Taklama

So it has come to this. For a short while, South Ossetia's Presidential election looked like a total win. The polling wasn't merely quite free and fair, South Ossetia's electorate actually handed a preliminary 56.74% second round majority to Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate, against Anatoly Bibilov, the candidate …

When it was first reported that during the Russo-Abkhazian meetings on border demarcation, Russia had proposed that Abkhazia should cede some 160 sq km of land of its Gagra District, it was unclear exactly what part was meant. Was Gagra itself to be included? Now thanks to an article by …

After previous deliberations, Georgia's parliament has now on 20 May formally recognised the Circassian Genocide which took place towards the end of the Russian Empire's conquest of the region, culminating in 1864.

In itself, it is a good thing that these events have been recognised for what they are. However …

In April 2010, the 'retirement' of no less than 5 Abkhazian Deputy Ministers of Defence, including Chief of the General Staff Anatoli Zaitsev, sparked speculation that this was in fact a purge-in-process. The question was, if so, then what kind of purge? If Zaitsev (despatched from the Russian Army) had …

When a large number of senior members of the Abkhazian military was sent into retirement late April, this caused some speculation as to whether this wasn't in reality a purge, and if so, whom this purge was directed against. One option was that Minister of Defence Mirab Kishmaria had removed …

Abkhazia's embassy in Moscow has officially been opened on May the 17th. Apart from the relevant Abkhazian and Russian officials, the ceremony was also attended by the heads of the diplomatic missions of Nicaragua, South Ossetia, and... Syria. Past experience teaches that this should probably not be seen as an …

The Georgian parliament may be moving in the direction of formally recognising the Circassian genocide perpetrated by Tsarist Russia in the 19th century. This genocide took place around the year 1864, the official end of the 50 year Caucasus war that more or less concluded Russia's conquest of the Caucasus …

On the 29th of April, Abkhazian Minister of Defence Mirab Kishmaria announced during a press conference that a number of very high ranking officers of the Abkhazian army had been dismissed from active service into the reserve forces. The list includes Col. Gen. Anatoli Zaitsev, who is Chief of the …

The list of countries who recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia has been increasing ever so slowly over the course of the last two years - at the rate of about one country every six months - so that the question arises: who's next?

Belarus was long seen to be the country that …

In my post on the Prigorodny District I mentioned the fact that part of the District had been transferred from Ingushetia to North Ossetia following Stalin's 1944 expulsion of the 'guilty' Ingush people to Central Asia. I've found a very useful map of the North Caucasus on Wikipedia (uploaded by …