Soviet echoes

Abkhazia is a land that few have heard of, and even fewer have visited.

Wedged between the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains, the mostly unrecognised state is a peculiar Soviet time capsule, trapped in the amber of the break-up of the USSR three decades ago.

As the Soviet Union began to splinter in the late 1980s, tensions grew between the Abkhazians and Georgians who shared this stretch of the Black Sea coast as Georgia clamoured for independence.

All pictures: Stefano Majno/The Story Institute