25 February 1998 - Keston News Service

From July to November 1997 the Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences conducted field research in Abkhazia as part of project 97-01-18011 'National Communities in Abkhazia: the Current Situation' with the financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Science Fund. The aim of the project was to illustrate the particularities of the situation of the local population as a whole, as well as of all national communities living in Abkhazia in the post-Soviet period, during which the republic once again became an unrecognised state after the bitter Georgian-Abkhazian War of 1992-93, and its citizens became isolated from the rest of the world once Russia introduced 'special' conditions on the Russian-Abkhazian border in December 1994.

A survey of Abkhazia's population (1997 and 2003) shows Abkhaz people are highly religious. In 2003, 60% of the people surveyed considered themselves Christians, 16% Muslims, 8% atheists and unbelievers, 5% pagans, 3% devotees of an Abkhaz religion. Jehovah's Witnesses and Jews accounted for less than 1% each, and 6% thought it difficult to answer.