Astanda Ardzinba

Jean-Marc Danto from the city of Saint Nazaire in France came to Abkhazia in 1997 to build schools as part of a humanitarian mission of an international organisation; however, circumstances developed in such a way that the French engineer remained forever in the republic, where he founded a successful business.

Ensemble "Apsny-67" was created in 1967 as an amateur ensemble at the Palace of Culture of Trade Union Workers, located opposite the Park of Glory in Sukhum. The director of the Palace of Culture, Shamil Vardania, took the ensemble under his tutelage, providing them with performances not only at sites in Abkhazia, but also in the USSR, including in various programmes on Central Television.

How Easily One Forgets...

Contrast the following with the widely held misconception that Abkhazia's problem with Georgia resulted from its being a mere puppet of the Kremlin's 'anti-Georgian' politics?

Most of the 1990s, especially when Shevardnadze-protegé Andrei Kozyrev served as Boris Yeltsin's Foreign Minister, Russia's policy was by NO means pro-Abkhazian, a CIS-blockade being imposed along Abkhazia's River Psou border with Russia. Boris Yeltsin, together with Georgia, put Abkhazia under sanctions.

Postage-stamps of Abkhazia were issued for twenty years from 1993 to 2013, but after the fire at the Sukhum post-office their entire collection was lost.

As to how Eduard Pilia created the postal service of independent Abkhazia and American companies produced fake stamps, Konstantin Pilia, son of the general director of Abkhazsvjaz [‘Abkhazian Link’], and collector Viacheslav Abukhba explained to Sputnik correspondent Vladimir Begunov.

Afro-Abkhazians' or Abkhazians of African descent were a small group of people in Abkhazia. The ethnic origin of the Afro-Abkhazian descent and how Africans arrived in Abkhazia is still a matter of dispute among experts.