest water off the coast, and, of course, Sukhum. However, Sukhum is in Abkhazian. In Georgian it will be - Sukhumi.

Plague

On August 14, 1992, when the midday heat reached its peak, a helicopter appeared over the beaches of Sukhumi, mottled with tourists. People began to turn their heads in his direction, and first saw the lights flickering near the body of the rotorcraft. Only a moment later a leaden hail hit them. And from the east, the roar of tanks breaking into the serene city was already heard. These were units of the so-called "guards" of the State Council of Georgia, as well as detachments of thousands of armed volunteers, thoroughly saturated with nationalistic and criminal spirit, under the command of "godfathers" Tengiz Kitovani and Jaba Ioseliani. Under the general leadership of the President of Georgia Eduard Amvrosievich Shevardnadze. In the future, the author will call them - "Georgian forces." It can be shorter - "guards".

S.B. Zantaria testifies (Sukhum, Frunze st., 36-27):
- The soldiers of the State Council broke down the door and entered, supposedly to seize weapons. At that time, my sister Vasilisa and ex-husband Ustyan V.A. were with me. They began to demand money, to insult. After drinking alcohol, they robbed the apartment, took away my sister and Ustyan V.A. His sister was abused and raped, Ustyan was beaten and then killed. They robbed everyone, took them indiscriminately, caught girls and women, raped ... What they did is impossible to convey ...

L.Sh. Aiba testifies (Sukhum, Dzhikiya st., 32):
- At night, my neighbor Jemal Rekhviashvili called me outside, saying: "Don't be afraid, I'm your neighbor, come out." As soon as I left, they hit me on the head, then dragged me into the house and began to search. Everything in the house was turned over and all valuables were taken away. Then they took me to the depot area, where they beat me between the cars, demanded a machine gun and three million money ... Then we went to the police, where they said that they had found a grenade from me and showed me one of their grenades. Then they put me in a cell. Periodically tortured, using current, beaten. Once a day we were given a bowl of food, and we often spat in front of our eyes in this bowl. When the Georgians had setbacks at the front, they broke into the cell and beat everyone in it...

Testifies Z.Kh.Nachkebia (Sukhum):
- 5 "guardsmen" came, one of them put my grandson Ruslan against the wall and said that he had come to kill. Another approached my two-year-old granddaughter Lyada Dzhopua, who was lying in her crib, and put a knife to her throat. The girl said to herself: "Lyada, don't cry, my uncle is good, he won't kill you." Ruslan's mother, Sveta, began to beg not to kill her son, saying: "I can't bear his death." One "guardsman" said: "Hang yourself, then we won't kill our son." The neighbors came, and Ruslan's mother ran out of the room. Soon they went to look for her and found her in the basement. She hung on a rope and was already dead. "Guards", seeing this, said: "Bury her today, and tomorrow we will come to kill you."

B.A. Inapha testifies:
- The "Guards" hit me, tied me up, took me to the river, led me into the water and started shooting next to me and asking questions about what weapons the Abkhaz had. Then they started demanding 3 million. After the beating, I lost consciousness. Woke up in the room. Having found an iron, they undressed me and started torturing me with a hot iron. They mocked me until the morning, in the morning their shift came, which again began to beat me and demand a million. Then they took me out into the yard, put on handcuffs, started cutting up chickens and injecting me with morphine. In the evening of the same day, I was able to escape, got to the Armenians, who treated my wounds, cut the handcuffs, fed me, let me spend the night and showed me the way to the city in the morning.

There is no one in the city of Ochamchira who can speak Abkhaz. Only for speech can kill. The bodies of Abkhazians with traces of terrible tortures, with separated parts of the body, end up in the district hospital. There were cases of scalping, skin removal from living people. Hundreds of people were tortured and brutally killed by savages from the "Babu" gang, whose leader is shown on Georgian television in a white cloak as a national hero. The number of Abkhazians living in Ochamchira during the 8 months of the war decreased from 7 thousand to about 100 old men and women, exhausted by torture and abuse. In order to shift the burden of the war onto the Georgian population of Abkhazia, the Tbilisi "ideologists" ordered that weapons be distributed to the local Georgians. And a certain part of the Georgians began to kill their neighbors, but many, risking their lives, hid the families of the Abkhazians, and then helped them to escape. About 30% of the Georgian population of the Ochamchira region left Abkhazia in order not to take part in the extermination of the Abkhazians.

Testifies V.K. Dopua (Adzyubzha village):
- October 6 "guards" together with local Georgians entered the village. Everyone who was found in the houses was rounded up. The adults were lined up in front of the tank, the children were put on the tank and everyone was led towards Dranda. Dopua Juliette, tied with ropes to the tank, was dragged along the street. So civilians were used as a barrier against shelling by partisans.

The world practically does not know the names of the Abkhazian village of Tamysh and the Armenian Labra, and of other villages almost completely destroyed by the Georgian forces. After E. Shevardnadze came to power in Georgia, the West declared Georgia a "democratic country", and this was a real indulgence - the forgiveness of all sins. In the West, Eduard Amvrosievich was always attentively listened to and sympathized with his problems. Probably deserved it. The "problems" of the inhabitants of Labra and Tamysh were not focused on either in the countries of "civilized democracy" or in Russia. Meanwhile, the entire Caucasus shuddered from the stories of eyewitnesses.

V.E. Minosyan, a resident of the prosperous village of Labra in the Ochamchire region, where hard-working Armenians lived, whose ancestors fled the Turkish genocide of 1915, testifies:
- It was in the afternoon, at three o'clock. They gathered several families, about 20 people, and forced them to dig a deep hole. Then the old men, children and women were forced to descend into this pit, and the men were forced to cover them with earth. When the earth was above the waist, the "guards" said: "Bring money, gold, otherwise we will bury everyone alive." The whole village gathered, children, old people, women fell to their knees, begging for mercy. It was a terrible picture. Once again they collected valuables ... only then they released almost distraught people.

Yeremyan Seysyan, machine operator testifies:
- The village of Labra was completely destroyed, expelled, robbed, all tortured, many killed and raped. One guy named Kesyan was offered to rape his mother. Collective farmer Seda was raped by several people in the presence of her husband, as a result of which the latter went mad. Ustyan Khingal was undressed and forced to dance, while they stabbed her with a knife and fired from machine guns.
The Svans, a people inhabiting the northeastern regions of Abkhazia and the Kodori Gorge, were more active in this violence than others. Georgian tanks, "Grads" and aircraft eventually razed Labra to the ground, as well as the villages of Tamysh, Kindgi, Merkulu, Pakuash, Beslakha.

They destroyed not only the whole nation, they destroyed the very memory of it. During the occupation, institutes were plundered, the developments of which were world famous: the Sukhumi Physical and Technical Institute, the Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy with its famous monkey house. The Georgian soldiers released the monkeys from the cages with the words: "Let them run through the streets and gnaw on the Abkhazians." The building of the Abkhaz Institute of Language, Literature and History was looted and burned, on November 22, 1992, the Abkhaz State Archive was completely destroyed, where 17 thousand items of storage were lost only in the funds of the ancient period. Gasoline was poured into the basements of the archive and set on fire; the townspeople who tried to put out the fire were driven away with shots. The buildings of the printing house, publishing house, base and repository of archaeological expeditions in Sukhum, in the villages of Tamysh and Tsebelda, the Gagra Historical and Archaeological Museum, where unique collections of ancient artifacts were lost, were looted and burned. Professor V. Karzhavin, winner of the Lenin and State Prizes, a prisoner of the Gulag, died of starvation in Sukhum.

A bit of history

The Abkhazian kingdom is mentioned in fairly ancient sources no later than the 8th century AD. Passing from one empire to another - Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Russian - the Abkhazians did not lose their national identity. In addition, the conquerors were more interested in the coast, and few people wanted to climb the mountains. But the obstinate nature of the Abkhazians in relation to the conquerors gave rise to such a tragic phenomenon as "makhadzhirstvo" - the forcible resettlement of the local population from Abkhazia to other places, mainly to the territory Ottoman Empire. For many centuries the Abkhazians and their Georgian neighbors lived peacefully. However, in the 20th century, a new wave of displacement began, now under Stalin's regime. In the early 1930s, Abkhazia, as an autonomous republic, was transferred from the Russian SFSR to the Georgian SSR. In 1948, a large number of Greeks, Turks and representatives of other non-indigenous peoples were forcibly resettled from Abkhazia. Georgians began to actively settle in their place. According to the 1886 census, there were 59,000 Abkhazians in Abkhazia, and slightly more than 4,000 Georgians; according to the data of 1926: Abkhazians - 56 thousand, Georgians - 67 thousand, according to the data of 1989: Abkhazians - 93 thousand, Georgians - almost 240 thousand.

The impetus for the conflict was the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Abkhazian Supreme Soviet, headed by its leader Vladislav Ardzinba, demanded that Tbilisi conclude a federal treaty, following the path followed by Russia in building a new state of a federal type. This demand caused a wave of indignation among the majority of Georgian politicians of the new era, since they saw Georgia as an exclusively unitary state. Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who came to power in Georgia in 1991, called the country's national minorities nothing more than "Indo-European pigs" and considered them "Georgianized." The adventurist policy of Gamsakhurdia pushed Georgia into the abyss in all directions, and then organized crime entered the political arena. Criminal authorities T. Kitovani and D. Ioseliani created their own armed groups (Ioseliani's group was called "Mkhedrioni" - horsemen), and overthrew Gamsakhurdia. And Eduard Shevardnadze was put in his place. AND former Minister Internal Affairs of the Georgian SSR agreed. Now the next step was the task of pacifying the excessively "insolent" national outskirts: South Ossetia and Abkhazia. A pretext for an attack on Abkhazia was quickly found: supporters of the deposed Zviad Gamsakhurdia settled in eastern Abkhazia and began to wage a sluggish struggle against the Shevardnadze regime. In particular, they carried out attacks on trains, which took place on the only railway leading to the territory of Georgia from Russia. On August 12, 1992, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Abkhazia adopted an appeal to the State Council of Georgia, which contained the following lines:

The new Treaty between the two states, the need for which the Parliament of Abkhazia has been talking about since August 25, 1990, will clearly define both the terms of reference of each of the republics and the competence of their joint bodies ... The conclusion of the Union Treaty between Abkhazia and Georgia is a reliable means of overcoming mutual distrust between our peoples.

However, the Georgian side by that time received the main thing: Russian weapons, sufficient to equip a full-blooded division, including heavy weapons, tanks, and a large amount of ammunition. There is every reason to believe that the then President of the Russian Federation B. Yeltsin not only armed the aggressor, but also gave him political carte blanche, guaranteeing the non-interference of Russian military units stationed in Abkhazia and Georgia in the conflict. And on August 14, 1992, a Georgian column of armored vehicles, hung with clusters of heavily armed criminals Kitovani and Ioseliani, with the support of aviation (Su-25 and Mi-24) moved to Abkhazia.

War

Georgian forces immediately captured a significant territory of Abkhazia, but could not break through Sukhum. On the Gumista River, which serves as the western border of Sukhum, the Abkhaz forces delayed the advance of the aggressor; a few machine guns, hunting rifles, blockages were used. Craftsmen made hand bombs and land mines, stuffing various metal cylinders with industrial explosives. Someone came up with the idea to fill the "guards" with a liquid designed to destroy pests of tangerines. Hot Abkhaz guys on the go jumped on enemy armored vehicles, blinded viewing devices with capes, destroyed the crew and shouted to their own: "Who will be the tankman?" So the Abkhazian forces gradually acquired their own tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, painted over inscriptions in Georgian on them, and wrote their slogans in Abkhazian. The whole of Abkhazia, for 200 km from the border with Russia to the border with Georgia, is connected by almost the only road that runs along the sea. In addition, this whole road runs along mountain slopes, densely overgrown with forests. Naturally, this facilitated the task of the Abkhaz militia forces defending and conducting a partisan war in the occupied eastern regions. Enraged by the fierce resistance of the Abkhazians, the commander of the Georgian forces G. Karkarashvili spoke on Sukhumi television on August 27, 1992 and declared that "...I am ready to sacrifice 100 thousand Georgians for the destruction of 98 thousand Abkhazians." In the same speech, he stated that he had given the order to the troops not to take prisoners.

A few days after the start of the invasion, Georgian forces landed an amphibious assault in the Gagra area. Well-armed guardsmen quickly took control of a large territory, distributed the weapons they had brought with them to local Georgians. Now the Abkhazian forces were squeezed between two groups of Georgian forces: Sukhumi and Gagra.

The situation seemed hopeless. There are no weapons and ammunition, in the east - the enemy, in the west - the enemy, at sea - Georgian boats and ships, in the north - the impenetrable Caucasian ridge. But then a new factor entered the arena, not a material one, but a spiritual one. Perhaps the appropriate name for it would be - "a just war for liberation." The savagery perpetrated by the aggressor in the occupied territories caused mass indignation not only in Abkhazia itself. Volunteers from the republics of the North Caucasus reached Abkhazia through difficult mountain passes: Adygs, Kabardians, Chechens, representatives of many other Caucasian nationalities, and... Russians. A thin stream of weapons also reached out - from Chechnya, which by that time had gained de facto independence, having completely eliminated all federal structures on its territory. Finally realizing that the situation in Abkhazia can only be called genocide, Moscow began a "double" game. In words, she recognized the territorial integrity of Georgia, but in reality she began to supply weapons to the Abkhaz forces from the territories of Russian military units stationed in Abkhazia. At the Abkhazian mountain training bases, strong men with a military bearing and Slavic physiognomies appeared, who taught the Abkhazians and volunteers who formed their units, the science of war. And two months later, the Abkhazian forces stormed Gagra, reaching the border with Russia along the Psou River. Russians (mostly Cossacks, many after Transnistria) fought in the so-called "Slavbat" - considered one of the most combat-ready units of the Abkhaz forces, and in small groups in different units.

A commemorative plate near the bridge over the river Gumista, there were fierce battles.

The fighters of the Armenian battalion fought selflessly, participated in almost all serious operations (before the war, there were more than 70 thousand Armenians in Abkhazia). The battalion of "confederates" (volunteers from the Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus), led by Shamil Basayev, fought skillfully and bravely. It was in his battalion that the poet Alexander Bardodym fought and died, who then wrote the lines that became famous:

The spirit of the nation must be predatory and wise,
Judge to the merciless detachments,
He hides mother-of-pearl in the pupil like a cobra,
He is a buffalo with a fixed look.
In the land where blood stains red swords,
Not looking for cowardly solutions.
He is a hawk counting peaceful men
In hot battles.
And his account is accurate, how accurate is the scope
In motion indestructible.
How fewer men who choose fear
The higher the hawk's flight.

The grave of the poet Alexander Bardodym, who fought for the freedom of the Abkhaz people. Under the bouquet of fresh flowers lies a sheet with the text of the poem "The Spirit of the Nation".

The fate of the war was sealed. Now the weapons to the Abkhazians came freely across the border with Russia, and volunteers also arrived without hindrance, the number of which, however, never exceeded one thousand people at the front at the same time. The Abkhaz themselves fielded about 7-8 thousand fighters, for 100 thousand people this was the maximum. In fact, all the men and quite a few women fought. Liana Topuridze, a 22-year-old nurse of the Abkhaz militia, a student of the biology faculty of the Abkhaz State University, was captured by the "guards" and mocked at her all day, shot dead only in the evening. The Georgian military, of course, made certain efforts to restore discipline and order in their units; there were many cases when the guardsmen, especially in age, stopped their fellow soldiers who were causing chaos. However, in general, the situation was depressing: violence, bullying and atrocities against the civilian population and prisoners, drunkenness and drug addiction flourished in the Georgian forces. During the period of initial successes, the Georgian side had about 25,000 fighters at the front, but as they realized that they would have to fight for real, their number steadily decreased. The Georgian people of 4 million did not actually support the war, the atrocities of their own troops were well known in Georgia, so the recruitment of Georgian forces was extremely difficult. I had to recruit urgently those who wanted to fight in Ukraine, other CIS countries, and in March 1993, about 700 Ukrainian militants arrived in Sukhum on 4 planes from Ukraine. A certain number of fighters from the Baltic states and Russia fought on the Georgian side, but the total number of "foreigners" at the front also did not exceed 1 thousand people. Interestingly, in connection with the end of the war in Transnistria, the freed forces from the Transnistrian side moved to the war in Abkhazia: only the Ukrainians went to fight for the Georgian forces, and the Russians (Cossacks, mostly) - for the Abkhaz. Criminals from the Mkhedrioni detachments and the Kitovani police, having collected all the valuables in the controlled territories and transported them to Georgia, began to evaporate before our eyes. It's one thing to torture old people with irons, and it's quite another to open battle with now well-armed Abkhazians. Surrounding the capital from all sides, after a series of heavy battles, during the third assault they took Sukhum. Shevardnadze, who flew to Sukhum to cheer up his soldiers, was evacuated to Tbilisi from the combat zone in a Russian military helicopter, guarded by Russian special forces. On September 30, 1993, Abkhaz forces reached the border with Georgia, and this date is celebrated in Abkhazia as Victory Day.

Fighters of the Abkhaz forces: ahead of Sukhum!

Sandwiched between the Caucasus Mountains and Georgian forces, the mining town of Tkvarchal in the eastern zone held out for more than 400 days throughout the war. Georgian forces were unable to take it, despite repeated artillery and air strikes, as well as a carefully organized blockade. Angry "guardsmen" shot down Russian helicopter, who evacuated women and children from Tkvarchala to Gudauta - more than 60 people were burned alive in a huge fire. Tkvarchalians - Abkhazians, Russians, Georgians - were dying of hunger right on the streets, as in besieged Leningrad during the Great Patriotic War, but they never gave up. And it is no coincidence that today in Abkhazia they call that war of 1992-1993. - Patriotic. The total irretrievable losses of all parties in it are approximately estimated at 10 thousand people. Almost all Georgians left Abkhazia, almost all Russians left. There are more Armenians left. As a result, the population was reduced by about two-thirds. There were facts of massacres of the peaceful Georgian population, committed by some part of the Abkhazians and "confederates". Such tricks as cutting the throats of prisoners - the Chechens began to practice just then. However, the Georgian side did not stand on ceremony with the prisoners either. In fact, the population was reduced by two-thirds of the pre-war. About 50 thousand Georgians, untainted by crimes, have already returned to the Gali region, where they lived compactly before the war.

Today

Today, tourists are again coming to Abkhazia - one million per season. They look at the magnificent thickets of magnolia, tall eucalyptus trees, chic spreading palm trees, twisted impudent vines, ready to burst right into the house. Many creepers broke into the houses - these are the houses of people expelled by the war. They frighten tourists a little with the hostile blackness of windows and ruined roofs. Next to the magnolias and eucalyptus trees there are now monuments, right on the rocks in some places memorial plaques with portraits of various people who defended the honor, freedom and right to existence of a small but proud people are visible. In the midst of the tourist season in August-September, vacationers periodically see ceremonies local residents. It is the Abkhazians who remember August 14 - the day of the beginning of the aggression of the Georgian forces, celebrate August 26 - Independence Day and September 30 - Victory Day. Today, Russia has finally decided. In Gudauta there is now a military base of the Russian army, on the roadstead of New Athos there are warships of the Russian fleet.

Small rocket ship on the raid of New Athos under the flag of St. Andrew.

Threat new war didn't disappear. In August 2008, the Georgian forces under the leadership of the new Commander-in-Chief M. Saakashvili tried to take revenge, but a big brown bear from the north, clapped his paw, and everyone fled. The war ended in 3 days. And rightly so, the magnolia flower must be flawless.

Since Tuesday morning, the authorities of Abkhazia have closed traffic on the bridge over the Inguri River, whereadministrative boundary between the Zugdidi region of Georgia and the Gali region of the unrecognized republic, a source in the regional police of the Georgian region of Samegrelo told RIA Novosti.

The Georgian-Abkhazian conflict is one of the most acute inter-ethnic conflicts in the South Caucasus. Tension in relations between the Georgian government and the Abkhazian autonomy was periodically manifested even in the Soviet period. The migration policy pursued under Lavrenty Beria led to the fact that Abkhazians began to make up a small percentage of the population of the region (by the beginning of the 1990s, they were no more than 17% of the total population of Abkhazia). The migration of Georgians to the territory of Abkhazia (1937-1954) was formed by settling in Abkhazian villages, as well as the settlement of Greek villages by Georgians, liberated after the deportation of Greeks from Abkhazia in 1949. The Abkhazian language (until 1950) was excluded from the secondary school curriculum and replaced by the obligatory study of the Georgian language. Mass demonstrations and unrest among the Abkhaz population demanding the withdrawal of Abkhazia from the Georgian SSR broke out in April 1957, in April 1967, and the largest in May and September 1978.

The aggravation of relations between Georgia and Abkhazia began on March 18, 1989. On this day in the village of Lykhny ( ancient capital Princes of Abkhazia) the 30,000th Assembly of the Abkhazian people took place, which put forward a proposal for the secession of Abkhazia from Georgia and its restoration in the status of a union republic.

On July 15-16, 1989, clashes took place in Sukhumi between Georgians and Abkhazians. During the riots, 16 people were reportedly killed and about 140 injured. Troops were used to stop the unrest. The leadership of the republic then managed to resolve the conflict and the incident remained without serious consequences. Later, the situation was stabilized by significant concessions to the demands of the Abkhaz leadership, made during Zviad Gamsakhurdia's tenure in Tbilisi.

On February 21, 1992, the ruling Military Council of Georgia announced the abolition of the Constitution of the Georgian SSR of 1978 and the restoration of the constitution of the Georgian Democratic Republic of 1921.

The Abkhaz leadership perceived the abolition of the Soviet constitution of Georgia as a de facto abolition of the autonomous status of Abkhazia, and on July 23, 1992, the Supreme Council of the Republic (with a boycott of the session by Georgian deputies) restored the Constitution of the Abkhaz Soviet Republic of 1925, according to which Abkhazia is a sovereign state (this decision The Supreme Council of Abkhazia was not recognized at the international level).

On August 14, 1992, hostilities began between Georgia and Abkhazia, which developed into a real war with the use of aviation, artillery and other types of weapons. The beginning of the military phase of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict was initiated by the entry of Georgian troops into Abkhazia under the pretext of liberating Deputy Prime Minister of Georgia Alexander Kavsadze, captured by the Zviadists and held in Abkhazia, guarding communications, incl. railroad, and other important facilities. This move provoked fierce resistance from the Abkhaz, as well as from other ethnic communities in Abkhazia.

The goal of the Georgian government was to establish control over part of its territory and preserve its integrity. The goal of the Abkhaz authorities is to expand the rights of autonomy and, ultimately, gain independence.

On the part of the central government, the National Guard, paramilitary formations and individual volunteers acted, on the part of the Abkhaz leadership - armed formations of the non-Georgian population of the autonomy and volunteers (who arrived from the North Caucasus, as well as Russian Cossacks).

On September 3, 1992, in Moscow, during a meeting between Boris Yeltsin and Eduard Shevardnadze (who at that time held the posts of President of the Russian Federation and Chairman of the State Council of Georgia), a document was signed providing for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Georgian troops from Abkhazia, and the return of refugees. Since the conflicting parties did not fulfill a single point of the agreement, hostilities continued.

By the end of 1992, the war had acquired a positional character, where neither side could win. On December 15, 1992, Georgia and Abkhazia signed several documents on the cessation of hostilities and the withdrawal of all heavy weapons and troops from the region of hostilities. There was a period of relative calm, but in early 1993, hostilities resumed after the Abkhaz offensive on Sukhumi, occupied by Georgian troops.

On July 27, 1993, after lengthy fighting, an agreement on a temporary ceasefire was signed in Sochi, in which Russia acted as a guarantor.

At the end of September 1993, Sukhumi came under the control of the Abkhaz troops. Georgian troops were forced to completely leave Abkhazia.

The armed conflict of 1992-1993, according to the published data of the parties, claimed the lives of 4 thousand Georgians (another 1 thousand were missing) and 4 thousand Abkhazians. The loss of the economy of the autonomy amounted to 10.7 billion dollars. About 250 thousand Georgians (almost half of the population) were forced to flee from Abkhazia.

On May 14, 1994, in Moscow, between the Georgian and Abkhaz sides, with the mediation of Russia, an agreement was signed on a ceasefire and separation of forces. On the basis of this document and the subsequent decision of the Council of CIS Heads of State, the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces have been deployed in the conflict zone since June 1994, whose task is to maintain the regime of non-resumption of fire.

Collective peacekeeping forces, fully staffed by Russian military personnel, control a 30-kilometer security zone in the zone of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. About 3,000 peacekeepers are constantly stationed in the conflict zone. The mandate of the Russian peacekeepers is set at six months. After this period, the Council of CIS Heads of State decides to extend their mandate.

On April 2, 2002, a Georgian-Abkhazian protocol was signed, according to which the patrolling of the upper part of the Kodori Gorge (the territory of Abkhazia controlled by Georgia) was entrusted Russian peacekeepers and UN military observers.

On July 25, 2006, units of the Georgian armed forces and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (up to 1.5 thousand people) were introduced into the Kodori Gorge to conduct a special operation against local armed Svan formations (“militia”, or “Monadire” battalion) Emzar Kvitsiani, who refused to obey the demand of the Minister of Defense Georgian Irakli Okruashvili lay down his arms. Kvitsiani was accused of "treason".

Official negotiations between Sukhumi and Tbilisi were then interrupted. As the authorities of Abkhazia emphasized, negotiations between the parties can be resumed only if Georgia begins to implement the UN Security Council Resolution, which provides for the withdrawal of troops from Kodori.

On September 27, 2006, on the Day of Memory and Sorrow, by the decree of the President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, Kodori was renamed Upper Abkhazia. In the village of Chkhalta, on the territory of the gorge, the so-called "legitimate government of Abkhazia" in exile is located. Abkhazian military formations controlled by Sukhumi are stationed a few kilometers from this village. The Abkhazian authorities do not recognize the "government in exile" and are categorically against its presence in the Kodori Gorge.

On October 18, 2006, the People's Assembly of Abkhazia turned to the Russian leadership with a request to recognize the independence of the republic and establish associated relations between the two states. For its part, the Russian leadership has repeatedly declared its unconditional recognition of the territorial integrity of Georgia, of which Abkhazia is an integral part.

The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources

Twenty years ago there was an armed conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia. Not mouse fuss there, not cockroach races - real, full-scale. First there was a war of laws, then a bloody battle broke out ... with thousands of wounded, killed. After the war of 1992-1993, which the Abkhazians call the Patriotic War, the sovereign state "Republic of Abkhazia" spun off from Georgia. Today in the world it has been recognized by such superpowers as Nauru, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Russia. A Resolution General Assembly The UN still recognizes Abkhazia as part of Georgia. How? What? Why? - unknown.

After all, for a neighbor to shoot at a neighbor, brother at brother, good reasons are needed ... For Georgia, to this day, Abkhazia is its integral part. For Abkhazians, from the moment of self-proclamation, a piece Black Sea coast 170x65 km - their legal state, the original land of their ancestors, it is not for nothing that the land has such a name. Who has more reason to call this part of the Black Sea coast their own? Whose land is this really? The territorial conflict arose due to the fact that each of the warring parties assured: mine! After 1985, Abkhazia officially began to work on separation from Georgia and the creation of a Union Republic within the USSR.

The war was with the Georgians.
I decided to find out: who, in general, are these “Georgians”?
opened terrible secret: there are no Georgians in nature! Myth!!!
There is no such nationality at all, just as there is no “Dagestan”. Although the Georgian language, unlike the Dagestan language, is still there. There are many ethnographic groups: Adjarians, Gurians, Kartlians, Kakhetians, Imerkhevs, Ingiloys, Lechkhums, Meskhetians, Mokhevs, Mtiuls, Pshavs, Rachins, Tushins, Fereydans, Khevsurs, Chveneburi. And three sub-ethnic groups: Mingrelians, Svans, Laz. Georgian (self-name - kartvelebi), means a resident of Georgia. (Until 1992, Abkhazians in the USSR and in the world were also considered Georgians.) So all the inhabitants of the Land of Mountains are Dagestanis, regardless of their father and mother, even if they themselves do not know about it: Avars, Lezgins, Chechens, and Russians, both Kumyks and Jews...

However, before I had time to feel like Shurik on an exciting ethnographic expedition, our conversation sharply deviated from daring jokes and jokes. First, Nugzar proposed a toast to the Almighty - they drank while standing, then, gloomy, he squeezed out:
- Alexander, the main attraction of Abkhazia is not the beaches, not the mountains, not the sun-sea. Our main pride is the victory in the Patriotic War. You definitely need to talk about it first. About those who gave us the world! I'll introduce you to veterans, real people who looked death in the face and didn't look away...
With those who fought for their country.
- Means war...

They fought for their country

Jamal Shugen and Guram Gabechia
“Tell me about the first minutes of the war,” I asked.
Guram rummaged through his memory:
- At a wedding with a friend, they drank and played tricks all night, returned home in the morning. I want to sleep ... We are driving along the highway, what the hell!? I can't believe my eyes!!! Girl in swimming trunks, no bra...
I immediately friend:
“Ora, I have delirium tremens.
And I’m a scientist, I already know what to do during delirium tremens, the old people explained: I immediately pulled off my shirt, turned it inside out, put it on again. Fingers extended forward - do not tremble. Strange...
And then the sidekick screams:
— Guram, look!
Half-naked people fled from the side of the beach, planes flew over them and bombed.
We stop the guy with the girl:
- What's happened?
- War.
I am a Mingrelian, all my relatives are in Georgia, but I consider myself an Abkhaz. If the war starts again, let the invalid, I will get back into line, I will take with me at least two or three creatures of God.
And not all heroes are at the front. Guram, do you remember taking the bridge?
He nodded.
- set in the evening combat mission, and in the morning, when everyone was lined up, the refuseniks began: who had an earache, who had a bad dream about their mother, asked not to go to this battle, the third had a bad heart. As a result, a hundred and fifty went to the bridge, the rest turned on the reverse gear. Then a lot of kids died. My neighbor's half-skull was blown off by a fragment, the wound was covered with clay, and taken to the medical battalion. Oh-oh...
I couldn't resist:
“Do you have any regrets that you fought, and now the wounded, in hospitals ...
- Yes, the guys put a lot, they themselves are disabled, but now, by a million percent, we are free people. Our old people suffered all their lives, they were not allowed to breathe, and now we stand on our own land.

Vyacheslav Vardania
Vyacheslav Vardania is a ceramic sculptor by profession. The profession is rare, peaceful... it's hard to find a more peaceful one. We crossed paths with him in the hustle and bustle of the Gali market.
And it all started quietly...
I remember that I was preparing for a personal exhibition then, I collected all my best works, systematized them, compiled a catalog ... And straight into the studio - a five-hundred-kilogram bomb! Direct hit!!! Everything blew up. The entire collection perished at once. I decided - a sign from above: we must put the most precious thing aside, step over it, take up arms and defend the Motherland. You just asked, and on me with a cold tub - memories. Who was not there!.. Berezovsky, accompanied by the Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia, flew in, made charter flights between Shevardnadze, Ardzinba, Yeltsin. On the territory of Abkhazia, I participated in negotiations with him. Berezovsky is not a politician - a businessman, a businessman from birth. He said: “Give me ownership of Pitsunda, I will make Georgia and Russia come to terms with your independence. After that, the whole world will be forced to recognize you.”

Zaur Adleiba, call sign - "Black Captain"
- At the end of October, I was appointed commander of the Cascade battalion.
Five days have passed, the order to attack arrives. On the other side of the hill, we hit the tangerines. Mandarin trees are dense trees, it is not visible two meters away. There you can’t do anything with small arms - hand-to-hand combat. I could not imagine such a fight: with a knife, a butt, legs, hands, teeth ... It is impossible to shoot: you don’t know where a friend is, where an enemy is, you must feel “friend or foe”. And the wolves are also against us ... There, of course, we did things. More than a hundred people were laid down in twenty minutes. They captured several walkie-talkies, including search ones. We go out to their wave, the Georgians are yelling in a panic, asking for help from Ochamchira:
- Help her!!!
- What's wrong with you?
“We were all slaughtered here.
- Give it a lot.
- Drive here the armored vehicles that are, let's people !!!
- Who cut it?
— We don't know!.. Some black captain!!!

Lavrenty Mikvabia
- During the war, I was chosen as a regiment commander, but I didn’t have a chance to sit in the silence of headquarters with maps - I went on the attack with a machine gun. Four times shell-shocked, wounded. They suffered many losses, there were no coffins - they were buried in wardrobes.
He even visited behind the front line: he conducted negotiations on behalf of the command with the Georgian general Luchadze. Previously, he served in the general staff of the Soviet troops at that time, so sleek, clean, in a uniform, and my pants are in patches ... There is vodka, lamb, fruit on the table ... fog in my head from smells. He gave me an appraising look.
- Did you finish anything command?
- No. After college, he became a lieutenant and was chosen to command a regiment.
He lowered his head and thought:
“Look at my colonels.
One is wondering:
- How many people are in the unit?
- Five hundred.
How many positions?
- Three hundred fifty.
- And you?
I am silent.
“I know, there are fifteen people!”
I have no people, the general is right, but we have nowhere to retreat. We were born here, we must fight to the end. At parting, the general confessed privately:
You are invincible guys.
For the first time I clearly understood: internally they broke, trembled, the spirit turned out to be thinner than ours. Such information then, at first, was worth a lot. I remember the capture of Kinga... crests stood against us. Let me tell you, they fought seriously, did not retreat, did not collapse, fired back to the last bullet. Two were taken prisoner: one lies covered in blood, the second, when I jumped into the trench, threw myself at my feet:
- You're an officer. Please: do not touch the wounded man, do whatever you want with me...
Usually during the battle we did not take prisoners, but his words shocked ... Yes, he is an enemy, but a worthy enemy, I respect such. A soldier who takes pity on the enemy is a bad soldier. But before that I was a man... I ordered not to touch, later our fighter was exchanged for him.

Slavik Kvekveskiri
- Previously, illiterate old people recalled the times "before big snow" and after".
And our life was divided by war - a turning point.
Units were created on a territorial basis: in the battalion, fighters from the same village, all relatives to each other - close, distant. The advantage is obvious: they know each other, you can rely on yourself. Guarantee - they won't give up! But if it’s the other way around... a fellow soldier dies, and even your brother-in-law, and several people in battle - it’s immensely hard. Delivering the body home... This is my duty, the commissar of the battalion. You bring him dead, but you bring him alive. Vova Ivanchenko left ten souls of children, his wife was pregnant with the eleventh. What will you tell her? A simple peasant came to take the body of his son:
"First, I'll see where he's wounded." If in the back, I will not bury.
After such words, confidence in victory grew stronger! We then seemed to have grown wings.
At first, it was hard to kill ... I had to mobilize myself, to convince myself: "The enemy came to your land with weapons in your hands, you will not kill him - he will kill you, your loved ones, ruin your house ..." conduct self-promotion. It is very difficult to overcome this psychological barrier after a peaceful time, when even a chicken did not take his life. And when the victory... The culmination for me was the recognition by Russia. Will there be anything more significant in my lifetime? Hardly...

Beslan Akhuba
- I remember well August 14, 1992 ...
I studied at the Moscow Institute of Land Management Engineers, Faculty of Architecture, did pre-graduation practice in the city of Sukhum in the department for the protection of cultural and architectural monuments. In the same building, on the second floor, there was the "People's Forum", a lot of girls ... And I am from Mo-squa-yy ... An enviable groom! Everyone wanted to get to know each other, to talk... And with the two most lively I drove to the embankment to have breakfast, taste khachapurchiki, drink coffee. We go out onto the porch - a car flies up, they carry out a wounded guy.
jumping up:
- What's happened?
- War.
- What kind of war? .. The twenty-first century is in the yard.
But no one listened to me, the girls began to cry, someone screamed heart-rendingly ... Noise. Gum. Above all, the growing rumble of helicopters, rocket explosions: Georgian pilots bombed the beach, packed with vacationers. In general, there was no time for coffee. (Much later, at the very end of the war, we found out: the commander of the leading "crocodile" was Maisuradze, the hero of Georgia, an Afghan; we hunted for him for a long time ...) They announced a draft from 18 to 45 years, although who considered himself a man did not they were waiting for a special invitation, they themselves came to the military registration and enlistment office, signed up for the militia. A decree was issued: in order not to waste the gene pool of the nation, workers of culture, art, scientists, only sons, students of metropolitan universities should be given reservations. They came and persuaded me not to serve... Me too. But everyone was dear! We have a tradition: a son is born - they shoot in the air for joy. Not because a child with a faucet - another defender of the fatherland appeared.
Today I often ask myself: “Why did you win?” One hundred thousand against five million! .. Then I realized.

Mzia Kvitsinia

- War is a difficult, unbearable test for many ... There was a terrible famine in the blockade, they planted something, there was no tractor - they plowed on a tank. I never thought it would be so hard to survive without salt. Without sugar, bread is easier... After the war, when I saw bread for the first time, I couldn't eat a single piece, I didn't go... I remember they started bombing, my little son asked:
- Mom, give me some tea.
I am silent. Where can I get tea for him? It's hard for adults, what about children? ..
At some point, people lost faith in victory ... All sorts of bad rumors spread ... From the city one by one, families began to leave, leave through the mountains. My neighbors were also getting ready.... Everything felt: a little more - the spirit of the Abkhazians would break. Only a miracle could save...
I prayed, - Mziya's voice trembled ...
And suddenly!
Commander Mirab Kishmaria brought here... surrounded! my daughter!! three years old.
She stands next to him, in a white dress, frightened, presses the doll to her chest.
I ran:
Why are you here, so small? They bomb here all the time.
- There are many civilians here, they are also bombed, but if they see my girl, they will believe in our victory.
And it's true!..
Everything, as they learned about this crumb - "the key to victory" - the rumor went.
Who trembled - it became a shame. People believed in the Abkhaz warriors, in their strength. The old man-neighbor shook out his belongings from the trunk: “We will not leave the city!” In the morning he went to the front line. Now the mothers escorted the children to the front with one parting word: "Do not show your back to the bullet ..."

Roman Hosea
We lived here throughout the war. Three hundred or four hundred meters from the house to the front line. They huddled in the basement: shells were stacked there, next to the bed, the lamp was smoking. You come in in the morning, they are black, like stokers. The shelling begins - run there. (My ceiling is filled with concrete: the mortar will not penetrate.) There are gaps all around, you think for them: where are they? how are they? Mother caught a moment from home to run to the well ... The guys would return at night from reconnaissance, wash their footcloths, dry them by the fire, pray for us. Once they laid a table between the house and the patskha to feed the guys. They barely ate, went to the gate, one shell - into the wall of the house, the other into the table: he lifted it on end, smashed it to pieces. A minute earlier - it would have covered everyone. But they didn’t save their father and brother ... They left like old and new snow. Baba (father) caught lead a few days before the end of the war. "Five" - ​​a 5.45 mm caliber bullet with a displaced center of gravity - hit the collarbone, left the lower back. Under fire I pulled him out... he fought for his life for three days, died right in my arms. Posthumously, my father was awarded the title of Hero of Abkhazia.

Leonty Berulava and Otar Lomiya
- He was engaged in radio interception ... This is also a war, only "radio".
The artillery of the Georgians from three directions fired at our positions in Merkuly, it was hard, we couldn’t raise our heads. The commander orders:
— Leonty, come up with something!
— What-ooo?!
But he began to chuckle. Georgian language I know well, I constantly listen to their conversations on the radio (we have stations 142nd, 143rd, of different power). The Georgian radio operator has the call sign Dodo, from the gunner she transmitted the coordinates of the shelling to the battery. I suggest:
What if you intervene in their conversation?
- Act!
We specify the coordinates of the Georgian batteries, the frequencies on which they communicate, and at the same time jam them - they can listen to us, intervene, not interrupt.
I get into the conversation of the radio operator in Georgian:
— Dodo, immediately stop the shelling. Hit your own!
- Check the coordinates.
“Okay,” I give her the numbers. - Make one “flower” (shot) for this target. If successful, I'll let you know.
Shot.
We look through binoculars: a gap is right in the center of the Georgian battery.
- So, excellent, Dodo, sister, give the whole “bouquet” there.
And for half an hour, until they figured it out, the Georgian batteries fired, plowed each other's positions.

Valery Avidzba
- The war caught me in Gagra, there was no time to build up ...
Under the leadership of Otar Osiya, a sanitary and medical service was created. There were not enough nurses, volunteers were recruited. Many girls went to the front line with their brothers and became in line. They organized an ambulance train (a railway line in Nizhniye Eschery), adapted equipment for transporting the wounded ... The service began to work from the first hours, from the first minutes - fifteen surgical teams. I also had to remember the forgotten skills, in the past I was a surgical surgeon. Brigades from the Moscow region, from the city of Chkalovsk, helped us a lot. These are fired professionals who went through Afghanistan, Sumgayit, flew in on the aircraft of the Ministry of Emergency Situations with their anesthetists, resuscitators, with their equipment. I undertook to take them along the front, to show them the service. The track is empty, we are in the UAZ, I'm driving. Suddenly, two “dryers” emerge from behind the forest ... they are coming at us ... it’s over now! .. bombed ... past. They make a U-turn, the second run... I step on the gas harder... Suddenly, a bang, one of the fighters freezes in the air and... falls! A pilot ejects from the cockpit on a parachute. It was the first downed enemy aircraft, and we were proud that we had our own air defense.

Vyacheslav Sakania
I was a military correspondent: I wrote, filmed reports on the front line. Who used to think that the profession of a journalist can be dangerous? Once the helicopter on which they were flying on a mission was hit, the car shook, oil flowed ... the height began to fall. The cameraman took the camera, I turned on the microphone, and began to report ... The Russian pilot, who had passed Afghan, miraculously landed the padded turntable on the slope of the Kodori Gorge, we were dragged skidding through the snow to the abyss ... It seemed that everything. The slide was held back by a huge stone a meter from the cliff. We got out of the car, filmed everything ourselves... The board was damaged, there was blood everywhere... The commander of the helicopter announced:
We are in enemy territory.
- You are an ace! Land a wrecked car in the mountains! I push the microphone to him. - Introduce yourself! The country must know its heroes.
— End of the press conference.
Yes, he is right, the Georgians probably spotted how we were descending, they will be here any minute. I barely had time to pull the cassette out of the camera, wrap it in rags, hide it behind the side paneling in the turntable cabin - I hear shouts in Georgian ... We were taken prisoner, nine people. Everything was ... and torture, and they were taken to be shot. In war as in war. They wanted us, journalists, to go over to their side, stay in Sukhum, and broadcast in Abkhaz. When it became unbearably difficult in the dungeons, they sang the chorale “The Song of the Mountains” by Akhrosh. It contains life, pain, joy, courage of the people. For Abkhazians, this is an anthem, a call of the ancestors, which raises the fighting spirit of warriors, instills fear in the enemy... Powerful energy comes from this folk song.
We were exchanged towards Tkuarchal eighteen days later.

Igor Gerzmava
- It is in the nature of the Abkhazians to look at the visitor as a gift from God, the highest grace. The Abkhaz puts all the supplies on the table, serves with exquisite ceremonial, and is ready to protect the dignity of the guest in every possible way. And when the war started, when they started bombing vacationers on the beach, guests of Abkhazia, children, and I couldn't protect them... something broke in me. The former is dead... The problem is this: the Georgians thought we "live with them", but we thought that we "live together". All together in the USSR. I, a peaceful person, during the war became the head of the rear of the army. Although what is the rear? According to army canons, the rear begins two hundred kilometers from the front line, and our entire republic is smaller, we didn’t have any rear at all. Therefore, he fought like everyone else: he went on the attack, and fell under shelling. We all ended up on cutting edge defense: children, old people, women.

Zhuzhuna Salakaya
When the war began, my husband was away, in Russia. The soul ached, as soon as it gets home, the borders are closed. Although I decided to roll up the tomatoes in jars, well, how will I return alive. We did not know the war, we were stupid, unlearned. And who then could have known that Georgians would take old people out of their houses, shoot women. (The closer the trouble, the more mind.) What to do, where to go? And where are you going? Where do you know? In winter, in the mountains! .. Father-in-law, old father-in-law, five small children: seven years old, eight, nine - the weather. There is no husband, he is at war. One day I see someone enter the gate: bearded, thin, military uniform. I was frightened, I think the Georgians ... they will shoot us (it has already happened in other villages ...) She pressed the children to her chest, and this is her husband. It turns out that he got home through Chechnya. Dudayev gave him a helicopter, weapons for the Abkhazians, helped him in any way he could. They were fired upon over Kodor, almost shot down, but God had mercy, nothing happened. He saw us: children are alive, mother is alive, father is alive; turned around, went on to fight.

Valentina Dzidzaria
- If it is necessary, then it is necessary. This word is familiar to me. Where to start?
— From 14 August.
— I was making apple jam that day. Daughter runs into the yard, shouting:
- Mother! War!
- What kind of war? Lost her mind?!
The Georgians attacked us.
I turn on the TV, and there! .. According to the Moscow program, they show tanks on the outskirts of Sukhum. I'm shocked! I sit, I look, I can’t get up from my chair. Gradually I came to my senses - to the military registration and enlistment office, people run through the streets, screaming, crying ... Young guys stuff into cars, go to Sukhum for protection, their mothers see them off, many sisters go with them. At the headquarters, the girls cooked food, fed the fighters. She looked at all this: “No, there is nothing for me to do here.” I hitched a ride, went to Escher, where the formation of militia units began. The commander of the department was looking for a nurse: there were five of us who wanted to, I was the oldest, forty-six years old, the girls were half younger. We lined up, the commander looked at everyone and me:
- I choose you.
That's how I became a sister of mercy. No medical education, by profession a teacher - "Russian language, literature." It is hard for everyone in the war, but it is doubly hard for a woman. Occasionally they were allowed to go home. Husband quarreled:
- You won't go anywhere else! I won't let go!!!
She broke free, ran away to the front, followed by curses flying in the back:
- You will be killed, who will raise the children?! Stupid!..
My husband is ten years older than me, he didn’t go to the front, he was sick, and someone with children is needed ...

Mirab Kishmaria
The Minister of Defense of Abkhazia is the legendary Mirab Kishmaria.
Army General, Hero of Abkhazia, candidate of military sciences, passed Afghan.
- When the war began, he immediately waved to his native village of Myka. There, at a gathering, people elected me as commander of the militia. In the village of Aradu, the first battle was fought, 48 people died, I lost two. In general, there were many losses ... too many. I knew well the crew of the helicopter shot down with children and women in the Latskaya tragedy. We went through Afghanistan together with this link. But the losses are justified - they survived. It is impossible to defeat the people who are fighting on their own land, for freedom, for their father's house!
- You didn’t hide your daughter in Moscow, in America, you brought it to the environment ...
As if not hearing the question, the minister continued:
“We are better prepared today. In the event of mobilization, raising the reserve, we will have tank crews in the army, where the tank commander is the father, and the mechanic, gunner are his sons. There are whole companies of reservists, consisting of blood relatives. Do you think that during a real battle this company will falter or give up the line to the enemy? That's our whole secret. There is no difference who is of what nationality ... In Abkhazia, many families are mixed: the father is Abkhazian, the mother is Georgian ... but few people look there. And I don’t look there, because I received my brother Gocha without a heart. In 2008, he served as the head of the post, was taken prisoner ... They cut out his brother's heart, boiled it, forced the captured Abkhazians to eat. They then said...
The rest of my hair stood on end!
— I have no way there, although my mother is a Mingrelian.
- And yet, what did the wife say when they took their daughter to the front?
Mirab Borisovich frowned discontentedly:
— ..? Well, what could it do?.. There were many dead, I see, they faltered... the outflow of the population began, everyone is eager to get to Gudauta, to jump out of the blockade. The spirit of the fighters is falling... some... The count goes on for days, hours!.. Something must be done. And what?! Take the machine yourself? But even so, even though I am the commander of the front, I don’t sit in a bunker hundreds of kilometers away, I don’t move the flickering arrows. We have another war. Every day at the forefront, although the commander is not supposed to, it is more important to competently lead. It was necessary to come up with something special... I went to Sochi, took my daughter, she was three years old. I brought it ... (the meeting of the front commanders was just going on), I bring it to the headquarters, put it on the table:
“Here is my daughter. Here I am...
People began to think, the outflow of the population stopped, everyone took up arms. No one else had to campaign. If I hadn't done that, I don't know how they held the defense. You have to choose what is more important, and risk everything, your daughter too. She was small, three years old, did not understand anything, and slept at the headquarters, they dragged her around like a doll ... Now she is married, she has two boys growing up herself, real horsemen. And they are already growing in a free country.

Nugzar Salakaya
- The war caught in hometown Tkuarchal, our troops retreated there. The city of Ochamchira had already been captured by that time, Georgian flags were hung on the facades of administrative buildings, on the roofs of houses. What should we do? How to counter such a powerful enemy? Some offered to surrender the city without a fight. Then the guys gathered in the militia, chose a commander, and he suggested to me:
- Make your way to Ochamchira, find out what is there? How? how many are there? what technique? And most importantly, try to find out the plans.
One thing was clear: there weren’t enough forces, it was necessary to somehow deceive the enemy, make him believe the opposite, otherwise they would finish him off without letting him come to his senses. And it dawned on me:
We need disinformation! Let's distribute leaflets harder: "Chechen brothers are coming to the rescue ..."
- ... "Death to all Georgians!" he finished. Interesting, let's try.
They dressed the guy in a cloak, a hat with a red partisan ribbon, and took a photo. And even without a hat, he looked like a Chechen. Leaflets were printed, and in the morning I went with them to Ochamchira. He looked in on a visit to one reliable person, to another, third, talked, asked questions, received information, left several leaflets. Himself to the market. There, the Georgian merchants read: “The Chechens are coming!” Panic! .. the crowd surged, hundreds of people, I was picked up ... I was running, and suddenly two soldiers were pulled out of the crowd:
- Stop!
Twisted, led ... I have one boot half cut off, a jacket taken from a cowshed, the stench is a mile away, my beard is shoveled. And the head of the Ochamchira occupation administration comes from my city: no matter how I dress up, I will recognize it in any masquerade. I carefully feel for dichlorvos in my pocket - just in case. It is better to finish everything yourself than to endure torture. (We already knew: during interrogations they break their arms, break their legs ...) They bring me straight to the headquarters, the officers saw it, let's laugh. I looked around - everyone is unfamiliar, which means that while I live, and let's play along with the Georgians, I also began to laugh ... like a fool. The commander-in-chief of the Georgian troops Jaba Ioseliani (he is not Jaba - a toad!), got up from the table and barked at the soldiers:
- I ordered the Abkhaz to be caught, you took some kind of stuffed animal.
All:
— Gee-gee-gee! Ha ha ha!
The colonel comes up to me:
- Where?
- Abaska.
- What's your last name?
- Sedogi.
- The name of?
- Mammad.
— Ha-ha-ha!!! - wipes away tears.
Turks live near Ochamchira, I knew one named Sedogi.
Why did you come to Ochamchire?
— Cigarettes to buy.
All again:
— Gee-gee-gee!
Then the colonel took a deep breath of air and howled:
- Around!
I spun around on the spot, kicked like a kick under my forged boot ... flew, kicked the door with my head, rolled out into the street. The ass burned with fire for three days, but he got out of captivity alive and unharmed. Few succeeded.

The photos are taken from the book "Abkhazia: War and Peace. Travel Diary".