An insightful - and relatively unbiased - view of how geopolitics affects ordinary people, this book documents, in words and pictures, the lives of Armenians in the last two decades. Based on intimate interviews with three hundred Armenians and featuring Jerry Berndt's superb photographs, it brings together firsthand testimony about the social, economic, and spiritual circumstances of Armenians during the 1980s and 1990s, when the country faced an earthquake, pogroms, and war. At times shocking and deeply emotional, “Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope” is a story of extreme suffering and hardship, a searching look at the fight for independence, and an exceptionally complex portrait of the human spirit, written by Americans Donald E Miller & Lorna Touryan Miller.
A companion to the Millers' highly acclaimed work "Survivors: An Oral History of the Armenian Genocide", which documented the genocide of 1915, this book focuses on four groups of people: survivors of the earthquakes that devastated northwestern Armenia in 1988; refugees from Azerbaijan who fled Baku and Sumgait because of pogroms against them; women, children, and soldiers who were affected by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh; and ordinary citizens who survived several winters without heat because of the blockade against Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan. The Millers' narrative situates these accounts contextually and thematically, but the voices of individuals remain paramount. The Millers also describe their personal experiences in repeated research trips, inviting us to look beyond the headlines and think beyond the circumstances of our own lives as they bring contemporary Armenia to life.
This book forms an interesting counterpoint to the other books I have read regarding neighbouring Azerbaijan and the disputed area the two countries have warred over, Nagorno-Karabakh.
From Armenia, I make my way into the Middle East and Iran, with the novel “Censoring an Iranian Love Story” by Shahriar Mandanipour.
As a UK citizen I need a visa to enter Iran, and I go for a tourist visa. Having not allowed the requisite 8 weeks to arrange for a visa at the consulate, I need to use an ‘Iran Visa Service’ (I opt for Magic Carpet Travel Ltd) in order to get a visa processed in 7 working days. The price for my disorganisation is a charge of £200 (excluding Consular stamp fees).
In order to save some money I opt for the slow – but simple – transport option of a bus from Yerevan to Tehran.
Often used by people conducting import/export business between Armenia and Iran, there are two buses a week traveling between Tehran and Yerevan in either direction. Tourists can also take the bus.
I catch the bus to Tehran in front of Hotel Erebuni. Hotel Erebuni is located behind the arch by the central Post Office on Hanrapetutian H'raparak (Republic Square), opposite the singing fountains, across the park from Hotel Armenia. The bus leaves every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 09:00 and a ticket is $35.
I am able to buy my tickets and get my bus information in the Persian bus office on the second floor of the Hotel lobby. After a gruelling 34-hour journey (which would have been much less without the lengthy border stop), I arrive in Tehran and am dropped off at the Russian Bazaar in Tehran.
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Saturday, 15 October 2011
Labours of Love: Childhood and Nostalgia in Abkhazia
The status of Abkhazia is a central issue of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict. The wider region formed part of the Soviet Union until 1991. As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate towards the end of the 1980s, ethnic tensions grew between Abkhaz and Georgians over Georgia's moves towards independence. This led to the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia that resulted in a Georgian military defeat, de facto independence of Abkhazia and the mass exodus and ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population from Abkhazia. In spite of the 1994 ceasefire agreement and years of negotiations, the status dispute has not been resolved, and despite the long-term presence of a United Nations monitoring force and a Russian-dominated CIS peacekeeping operation, the conflict has flared up on several occasions. In August 2008, the sides again fought during the South Ossetia War, which was followed by the formal recognition of Abkhazia by Russia, the annulment of the 1994 cease fire agreement and the termination of the UN and CIS missions
As with South Ossetia, literature for this barely recognised state is thin on the ground, and so I have chosen a collection of short stories entitled “The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules” by Fazil Iskander – arguably the most famous Abkhaz writer – which are largely childhood recollections of the post-WW2 era, although some are more contemporary.
The stories range over a great deal of territory--growing up, going to school, rembrances of eccentric characters from the Abkhazia of Iskander's youth. Like Bulgakov's satires, however, Iskander's stories also have a more political substrata. Several stories subtly aim their arrows at the Soviet regime. In one story, Forbidden Fruit, a boy who snitches on his sister for eating pork is punished for his actions. In another, One Day in Summer, the story a German tourist tells our narrator about his experiences under the Nazis seems a critique of Soviet responses to Stalin. In still another, Old Crooked Arm, an eccentric outwits both his friends and the Soviet state.
All in all these form an enjoyable collection of stories that build up a nostalgic - though unsentimental – picture of modern Abkhazia, although it is a shame that a more recent literary work dealing with contemporary Abkhazia is not available (at least not in English…).
From here I make my way back to another country racked by border wars in recent years: Armenia (I have already visited neighbouring Azerbaijan and the disputed area the two countries have warred over, Nagorno-Karabakh).
As an EU citizen I need to buy a visa first. You can buy a visa when you arrive at any entry point to Armenia. A 21-day visa costs 3,000 dram (about $8/EUR6). However, border guards do accept other currencies but they will not give you a good exchange rate and often won’t take high value notes, so I go for the simpler option of ordering the visa online.
There is no direct transport from Abkhazia to Armenia, so I retrace my steps back to Tbilisi in Georgia, via jeeps (a different one for each side of the border) to Zugdidi, then overnight train to Tbilisi.
In Tbilisi I am able to get one of two daily Armavia Airlines flights from Tbilisi airport to Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, leaving at 19.15 and arriving a mere 45 minutes later, for $72 (economy). "Zvartnots " International airport is 10km north of Yerevan proper, though a taxi takes only 15 minutes at a cost of around $6.
I shall be staying in Armenia courtesy of "Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope", an account by Americans Donald E Miller & Lorna Touryan Miller of Armenia’s tribulations through earthquake and war during the 1980s, 1990s and into the 21st century.
As with South Ossetia, literature for this barely recognised state is thin on the ground, and so I have chosen a collection of short stories entitled “The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules” by Fazil Iskander – arguably the most famous Abkhaz writer – which are largely childhood recollections of the post-WW2 era, although some are more contemporary.
The stories range over a great deal of territory--growing up, going to school, rembrances of eccentric characters from the Abkhazia of Iskander's youth. Like Bulgakov's satires, however, Iskander's stories also have a more political substrata. Several stories subtly aim their arrows at the Soviet regime. In one story, Forbidden Fruit, a boy who snitches on his sister for eating pork is punished for his actions. In another, One Day in Summer, the story a German tourist tells our narrator about his experiences under the Nazis seems a critique of Soviet responses to Stalin. In still another, Old Crooked Arm, an eccentric outwits both his friends and the Soviet state.
All in all these form an enjoyable collection of stories that build up a nostalgic - though unsentimental – picture of modern Abkhazia, although it is a shame that a more recent literary work dealing with contemporary Abkhazia is not available (at least not in English…).
From here I make my way back to another country racked by border wars in recent years: Armenia (I have already visited neighbouring Azerbaijan and the disputed area the two countries have warred over, Nagorno-Karabakh).
As an EU citizen I need to buy a visa first. You can buy a visa when you arrive at any entry point to Armenia. A 21-day visa costs 3,000 dram (about $8/EUR6). However, border guards do accept other currencies but they will not give you a good exchange rate and often won’t take high value notes, so I go for the simpler option of ordering the visa online.
There is no direct transport from Abkhazia to Armenia, so I retrace my steps back to Tbilisi in Georgia, via jeeps (a different one for each side of the border) to Zugdidi, then overnight train to Tbilisi.
In Tbilisi I am able to get one of two daily Armavia Airlines flights from Tbilisi airport to Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, leaving at 19.15 and arriving a mere 45 minutes later, for $72 (economy). "Zvartnots " International airport is 10km north of Yerevan proper, though a taxi takes only 15 minutes at a cost of around $6.
I shall be staying in Armenia courtesy of "Armenia: Portraits of Survival and Hope", an account by Americans Donald E Miller & Lorna Touryan Miller of Armenia’s tribulations through earthquake and war during the 1980s, 1990s and into the 21st century.
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
South Ossetia: A Chronicle of Contract Murder
This book “South Ossetia: Chronicle of Contract Murder” is dedicated to the victims of the Georgian invasion of the disputed South Ossetia, during the 2008 South Ossetia War, which lasted from August 7-12. The book contains some striking photographs of the conflict, as well as survivors’ testimonies, and was released by human rights movement, Soprotivleniye (which stands for ‘resistance’ in Russian).
Along with Abkhazia, this is one of two disputed regions within the official borders of Georgia. South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in 1990, calling itself the "Republic of South Ossetia". The Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and trying to retake the region by force. This led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Georgian fighting against South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The last conflict led to the 2008 South Ossetia war, during which Ossetian separatists and Russian troops gained full, de-facto, control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.
In the wake of the 2008 South Ossetia War, Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru and Tuvalu recognised South Ossetia as an independent republic. Georgia does not recognise the existence of South Ossetia as a political entity, and considers most of its territory a part of the Shida Kartli region under Georgian sovereignty, occupied by the Russian army.
The 2008 South Ossetia War claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Both law enforcement bodies and non-governmental organisations are now investigating circumstances in which those civilians died. Soprotivleniye was one of the first to take up the job. On August 15 2008 psychologists filed out to Russia’s Rostov region to assist refugees from South Ossetia. At this time a hot line was also launched for the victims of the conflict. Now professionals of the movement are helping to search for people, work out schemes for transfers of humanitarian aid to South Ossetia and assist people to get financial compensation.
“We believe that in the days of the Georgian aggression European media were flooded with deceptive information about what was going on in the conflict zone,” said the head of the Public Committee Olga Kostina. “Now the world community has got access to photo and video and other documents which prove that Georgian soldiers in South Ossetia were actually committing genocide against its people. We hope that our book will help European parliamentarians and ordinary citizens to understand what really happened”.
The publication of the book “South Ossetia: Chronicle of Contract Murder” is another step in the public investigation of crimes in South Ossetia. Dedicated to the victims of Georgia’s aggression, it also marks 60 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948.
The book album contains three chapters: “Crimes”, “Victims”, “Witnesses”. The first chapter briefly presents historical background of Georgia-South Ossetia relations and chronicles events preceding and following August 8. The second chapter features testimonies of people who lived through the horrors of five-day war. The third chapter is dedicated to testimonies of witnesses’– journalists, doctors, clerics. All documents are accompanied by photographs taken during the fighting in Tskhinval and after the repulse of Georgia’s attack, when first aid was delivered to South Ossetia.
Whilst there are, of course, two sides to every story – and this is very much the South Ossetian side – one cannot deny the impact of the photographs and accounts here, which seem more linked to the horrors of the Second World War than a European country in the 21st Century…
From South Ossetia I travel to Abkhazia – the other disputed region within the official borders of Georgia. I take the (relatively) safest option of leaving South Ossetia and take a public marshrutka going back to Georgia, south on the main road from Tskhinvali towards Gori and on to Tbilisi.
However, public transport from Georgia to Abkhazia does not exist. So I take a chance – and a train – from Tbilisi to Zugdidi, close to the Abkhazian border (the train, a night train, costs 18 euro for the 318km one-way trip). In Zugdidi I am able to organise travel to Abkhazia via a local “travel agent.” As cars with Georgian number plates cannot cross into Abkhazia, this transport consists of a jeep to the border, then a change of jeep with different plates and then a 30 minute drive to Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, and a former holiday hot-spot located on the Black Sea.
As with South Ossetia, literature for this barely recognised state is thin on the ground, and so I have chosen a collection of short stories entitled “The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules” by Fazil Iskander – arguably the most famous Abkhaz writer – which are largely childhood recollections of the post-WW2 era, although some are more contemporary.
Along with Abkhazia, this is one of two disputed regions within the official borders of Georgia. South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in 1990, calling itself the "Republic of South Ossetia". The Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and trying to retake the region by force. This led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Georgian fighting against South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The last conflict led to the 2008 South Ossetia war, during which Ossetian separatists and Russian troops gained full, de-facto, control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.
In the wake of the 2008 South Ossetia War, Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru and Tuvalu recognised South Ossetia as an independent republic. Georgia does not recognise the existence of South Ossetia as a political entity, and considers most of its territory a part of the Shida Kartli region under Georgian sovereignty, occupied by the Russian army.
The 2008 South Ossetia War claimed the lives of hundreds of people. Both law enforcement bodies and non-governmental organisations are now investigating circumstances in which those civilians died. Soprotivleniye was one of the first to take up the job. On August 15 2008 psychologists filed out to Russia’s Rostov region to assist refugees from South Ossetia. At this time a hot line was also launched for the victims of the conflict. Now professionals of the movement are helping to search for people, work out schemes for transfers of humanitarian aid to South Ossetia and assist people to get financial compensation.
“We believe that in the days of the Georgian aggression European media were flooded with deceptive information about what was going on in the conflict zone,” said the head of the Public Committee Olga Kostina. “Now the world community has got access to photo and video and other documents which prove that Georgian soldiers in South Ossetia were actually committing genocide against its people. We hope that our book will help European parliamentarians and ordinary citizens to understand what really happened”.
The publication of the book “South Ossetia: Chronicle of Contract Murder” is another step in the public investigation of crimes in South Ossetia. Dedicated to the victims of Georgia’s aggression, it also marks 60 years since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948.
The book album contains three chapters: “Crimes”, “Victims”, “Witnesses”. The first chapter briefly presents historical background of Georgia-South Ossetia relations and chronicles events preceding and following August 8. The second chapter features testimonies of people who lived through the horrors of five-day war. The third chapter is dedicated to testimonies of witnesses’– journalists, doctors, clerics. All documents are accompanied by photographs taken during the fighting in Tskhinval and after the repulse of Georgia’s attack, when first aid was delivered to South Ossetia.
Whilst there are, of course, two sides to every story – and this is very much the South Ossetian side – one cannot deny the impact of the photographs and accounts here, which seem more linked to the horrors of the Second World War than a European country in the 21st Century…
From South Ossetia I travel to Abkhazia – the other disputed region within the official borders of Georgia. I take the (relatively) safest option of leaving South Ossetia and take a public marshrutka going back to Georgia, south on the main road from Tskhinvali towards Gori and on to Tbilisi.
However, public transport from Georgia to Abkhazia does not exist. So I take a chance – and a train – from Tbilisi to Zugdidi, close to the Abkhazian border (the train, a night train, costs 18 euro for the 318km one-way trip). In Zugdidi I am able to organise travel to Abkhazia via a local “travel agent.” As cars with Georgian number plates cannot cross into Abkhazia, this transport consists of a jeep to the border, then a change of jeep with different plates and then a 30 minute drive to Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, and a former holiday hot-spot located on the Black Sea.
As with South Ossetia, literature for this barely recognised state is thin on the ground, and so I have chosen a collection of short stories entitled “The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules” by Fazil Iskander – arguably the most famous Abkhaz writer – which are largely childhood recollections of the post-WW2 era, although some are more contemporary.
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Guns, Roses and Vodka: Stolen Stories from Georgia
Ex-Time journalist Wendell Steavenson's record of the ruin of Georgia in the 21st century, “Stories I Stole”, makes for a fascinating account of this benighted country – both heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measures.
When Wendell Steavenson was living in Georgia, she kept a collector's list of 'LAOs' - large abandoned objects. The Caucasus is littered with them: rusting tank hulls, gutted apartment blocks, the rustbelt of gigantic ruined factories that surrounds most cities. The biggest LAO is the late Soviet Union itself. Nobody wants to re-animate it. But nobody realised what the price of junking it would be.
A few decades ago, Russians assumed that if everything blew to bits, Georgia would still be a happy land. Wonderful fruit and vegetables, oceans of wine and brandy, a beautiful coastline; the Georgians would be even better off than before. Instead of which, the lights went off. There was a crazy civil war, two totally avoidable secession wars, which evicted a quarter of a million destitute refugees, and the economy collapsed.
Eight years after independence, Steavenson spent winter like most Georgians, sleeping in her clothes and reading by candlelight, in a flat where electric light, heating and hot water came on only for a few unpredictable hours of ecstasy each week. Children asked their parents what radiators were for. Adults, surviving on vodka and rotten cigarettes, asked what the Georgian government was for.
In spite of this, foreigners who visit Georgia are still entranced. Hospitality to strangers is a religion. Steavenson's life there began with one of those endless Georgian picnics that start as a lunch and end in the middle of the night, borne along by the endless toasts and speeches commanded by the Tamada (master of ceremonies). 'I was happy; charmed, drunk and beguiled like thousands of guests and invaders before me, in the land of hospitality.' But soon she understood that those who make strangers happy are not always happy themselves. Forcing guests to drink too much can be an act of aggression. What is it like to be a Georgian host?
Steavenson's friends incessantly told her stories about their country, and acted out its complexes in their lives. One shrewdly gave her Lampedusa's “The Leopard” and let her read 'Georgia' for Sicily. 'All Sicilian self-expression, even the most violent, is really wish-fulfilment; our sensuality is a hankering for oblivion, our shooting and knifing a hankering for death... The Sicilians never want to improve for the simple reason that they think themselves perfect; their vanity is stronger than their misery... Having been trampled on by a dozen different peoples, they think they have an imperial past which gives them a right to a grand funeral.'
Two of her acquaintances, Dato and Aleko, were shady young 'biznesmen'. Dato was badly disfigured in a car crash; while he was recovering, Aleko seduced his wife. The two then confronted one another by a lake, accompanied by their friends and umpired by a minor 'godfather'. Aleko knocked Dato down; Dato pulled a gun and shot Aleko in the back, temporarily paralysing him. One of Aleko's seconds then shot Dato in the leg. Nobody won. Both men sank into terminal depression, deepened by heroin and alcohol.
A 'hankering for death'? Steavenson takes this gloomy little vendetta tale and turns it into a haunting, Chekhovian story about pride, futility and self-destruction. Stories I Stole is anything but a travelogue, although she moves through many landscapes and sick cities. It is not a hack's diary, although she is an experienced foreign correspondent and hunted with the little band of 'Caucasus Hands' who risked their necks in Chechnya or Nagorno-Karabakh. And the book isn't one more 'quest for the real me', although one strand in it is her account of an agonising love affair. This is the first published book of a practised and very gifted writer, a young Kapuscinski with a literary future ahead of her.
She made several expeditions to Abkhazia, the tiny country that broke away from Georgia in 1993 and which the world - as a punishment - has dropped into an oubliette: unrecognised, its communications cut off, its ruined towns unrepaired. Few strangers can enter, apart from Russian 'peacekeepers', UN agencies and an international corps of aid workers, from Oxfam to the Halo Trust - the quiet professionals who clear mines all over the Caucasus battlefields. Steavenson, used to Georgian resourcefulness (like the art of running an electricity meter backwards) was depressed by the stagnation of Abkhazia: 'its head was down and its listless subsistence gaze directed at the pavement'.
While she was living in Tbilisi, the second Russian war in Chechnya broke out, driving streams of refugees across the mountains into northern Georgia. Steavenson went into these kidnap territories and lived among the hard-drinking Svans and semi-pagan Khevsurs. She spent days and nights at remote border posts interviewing families escaping the war, and Chechen fighters - survivors from the hellish fighting before Grozny fell - crossing the frontier to rest and re-group.
One of the most intense sections here records a visit to the remote Pankisi valley, where she was protected by her friend the famous Chechen commander Arbi. (That lawless place has just been selected as a target in the 'war against terrorism' by US special forces; their move into Georgia and America's re-training of the Georgian army may well end in renewed war all over the region.)
Her lover, a Magnum photographer, came back to her from the war after nine months of silence and rejection, and proposed to her in a freezing hut in Pankisi. She cried, but found the strength to say no. Then he did a wonderful, Georgian thing (although he was a German): after days and nights scouring the flower-growers of the countryside, he sent her a thousand red roses. It became an instant Tbilisi legend. In that warm-hearted, ramshackle city, Wendell Steavenson will always be the girl who got a thousand roses and still turned the man down. For her readers, though, she will be remembered for this first book by an immensely talented writer.
(review by Neal Ascherson, The Observer, Sunday 14 July 2002)
From Georgia I make my way to yet another disputed territory – South Ossetia. Along with Abkhazia, this is one of two disputed regions within the official borders of Georgia.
South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in 1990, calling itself the "Republic of South Ossetia". The Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and trying to retake the region by force. This led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Georgian fighting against South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The last conflict led to the 2008 South Ossetia war, during which Ossetian separatists and Russian troops gained full, de-facto, control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.
In the wake of the 2008 South Ossetia War, Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru and Tuvalu recognised South Ossetia as an independent republic. Georgia does not recognise the existence of South Ossetia as a political entity, and considers most of its territory a part of the Shida Kartli region under Georgian sovereignty, occupied by the Russian army.
It is a graphic account of the 2008 War – in both recollections and photographs - that forms my next journey with the eBook “South Ossetia: Chronicle of Contract Murder”.
As you might imagine, travel to South Ossetia from Georgia is not a straightforward activity:
To get in from Georgia, I hire a car in Tbilisi and drive towards the border until I come upon a Georgian Army checkpoint. The car is thoroughly searched (no doubt due to Georgian plates!), and there follows some questioning about my visit. Fortunately, the soldiers agree to let me through, and I drive another five kilometres until I reach the buffer zone, which is controlled by Russian troops in fortified positions and armoured vehicles. Again, I am stopped, searched, and questioned. Eventually the Russians decide to let me in, and I have to follow a Russian Army staff car, which takes me to the South Ossetian Foreign Ministry in Tskhinvali to register my arrival in this unofficial Republic…
When Wendell Steavenson was living in Georgia, she kept a collector's list of 'LAOs' - large abandoned objects. The Caucasus is littered with them: rusting tank hulls, gutted apartment blocks, the rustbelt of gigantic ruined factories that surrounds most cities. The biggest LAO is the late Soviet Union itself. Nobody wants to re-animate it. But nobody realised what the price of junking it would be.
A few decades ago, Russians assumed that if everything blew to bits, Georgia would still be a happy land. Wonderful fruit and vegetables, oceans of wine and brandy, a beautiful coastline; the Georgians would be even better off than before. Instead of which, the lights went off. There was a crazy civil war, two totally avoidable secession wars, which evicted a quarter of a million destitute refugees, and the economy collapsed.
Eight years after independence, Steavenson spent winter like most Georgians, sleeping in her clothes and reading by candlelight, in a flat where electric light, heating and hot water came on only for a few unpredictable hours of ecstasy each week. Children asked their parents what radiators were for. Adults, surviving on vodka and rotten cigarettes, asked what the Georgian government was for.
In spite of this, foreigners who visit Georgia are still entranced. Hospitality to strangers is a religion. Steavenson's life there began with one of those endless Georgian picnics that start as a lunch and end in the middle of the night, borne along by the endless toasts and speeches commanded by the Tamada (master of ceremonies). 'I was happy; charmed, drunk and beguiled like thousands of guests and invaders before me, in the land of hospitality.' But soon she understood that those who make strangers happy are not always happy themselves. Forcing guests to drink too much can be an act of aggression. What is it like to be a Georgian host?
Steavenson's friends incessantly told her stories about their country, and acted out its complexes in their lives. One shrewdly gave her Lampedusa's “The Leopard” and let her read 'Georgia' for Sicily. 'All Sicilian self-expression, even the most violent, is really wish-fulfilment; our sensuality is a hankering for oblivion, our shooting and knifing a hankering for death... The Sicilians never want to improve for the simple reason that they think themselves perfect; their vanity is stronger than their misery... Having been trampled on by a dozen different peoples, they think they have an imperial past which gives them a right to a grand funeral.'
Two of her acquaintances, Dato and Aleko, were shady young 'biznesmen'. Dato was badly disfigured in a car crash; while he was recovering, Aleko seduced his wife. The two then confronted one another by a lake, accompanied by their friends and umpired by a minor 'godfather'. Aleko knocked Dato down; Dato pulled a gun and shot Aleko in the back, temporarily paralysing him. One of Aleko's seconds then shot Dato in the leg. Nobody won. Both men sank into terminal depression, deepened by heroin and alcohol.
A 'hankering for death'? Steavenson takes this gloomy little vendetta tale and turns it into a haunting, Chekhovian story about pride, futility and self-destruction. Stories I Stole is anything but a travelogue, although she moves through many landscapes and sick cities. It is not a hack's diary, although she is an experienced foreign correspondent and hunted with the little band of 'Caucasus Hands' who risked their necks in Chechnya or Nagorno-Karabakh. And the book isn't one more 'quest for the real me', although one strand in it is her account of an agonising love affair. This is the first published book of a practised and very gifted writer, a young Kapuscinski with a literary future ahead of her.
She made several expeditions to Abkhazia, the tiny country that broke away from Georgia in 1993 and which the world - as a punishment - has dropped into an oubliette: unrecognised, its communications cut off, its ruined towns unrepaired. Few strangers can enter, apart from Russian 'peacekeepers', UN agencies and an international corps of aid workers, from Oxfam to the Halo Trust - the quiet professionals who clear mines all over the Caucasus battlefields. Steavenson, used to Georgian resourcefulness (like the art of running an electricity meter backwards) was depressed by the stagnation of Abkhazia: 'its head was down and its listless subsistence gaze directed at the pavement'.
While she was living in Tbilisi, the second Russian war in Chechnya broke out, driving streams of refugees across the mountains into northern Georgia. Steavenson went into these kidnap territories and lived among the hard-drinking Svans and semi-pagan Khevsurs. She spent days and nights at remote border posts interviewing families escaping the war, and Chechen fighters - survivors from the hellish fighting before Grozny fell - crossing the frontier to rest and re-group.
One of the most intense sections here records a visit to the remote Pankisi valley, where she was protected by her friend the famous Chechen commander Arbi. (That lawless place has just been selected as a target in the 'war against terrorism' by US special forces; their move into Georgia and America's re-training of the Georgian army may well end in renewed war all over the region.)
Her lover, a Magnum photographer, came back to her from the war after nine months of silence and rejection, and proposed to her in a freezing hut in Pankisi. She cried, but found the strength to say no. Then he did a wonderful, Georgian thing (although he was a German): after days and nights scouring the flower-growers of the countryside, he sent her a thousand red roses. It became an instant Tbilisi legend. In that warm-hearted, ramshackle city, Wendell Steavenson will always be the girl who got a thousand roses and still turned the man down. For her readers, though, she will be remembered for this first book by an immensely talented writer.
(review by Neal Ascherson, The Observer, Sunday 14 July 2002)
From Georgia I make my way to yet another disputed territory – South Ossetia. Along with Abkhazia, this is one of two disputed regions within the official borders of Georgia.
South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia in 1990, calling itself the "Republic of South Ossetia". The Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and trying to retake the region by force. This led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Georgian fighting against South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The last conflict led to the 2008 South Ossetia war, during which Ossetian separatists and Russian troops gained full, de-facto, control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.
In the wake of the 2008 South Ossetia War, Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru and Tuvalu recognised South Ossetia as an independent republic. Georgia does not recognise the existence of South Ossetia as a political entity, and considers most of its territory a part of the Shida Kartli region under Georgian sovereignty, occupied by the Russian army.
It is a graphic account of the 2008 War – in both recollections and photographs - that forms my next journey with the eBook “South Ossetia: Chronicle of Contract Murder”.
As you might imagine, travel to South Ossetia from Georgia is not a straightforward activity:
To get in from Georgia, I hire a car in Tbilisi and drive towards the border until I come upon a Georgian Army checkpoint. The car is thoroughly searched (no doubt due to Georgian plates!), and there follows some questioning about my visit. Fortunately, the soldiers agree to let me through, and I drive another five kilometres until I reach the buffer zone, which is controlled by Russian troops in fortified positions and armoured vehicles. Again, I am stopped, searched, and questioned. Eventually the Russians decide to let me in, and I have to follow a Russian Army staff car, which takes me to the South Ossetian Foreign Ministry in Tskhinvali to register my arrival in this unofficial Republic…
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