Taklama

Analysis, book reviews and photography from Abkhazia and the wider Caucasus --- updates when time permits

Book review: Georgia Diary by Thomas Goltz

Georgia Diary — A Chronicle of War and Political Chaos in the Post-Soviet Caucasus Thomas Goltz
M.E. Sharpe, Armonk
June 2006
(second edition: February 2009)
296 pages
(second edition: 342 pages)
ISBN: 978-0-7656-1710-1
(second edition: 978-0-7656-2416-1)

Georgia Diary is the final episode of a series of three books in which …

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A reply to Popjanevski and Cornell

Last week Johanna Popjanevski and Svante Cornell released a report with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program (link), in which they detail the findings of their investigation into a series of (attempted) bomb attacks that hit Georgia between 2009 and 2011. These most notably include a car bomb …

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What to think of Saakashvili and his government?

Most independent observers will agree that President Mikheil Saakashvili and his government have their flaws. No one was happy with the November 2007 crackdown of opposition demonstrations, the attack on Imedi TV and its take-over by government-friendly owners, the unfair advantages enjoyed by government candidates in election campaigns and especially …

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Did Russia plan to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a confederation?

The Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets claims that after the August 2008 War, Russia was originally planning for Abkhazia and South Ossetia to form a confederation, and to recognise them as one state. The crux of the plan though was that the confederation would have been open for new members, specifically …

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