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Comment by simonebrunozzi | Hacker News Reader

I've never heard of Abkhazia before, so I had to look it up. It's a partially recognized state, part of Georgia [0].

There's even been a war in 1992-1993, after the collapse of the USSR [1].

Sometimes I'm still surprised of my ignorance about important facts that happened during my lifetime.

Anyway, the next question for me was: why is electricity so cheap there, and should I assume it's cheap 24/7, and therefore generated with hydro?

Electricity is largely supplied by the Inguri hydroelectric power station located on the Inguri River between Abkhazia and Georgia

there's even a study on Electricty consumption, if you really want to dig deeper into it. [2].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhazia

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Abkhazia_(1992%E2%80%93...

[2]: http://iccn.ge/files/energy_study_results_abkhazia_2019_eng_...

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I've been there during my urbex days.

Frozen conflict zone, not unlike Transnistria, South Ossetia or Nagorno Karabakh. The border is militarized, except the Georgian side which doesn't seem to consider Abkhazia a threat. Lots of abandoned infrastructure because the native Georgian population was killed and/or fleed, and hasn't been harnessed for some reason. Abkhaz cross the border daily to buy basic stuff from Georgia. Only approved vehicles can cross, so most people do it walking with "taxi drivers" servicing both sides of the border. Most of the foreigners there are Russians looking for a cheap seaside vacation. There are streets named after Shamil Basayev (!).

Actually I left Abkhazia illegally, since you have to collect the visa inside (as there aren't diplomatic missions anywhere) after crossing the border, and the offices were closed all 3 days that my visa was going to be valid for. So yeah, arguing with soldiers for 4 hours in my rudimentary Russian wasn't great.

Border crossing: https://i.imgur.com/dFMnwsJ.jpg

They made me delete the picture but LPT: keep the SD card aside for the rest of the trip, then run an undelete tool on it.

AMA.

Is this the Abhazian side? The bridge not far from Zugdidi?

You see the Abkhazian side (pic taken from the Georgian side). Exactly that bridge! Have you been around there?

Yes, back in '95. Fun times.

> They made me delete the picture but LPT: keep the SD card aside for the rest of the trip, then run an undelete tool on it.

Undeleting photos from an SD card saved data for me once. Just shut it off once you've noticed you messed up, and don't touch it. Thank goodness for FAT32.

SD cards should be pretty easy to hide as well, unless they do X-rays on your shoes and the like I guess?

Could put a micro SD card in a SIM card slot in your phone maybe.

True. But if you check the picture carefully, you will see a soldier spotting me with binoculars :)

Many Android phones have a slot for either SIM+SD or a double SIM, so yes

Eh, the problem with practicing amateur spycraft is that then you look like a spy if anyone notices.

Sure, maybe they're extremely unlikely to find an SD card in your shoe -- extremely! -- but if someone does find an SD card in your shoe, they're going to want to know why.

Just leave it in your pocket and dump it in the X-ray bin with the rest of your pocket trash. It's unlikely anyone will notice, and if they do, you're just a tourist with an SD card for your camera. Maybe they throw it away, maybe they copy it, but it's unlikely to end with you spending four hours being questioned about why it was in your shoe.

It's worth noting that the Georgian majority population was ethnically cleansed (with >5000 civilians killed) from Abkhazia by separatists, with full support and encouragement of Russia[0]. The preeminent Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, later responsible for Beslan school siege and other attacks, took part in this war on the Abkhaz side, after being trained for the purpose by the GRU (Russian military intelligence of the Salisbury/Novichok fame)[1]. I guess they kind of lost control of him afterwards, oops.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Georgians_...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamil_Basayev

Yeah, it was crazy. The fact that it was the majority meant loads of stuff would stay empty/unused, which remains true even today. I have footage from a massive seaside resort in the center of the capital [0] to give people an idea.

Unfortunately, there are always two sides to every story, and both sides were pretty nasty to each other[1]. But agree, it's hard to side with Basayev on this war, or any other really.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSi88CLRuZE

[1] http://www.unpo.org/downloads/AbkGeo1992Report.pdf

Electricity is free for them, because Georgia considers it's as part of Georgia. Abkhazia right now is local mafia-run region by Russian occupant forces (Russia actually has military bases there).

Nothing is going on there economically, it is slow decaying society so their only income is mining operations like this.

Funny enough, the name immediately jumped out to me because of video games ;)

The free map coming with the DCS World flight simulator is a large part of the eastern Black Sea and western Caucasus, and there's quite a few missions and campaigns in the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions (some with a heavy Russian narrative, some from Georgian and NATO point of view, so all in all quite balanced I'd say). Having never heard of Abkhazia and Ossetia before either this lead me to read up on their (mostly troubled) history.

Who says video games aren't educational.

People are pretty poor there, and Russia supports them a lot (you can have russian passport if you live there). I assume most infrastructure is supported using russian help. It is logical Russia does not want her money spent by miners, who are probably not even from Abkhazia.

Abkhazia is a Georgian territory occupied by Russia. Russia is the #1 reason for poverty in the region.

I'm in no way supporter of Putins regime and I totally agree that he'll do everything to keep all countries around poor and unstable, but come on. Original war in Abkhazia happened when USSR crashed and it was your usual ethnic conflict. Not some orchestrated hybrid war like in Ukraine, but real civil war. I've been in both Abkhazia and Georgia and people of both countries relise that and count themself the righteous side.

Yeah it's obvious that Russian establishment have all reason sto keep this conflict unresolved as it's prevent Gerogia from joining NATO or EU. But even if regime in Russia gonna change there is no easy solution because ethnic conflict didn't go anywhere.

Yeah no, that's not quite the full story. Abkhasian regime persists largely due to continued presence of Russian troops. Much of the residual economy in the break-off region revolves around the Russian bases as well. The rest of it is the lowest tier Russian "visa free" tourism, also guaranteed by Russian military presence.

Same goes for South Ossetia and Transnistria: these conflicts would long be history without Russian military footholds.

> Same goes for South Ossetia and Transnistria: these conflicts would long be history without Russian military footholds.

You mean "history" in a sense that the local population would be ethnically cleansed from the Georgian majority and the ones that survive relocated to Russia? And then they would be marked as aggressors because they dared to try protecting themselves with arms, and refused to just disappear from the territory where they have been living for centuries.

Yeah, we saw that many times, and the only criteria that leads to the "correct" conclusion who is right and who is wrong, who is aggressor and who defends himself, who is the victim and who is villain is whether US/NATO or Russian/Other troops are involved on one of the sides.

No, I mean they would continue to live on the territory they lived for centuries (somehow without apparently being ethnically cleansed by Georgians all that damn time). And without Russian involvement it would have long since went into participatory politics.

And it's not just a speculation, there was a perfect A/B test. Ajaria, another autonomous region of Georgia, long since had independence ambitions too. However that conflict fizzed out without notable violence.

The difference from Ossetia? It does not border Russia and there weren't substantial troops stationed at the time of USSR dissolution.

There is Russia and then Russians there running things. They have different goals. If Abkhazia is anything like I think it is...you just pay someone up and you can do whatever you want. That includes stealing electricity, or killing someone.

"Now I'm in power so it's my chance to grab something" is the mentality in a lot of countries.

*virtually all of countries.

From a quick glance at the video looks like they're illegally tapping power from the grid, and got shut down.

It's a beautiful place. Stalin used to have a house there.

If it weren't for its current situation, it would be a great destination for tourists.

I didn't know about it either until I read:

- Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928

It has a lot of fun stuff about how the Abkhazia communist party and their interaction with the main party in Moscow. A lot of interesting history.

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