openDemocracy Born in Germany during the war, Helmut ended up in a Soviet internment camp. Later he moved to the region of Abkhazia on the Black Sea, where he settled. Now nearly 70, he recounts the fascinating story of his life so far away from his home country to Maxim Edwards Helmut Probst stands on his land outside the Abkhaz village of Lykhny with arms flailing in welcome. One of a rare breed, the German-Abkhaz, he has assimilated much of his surroundings- Abkhaz hospitality chief among them: ‘chacha’ [strong Abkhaz grape-brandy] he says, as a statement rather than a question. He lives in the village with his Russian wife, son Oskar and grandchildren. ‘I speak Abkhaz’ he points out ‘but what a difficult language- fluency takes me a few glasses of wine!’

The ever-spreading branches of Helmut’s family tree (the many saplings of which are chasing the chickens in the yard as we speak) are a continuation of that rare breed. Helmut is happy to speak the very highest of Hochdeutsch in this improbable setting. Snow-capped mountains crown the horizon and a stream runs through the fields to his garden. ‘What fish!’ he exclaims, conjuring an invisible trout between his hands.

The vertigo-inducing pinnacles of Caucasian hospitality are in evidence on his table, which groans with home-made wine, meats, cheeses, chacha and the ubiquitous bowl of throat-searing adjika [hot sauce made of red peppers, garlic and herbs]. Abkhaz food. Yet Helmut is, as he freely admits, ‘the village German,’ whatever that means. ‘On Victory Day, people congratulate me, then joke that they probably shouldn’t. I don’t take it personally- it’s all done in good humour,’ he adds.

Abkhazia’s first Germans arrived towards the end of the 19th century along with Estonians. They were ‘civilised’ nations seen by the Tsarist authorities as ideal for settling this sub-tropical land. Three German settlements ↑ existed not far from the Abkhaz capital of Sukhumi: Gnadenburg, Neidorf, and Lindau.  In Sukhumi there is a Protestant church, built in 1913, where Abkhaz-German pastor and part-time teacher of German at Sukhumi’s University, Michael Schlegelmilch, holds services twice a week. Abkhazia’s census in 2003 showed that the Estonians still constitute 0.2% of the country’s population, but the Germans, as throughout the Soviet Union, were deported from Abkhazia in 1942, thrown from their Mountain of Mercy, their Gnadenburg, the majority of them never to return.

Read more: http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/maxim-edwards/voices-from-abkhazia-helmut%E2%80%99s-story