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30.May
MAY 30. BEAUTY OF ABKHAZIA
29 May
- 2014 -
Author
Andis Pikāns
We continue to admire the land where the time machine has thrown us 50 years back. Here, in the South, the people are even more kind than in the large cities. They wave, stop and want to talk and invite us to their tables. We drive through the spooky city Ochemchire, where every third building is a witness of war. They have been burned down, destroyed, pierced with bullets. Before war, the city was populated by Georgians and Megrelians mostly, but now, the properties have been denationalised and it is not clear how and if they keep track of things here.
Georg Victor orthodox church, an energetically powerful place, is located not far from the city. Many believers from Russia come here to get a blessing. We turn to the North again, because of the recommendations to visit a small town named Novij Afon. On the road, we stop a fuel carrier to refuel, because there are no gas stations.
We turn to the mountains to the cave of Abriskil, which many locals have advised us to see. We have to drive carefully, because the road is full of cows. The cave is worth seeing, but only with the funny Abkhaz guide, which calls himself Vitaliy Tarasovich. There are no tourists here, and in the 800 m long cave we enjoy Tarasovich’s stories and legends. Tarasovich appears to be slightly drunk and this is amplified by his Caucasian accent, which gives us some amusing material for the film. 160 km covered today.
