Trip to Abkhazia

First week of November, Tomáš and Floriane decided to explore the most sensible region around Georgia: Abkhazia! We felt very excited, because heard and read  a lot about this complicated region.

The only way how to entre Abkhazia from Georgia is through the Ingur bridge. We felt a bit like in a movie, squeezed in a small trailer powered by a horse with old ladies all in black with pictures of their dead sons and husbands on their breasts.  

Our first stop was in Gali, the most problematic region of Abkhazia.  You can immediately feel that civil war had been taken place here just recently. Most of the houses are empty, people wearing black, social problems... On the other hand, the life goes on even here. Bazaar is full and noisy, people are chatting over coffee, old buildings are being slowly renovated. 

From Gali we went straight to Sukhumi. City looks very calm, as it´s already November, but still very warm and green. Few Russian tourists are resting on the beach, men are fishing, local café on the main avenue is full. Only few buildings are rebuilded since the civil war, but the city remained very beautiful with typical Abkhazian tropical nature around.

Just 20 km from Sukhumi lays Novy Afon, famous summer resort with its dominant church and monastery built by Russian monks. This place is a real paradise!

We continued more to the north to Gagra. As the weather changed, we were happy to meet our new host, who fulfilled our rainy day with thrilling stories from the times of civil war and the post-conflict period.

The main attraction of the whole trip came as the last: Ritsa Lake. We took a tour by minibus and managed to see this magnificent place in amazing autumn colours.

During those 6 days we met many nice and helpful people, which made our trip unforgettable and changed our stereotypes about this complicated region.

Tomáš