GEORGIA:According to Georgia, Russia controls everything in Abkhazia, writes Daniel McLaughlin.
WITH ITS cabinets of jewellery, postcards and T-shirts hanging from pegs, Alla's beachfront shop resembles others around the world. But the T-shirts are emblazoned with the green, red and white flag of the unrecognised Republic of Abkhazia, and the scenes on the postcards bear little resemblance to the reality outside her door.
The palm trees are the same, the sun is still shining and the Black Sea whispers along the beach. But the pier is a broken finger reaching out towards Europe, the Hotel Abkhazia is a bombed-out shell, and the few Russian sunbathers share the shoreline with the rusting hulk of an abandoned ship.
"This was the Soviet Union's paradise and they all came here, everyone from Stalin to Gorbachev," says Alla. "But we have never recovered from the war. We are still living with what the Georgians did to us."
Subtropical Abkhazia was the summer playground for several Soviet leaders, and Stalin had at least two villas, one on the coast and another beside Lake Ritsa.
But when the Kremlin's empire unravelled, Abkhazia's desire for independence sparked a war that killed several thousand people and drove some 250,000 Georgians from their homes, as local militia, backed by Russian forces and volunteer fighters from across the Caucasus, rallied to the region's cause.
"Terrible things happened, things that we can never forget," says Alla, amid Russian holidaymakers. "We can never be part of Georgia again. We want to be independent. But the West gives us nothing, and only Russia helps us, so we have to go along with Russia."
It is a refrain heard all over Sukhumi, the capital, including in the offices of the separatist government that is economically reliant on Moscow and a slow trickle of Russian tourists.
"We didn't start the war in 1991, but we won the war, and now we are establishing our own state on our historical lands," Abkhazia's foreign minister Sergei Shamba said in a recent interview. "We want to be independent and to have a multidirectional foreign policy, but the EU and United States are isolating us and making Russia our only option - and Russia is helping us with finance and passports and so on."
As in South Ossetia, Georgia's other Kremlin-backed breakaway region, Russia gave passports to most of Abkhazia's population, and pledged to protect it should tension caused by occasional gunfights and bomb blasts erupt into more serious violence.
After two days of fierce fighting between Georgian, Russian and local forces in South Ossetia, Russia's Black Sea fleet reportedly landed some 4,000 troops down the coast from Sukhumi yesterday, and Abkhaz fighters were headed for the Kodori Gorge, the only local area controlled by Tbilisi.
Georgia says Russia controls almost everything in Abkhazia, supplying it with cash, weapons and a defence force in the shape several thousand supposed peacekeepers. It does not care for the Abkhaz, Tbilisi says, but wants to maintain a foothold in the region and undermine Georgia's bid for Nato membership.
A unit of Russia's so-called "railway troops" left Abkhazia recently having repaired the tracks between Sukhumi and the port of Ochamchire - where the Kremlin's soldiers landed yesterday - and a Russian firm has just rapidly relaid a main road into Sukhumi. Proof, Tbilisi says, that Moscow has long been preparing for war in Abkhazia.
"Russian intelligence services and the military are very active in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and they are making huge amounts of money from smuggling operations and organised crime in these black holes," Georgian interior minister Temur Iakobashvili said before fighting broke out in South Ossetia. "We want talks with an honest mediator, not Russia. But we do not want war, because it would not be war with Abkhazia, but between Georgia and Russia."
Mr Iakobashvili's fears have been realised, even before a "second front" in fighting seemed to open up yesterday in Abkhazia.
While most Georgians are undoubtedly eager to see South Ossetia brought back under Tbilisi's control, they only get teary-eyed over Abkhazia, a lost Black Sea pearl which conjures up memories of summer holidays. And for one-quarter of a million Georgian refugees, it is simply the home they long to see again.
A widening war that threatens to inflame the Caucasus makes prospects for a return dimmer than ever, however.
"It's no longer possible to listen to Georgia talk about a peaceful solution in South Ossetia or Abkhazia, or offer us autonomy," Abkhazia's deputy foreign minister Maxim Gunjia told The Irish Timesyesterday. "Georgia has shown its real face."
Daniel McLaughlin recently visited Sukhumi