Blood sausage and chestnuts in Zagreb

Any time of year can be lovely in Zagreb. Walking up Sljeme, the mountain on the edge of Zagreb, on a crisp autumn day, with the trees a mass of golds and browns, and still some greens, is a delight. And autumn has its special food opportunities. Krvavice (blood sausages) on Sljeme, with kiseli kupus (sauerkraut) have me salivating even before the plane touches down at Zagreb airport. Nowhere else have I enjoyed black pudding as much as here, deliciously spicy, homemade. That’s what makes the food in the Sljeme mountain huts so special. Good simple fare, sourced from local peasants, homemade, luscious.

And it’s also the time of year for chestnuts, found in abundance on Sljeme. Sunday walks punctuated with long detours to pick them by the sack full. Roasted chestnuts on sale in squares and on street corners; the cooperative effort of roasting and peeling our own at home; pureed chestnuts served with cream; cakes made of chestnuts with cream and chocolate. Gorging ourselves on chestnuts.

None of this is sophisticated fare, just simple, traditional and delicious. Zagreb is in many ways a conservative place. I hope it stays so, and that all the things that delight me so do not change. Let them open new, fancier restaurants, catering to more cosmopolitan tastes. But let’s keep the old pleasures as well.

I was sorry to see that my favourite Kod Žaca is no more, at least not in the form it used to be. A cosy little restaurant near the Archbishop’s garden, run by a couple of young boys from Slavonia, but with cuisine from Istria. Can there be two cuisines more dissimilar than Slavonian and Istrian? One old gentleman from Rijeka told how, when he first married, he wondered whether his Slavonian wife was trying to kill him with the heavy food she served. But, as my Italian friend, one of their most faithful customers, put it, the mama of the two boys at Kod Žaca had taught them well. Wonderful food. Delectable steaks. Perfectly textured gnocchi with a truffle sauce. And such an atmosphere, and such generosity. It felt like we were their guests, in their own home. A grater and a truffle were placed in front of the eater, who was left to grate his own. It was at Kod Žaca that I first tasted the delicious Istrian honey liqueur, a wonderful aperitif. And again, no messing about; the bottle and glasses were simply placed on the table, the guests left to serve themselves. I have not tasted as good anywhere else. They had their own source. The restaurant was, I think, not legal, part of the grey economy; there was no sign outside the door. That did not stop prominent politicians eating there. Now there is a sign, still called Kod Žaca, but a pizzeria.

Plov and lepeshka in Kyrgyzstan

Leaving behind the modern comforts of Bishkek, we boarded a flight for the southern city of Jalal Abad, close to the border with Uzbekistan. The flight, in an old, rickety little aircraft, with seats that would not go into the upright position, and smelling much like the old and decrepit buses still found around the former Soviet Union, was not a lot of fun. The weather was atrocious, and the plane kept swooping and diving, leaving stomachs behind as it went. I concentrated hard not to spill the beaker of water the stewardess had given me, as she struggled up and down the floor of the plane, now sloping one way, now the other. One of our party sat next to an official from the transport ministry who told him that the model of plane we were flying in was now outlawed in Kyrgyzstan, but it was still flying – just.

Arriving, relieved, at Jalal Abad airport, we had to wait for our luggage in the driving rain. Turning around, there was a sign above the entrance to the runway wishing departing passengers ‘good luck’. After our flight, it seemed apt.

A short stop in Jalal Abad to eat samsa (samosas) and delicious little pastries stuffed with pumpkin. Then the bus journey on to Kerben, through the still lashing rain. We arrived during a power cut, a rare event, we were told, due to the weather. Supper was by candlelight, starting with tasty little scraps of mutton fat, followed by salad and plov, the ubiquitous plov, found all over central Asia, consisting of rice, laced with raisins and pieces of mutton, boiled until they resemble leather. All washed down with green tea and vodka.

We had been expecting the worst from the accommodation, but in fact it was not too bad, if basic. The rooms were clean and warm, and the beds comfortable. And though the water pressure was weak, I had a hot shower.

Kerben is a quiet little town, quite dark at night even when there is no power cut, with just the very centre dimly lit, and one solitary set of traffic lights – the central feature of the town. Walking along the dim main street in softening rain, we heard pounding music off to one side. Perhaps Kerben had a night life after all.

Aksi district

Then a couple of days off in the villages of Aksi district. Muddy, charming little places with smiley people and a spectacular surround of snow-capped mountains. Ladies with scarves and men with tall woollen hats. Some on donkeys, sometimes a man atop a sprightly horse, reminding of the nomadic Kyrgyz past. One old lady sitting on a donkey, asked by our interpreter if I could photo her, cackled happily; ‘does he love me’, she asked?

Then there is our most frequented eating place; a little shack in one of the villages, the only restaurant for miles around, if the word restaurant is appropriate for such a hovel. Goat soup; fried potatoes and chicken; fried potatoes and eggs; and truly the worst plov I have tasted – inedible for me and my Russian companion. Hailing originally from Kazakhstan, she professes to like central Asian cooking; her father spends hours preparing gargantuan quantities of plov for the whole family. But neither she nor I could eat this. Our interpreter and driver wolfed it down however. But somehow I grew fond of the place, and of the cheerful lady who served us. Arriving for a pot of hot green tea and the latest offerings from her blackened pots seemed almost homely. And her lepeshka (central Asian bread) was the most delicious of my whole stay in Kyrgyzstan, when it was fresh and warm.

Krujë and Skenderbeg

In Albanians’ sense of their history, a uniquely significant position is occupied by Skenderbeg, the preeminent national hero. His statue stands in prominent places in capital cities around the Albanian-inhabited areas of the Balkans, in Tirana, Prishtina and Skopje, and elsewhere. It is hard to think of a European country where a single historical figure holds such an important place in the national consciousness. For a small nation, ruled and dominated by others more powerful for much of their history, often seen as occupying a peripheral region, isolated from the main currents of European history, the memory of Skenderbeg is an affirmation for Albanians of their self-worth. They too produced a great hero, who played a significant role in the affairs of the continent. Despite their frequent disappointments, the example of Skenderbeg continues to provide inspiration.

Statue of Skenderbeg, Tirana

Born Gjergj Kastrioti, Skenderbeg was the name given him by the Turks, meaning in Turkish, roughly, Lord Alexander, it is presumed after Alexander the Great, a reference to his prowess as a military commander. Skenderbeg lived in the 15t Century, when the Ottomans were extending and consolidating their rule in the Balkans. Following his father’s submission to the empire, Skenderbeg served with distinction as a soldier of the Sultan before turning to rebellion. Instrumental in forming the League of Lezhë, a town in northern Albania, then under Venetian rule, for two decades Skenderbeg led Albanian resistance to the Ottomans from a base in his hilltop redoubt of Krujë, not far from Tirana. He led a guerrilla campaign and withstood sieges, putting off the extension of Ottoman rule until after his death.

Today, Krujë is a pleasant little town, with a small Ottoman-style bazaar, now mainly given over to selling tourist souvenirs. The fortress’s defensive value was appreciated also by the Turks, and much of what one sees today dates from the Ottoman period rather than from Skenderbeg’s time. Particularly fine is a beautifully maintained 18th-century house inside the castle walls, which had once accommodated the Ottoman commander of the fortress. The original decoration, including ornate wooden ceilings and simple yet exquisite murals, is a striking example of Ottoman style. Unlike the open verandas of the houses in Berat and Gjirokaster, here the gallery is enclosed by a tightly latticed wooden screen, through which the occupants could see out, but outsiders could not see in. Did this perhaps reflect the practice of a stricter version of Islam, with its preoccupation with hiding a house’s womenfolk away from view? Displayed photographs of the bazaar from the beginning of the 20th century showed women completely covered, burka-like.

18th-century house, Krujë castle

The castle contains the Skenderbeg Museum, opened in 1980s. The Hoxha regime eagerly tapped into the cult of Skenderbeg. A 1970 novel by the great Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, ‘The Seige’, described an Ottoman siege of an unnamed Albanian fortress in Skenderbeg’s time. The book was published in the aftermath of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Hoxha’s rule had nothing in common with the suppressed Prague Spring, except that Hoxha feared Albania might face a similar fate. The clampdown on the Prague Spring sparked heightened paranoia in the Albanian regime, which responded by building the thousands of defensive bunkers that once peppered the Albanian countryside. Kadare’s novel portrayed a defiant Albania, led by Skenderbeg, standing up to and defying the mighty Ottomans. Of course, Albania ultimately succumbed, albeit after Skenderbeg’s death, and in that sense the book’s message for the 20th Century was ambiguous.

The museum contains surviving documents signed by Skenderbeg, his correspondence with European rulers. Skenderbeg was lionised in much of Europe for his feat of withstanding, with few resources or men, the Ottoman Empire for so long, as a defender of Christendom and of European civilisation. However, many of the exhibits appear to have more to do with ‘creating’ history rather than recording it. Concrete knowledge of Skenderbeg and others involved in the resistance is limited, lost in the mists of time, and certainly many of the pictures and busts of people from that time are based on imagination. Such embellishment, selectiveness and fabrication is a feature of many Albanian museums. Perhaps it reflects a need for a small nation to give itself a history of which it could be more proud. But Skenderbeg’s story was remarkable enough without the need for embellishment. A (much embellished) history of Skenderbeg was written by Marin Barleti at the beginning of the 16th century, and was subsequently translated into several languages. Not a peripheral state, Albania under Skenderbeg was at the forefront of the defence of Europe.

The mountains of northern Albania

A hundred years ago, when Edith Durham travelled through the mountains of northern Albania, the world she described in her book, ‘High Albania’, was one in which there were no roads, just tracks, some of which could not be passed on horseback, let alone by any kind of vehicle. It was a world in which only the priests could read or write. And though the Catholic mountain people were devoted to the symbols of their Church, it was the Kanun – code – of Lek Dukagjin that held sway over their lives, and the honour code of the blood feud, which substituted for the lack of any effective state institutions.

This remarkable Edwardian woman dragged herself up mountain passes and along cliff ledges; she ate and slept in the primitive houses of the region, listening to the stories of the men, and sometimes women (for she generally ate with the men, not the women, who grubbed up the leftover scraps of the men, and were treated as little more than chattels, their role to bear male children and serve the family of their in-laws). Hospitality was sacred for the mountain people, and, though often poor, they gave her the best that they could.

Valbona

So much has changed now. The valley of the Valbona, close to Bajram Curri, a mainly Moslem region, is now a national park. It is rapidly being developed for tourism, mainly for visitors from Albania and nearby Kosovo, as well as a smattering of westerners. Wooden hotels and restaurants in a style that looks more like Scandinavia than the Balkans are being erected by families with the right political connections in Bajram Curri (construction in Albania depends on political patronage). The scent of money and opportunity is in the air Many of the traditional stone houses have been left to fall into decay, as have the barracks for an abandoned military base, placed here due to the proximity of the Yugoslav (now Montenegrin) border. The natural beauty of the place is spectacular, the mountains rising up on all sides. Driving into the valley, the villages of stone houses dotted around the verdant slopes have great charm.

The day we visited, a minor American film star of partly Albanian descent, Eliza Dushku (she was in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’), was in the region, as part of a tour of Albania to help promote tourism. We saw her greeted by the head of Valbona commune together with a troop of traditional Tropoje dancers. She gamesomely joined in the fun, while the cameras whirred. Valbona is going to be developed further. One can only hope that it will be done with sensitivity and respect for the nature and the local traditions and styles.

Theth

Just across a mountain pass from Valbona is the valley of Theth, a Catholic area, also a national park. Part of Shkoder region, Theth can only be reached from Valbona by a tough climb over the mountains. The only road is from Shkoder, which in its higher reaches becomes a rocky track, unsuitable for vehicles less robust than a four-by-four or the sturdy little furgons (minivans) that push their way up, although some adventurous cyclists make the journey too.

Edith Durham was much taken with Theth, which she described as “a grandly wild spot”. She wrote of the valley that “great isolated boulders are scattered over it, on which stand kullas.” A kulla is the traditional tower that was the home and castle of mountain families, with tiny slit windows from which it could be defended from enemies. In such homes extended families lived in Durham’s time, and owed absolute obedience to the head of the household, the house lord. Many older houses remain. Some have been abandoned, but others have been renovated, some with red corrugated iron roofs in place of the traditional stone ones. The little church at one end of the valley has been restored. Durham would have been heartened by the fact that a school now stands in the heart of the village.

Not far from the church stands a traditional lock-out kulla, where men once took refuge to escape from blood feuds. Even now, as a tourist attraction, it seems a bleak and forbidding place. When Durham visited, the mountain tribes were in a state of near-constant feud, with their neighbours and within the tribe itself. The writer Ismail Kadare wrote about one such tower in his novel ‘Broken April’. Blood feuds have made a comeback since the end of communist rule, though mercifully not on their previous, all-pervasive scale. Travelling through Valbona, our local driver pointed out two houses whose occupants were in feud with a nearby family. Two people had been killed already. The men of the two houses dared not go out except at night, and the police apparently stayed clear of the matter. Most local people, he averred, still approved of revenge killings. The primitive call of honour continued to exert a pull in the villages.

Lock-out kulla, Theth

Many of the houses in Theth now take in guests. The conditions can be fairly basic. The village has for some time been without an electricity supply. At the place I stayed, a generator was switched on for a couple of hours in the evening. Hot water for washing came in a bucket that could be ladled over the body for a primitive shower. But this is nothing compared to the conditions experienced by Edith Durham on her travels, where the living area of a house frequently consisted of one large room, where she slept with all the family, and on occasion animals as well. Nevertheless, the warmth and hospitality with which she was everywhere received delighted her.

Nowadays, the guesthouses in Theth are commercial operations. The hosts have satellite television, and some of them speak English. But some of the spirit and charm Durham witnessed remains. Most of the food served is local produce, including home-baked bread, wine, butter, honey, and utterly delicious fig jam. Homemade fig jam featured on the breakfast menu in most of the places I stayed in Albania. It was wonderful. One still has the feeling of staying with a family, from the old lady, with her hair dyed jet black and worn long, topped by a light scarf, in the local style, who smiled benevolently at her guests (when not shooing away the hens or the family cow from the front of the house), to the little children who ran around throughout the day, and greeted me each morning and evening, telling me their names.

Theth too is surely going to experience further tourist development, including a tarmacked road that will bring in greater numbers of visitors, a reliable electricity supply, new hotels, shops etc. The wilderness that Durham wrote about is being overtaken by the modern world. As with Valbona, one hopes it will be done sensitively. Perhaps, away from these national parks, some unfrequented, more truly wild places will remain for a time.

Re-established links: Gjakova and Tropoje

The recently built Kukes highway and tunnel have transformed links between Albania and Kosovo. Old ties among communities on the two sides of the border are being re-established after decades of communist and, in the case of Kosovo, Serbian rule. Travelling to Tropoje, in the northeast corner of Albania, is now quickest and easiest by the new road, passing through Kosovo, via Prizren and Gjakova (Djakovica in Serbian).

Tropoje is a sparsely populated region, neglected by Tirana since the end of communist rule, despite the fact that current Prime Minister Sali Berisha, the dominant figure in Albanian politics for two decades, comes from here. The main town, Bajram Curri, has not fared well. Lacking the frenzy of new construction that characterises more favoured Albanian towns, Bajram Curri is shrinking, its citizens moving away in search of better prospects. The ill-lit streets have an especially forlorn feel at night. Someone in Tirana told me all Albanian towns were similarly dark and unlit in communist times. Bajram Curri seems hardly to have moved on since then. The high number of UK-registered vehicles is evidence of how many people from the region have moved to Britain. Some of them have moved back with cars they bought there, but many are just visiting for the summer holidays. Strolling through Bajram Curri one evening, a boy from Twickenham, with a pronounced London accent, started talking to me, over to visit the town of his birth.

Bajram Curri

Historically, this region had not looked primarily to Tirana or the coast. Rather, its main link was with Gjakova. Indeed, it was formerly known as the Highlands of Gjakova. Tropoje was part of the hinterland of Gjakova, and it may be becoming so again. Gjakova is a fine old Ottoman town, with a large bazaar, much in the style of many others in the Balkans. Unlike some of them, such as those of Sarajevo and Mostar in Bosnia, or Kruje, near Tirana, the Gjakova bazaar is not at all touristy, at least not yet. Instead, the little shops sell ordinary things to local people, clothes, shoes, hardware. The bazaar has the hustle and bustle so typical of Kosovo, where everyone seems to be doing business in a constant hubbub of activity. The bazaar was damaged during the 1999 conflict, some of its wooden buildings burned. The fine old mosque was damaged. But the damage has largely been repaired, and it has been done sensitively, in keeping with the traditional style.

The furgon (minibus) that drove us from Gjakova to Bajram Curri stopped at several places along the way, picking up supplies from various small shops which were piled along the floor. All manner of things: food; soft drinks; electrical goods. The driver had apparently taken orders from people in Bajram Curri. Travelling to remote areas in Albania it is often like that. The furgons are the conduits for trade. And it Tropoje, it now seems that the source for goods and supplies is coming once again to be Gjakova, as it once was. Old links among Albanian-inhabited lands are being re-established. Will these revived social and commercial ties have political consequences as well? Maybe. Certainly the logic of geography says that Tropoje should never have been separated from Gjakova.

Bajram Curri takes its name from an Albanian hero of the same name. His statue stands in the town, rifle in hand, the picture of the rebel outlaw. Bajram Curri hailed from Gjakova. He fought the Turks and, one of the leading members of the Committee for the National Defence of Kosovo, organised resistance to Serbian rule after 1918, as part of the Kachak insurgency. He served as Minister for War in the Albanian government, but fell out with Ahmed Zogu (later King Zog). Pursued by Zog’s troops, Bajram Curri was trapped and killed (some say he killed himself to avoid capture) in the mountains of the Valbona valley, close to the town whose name now commemorates him.

Berat, Gjirokaster and Ali Pasha Tepelena

From being one of the least known corners of Europe, Albania has now started to become a tourist destination. Outside travellers had been here and written about the country and its people. Among British travellers, they included Byron early in the 19th Century and Edith Durham a century later. Now, two decades after the end of the isolationist communist regime, the numbers are growing, and the infrastructure is being built.

In the south, Berat and Gjirokaster are both UNESCO protected sites, their fine old cities displaying unique architectural styles. Berat is known as the city of a thousand windows. Looking up from the valley of the Osum River at the Mangalem district, rising up the hillside towards the citadel, it is clear why. Each white-washed building presents a façade of large windows that take up most of its area. Unlike the traditional defensive towers of northern Albania, with their tiny windows, closed against a hostile outside, the houses of Berat appear open to the world. It is a beautiful sight.

City of a thousand windows, Berat

The citadel, built along the crest of the hill above Mangalem, is an impressive size. Many outside powers saw the value of the site, which was at different times in the Middle Ages held by Byzantium, Bulgaria and, briefly, Serbia, before finally being taken by the Ottomans. Inside the walls are houses as well as numerous little churches, mostly closed for restoration, and a ruined mosque that once served the Ottoman garrison.

Inside the citadel, Berat

Early in the nineteenth century, Berat was briefly incorporated into the semi-autonomous dominion of Ali Pasha Tepelena, one of the most colourful Albanian rulers of the Ottoman period. Travelling south from Berat, in the town of Tepelana, the home region of Ali Pasha, is a statue of the old man, who died in his 80s, reclining in his oriental robes, his belt stuffed with weapons, white beard flowing across his chest. Born into a powerful family, Ali Pasha’s father was murdered by rivals when he was a teenager. Turning to brigandage, he gradually clawed his way back, in time finding favour with the Ottoman authorities. In 1788, he seized Ioannina, now in north-west Greece, from where he controlled large chunks of Albania and Greece. Finally, this over-mighty and independent ruler came into conflict with the Sultan, and was killed in 1822. Byron visited him at his court in 1809, writing with approval of the Greek cultural revival that he encouraged, and of his renowned bravery, but also of the tyranny and cruelty of his rule.

Ali Pasha’s life illustrates the complex, ambiguous pattern of national and religious affiliation which characterised the Balkans before the advent of modern nation states forced peoples into more homogeneous national territories. An Albanian from Tepelena, as a Muslim and an Ottoman potentate many would have considered him a Turk. Yet the language of his court in Ioannina was Greek.

On the coast, south of the largely Greek speaking town of Himara, is a castle named after Ali Pasha, at a little place called Porto Palermo. Guidebooks often state that the castle was built early in the 19th Century for Ali Pasha’s wife. Others assert that in fact it long pre-dated Ali Pasha, and was probably Venetian. But it was in his territory. Around the fortress are other, more modern fortifications, abandoned and ruined buildings of a communist era military base, and several of Enver Hoxha’s once ubiquitous bunkers squatting around the castle walls. Close by is a submarine base, tunnelled into the rock.

A bunker at Port Palermo

Ali Pasha also added Gjirokaster to his realm, and renovated and extended the fortress there. The fortress was used by both King Zog and Enver Hoxha as a prison for political prisoners. Gjirokaster produced two of the most notable Albanians of the 20th Century, Hoxha and the novelist Ismail Kadare. Gjirokaster too has a very particular architecture. Some of the big stone houses that were once home to extended wealthy families include shaded terraces in between wings on either side, where the families would have spent much of the time during summer. Hoxha’s house burned down in 1916, and on its site there is now a replica of a traditional Gjirokaster house, with its rooms for hospitality, separate rooms for men and women, and windows through which the women could look in on the men, but not vice versa. Here, the guide told me, a bride-to-be could spy on her future husband for the first time.

Gjirokaster

Gjirokaster contains an ethnic Greek minority, and is considered the centre of the Greek community in Albania. The city, as well as much of what is today southern Albania, was claimed by Greece and occupied by Greek forces during the Balkan Wars and again in the First World War. As the international powers favoured Albania, local Greeks in Gjirokaster proclaimed an Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus, which received international sanction, but did not last long. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference confirmed the region as part of Albania.

Like elsewhere in the Balkans, there was no clean boundary line, with one national group on one side and another on the other. Just as there were Greeks left on the Albanian side of the border, so Albanians, known as the Chams, were left in the northwest corner of Greece. As with other indigenous minorities in Greece, the Chams did not fare well. Having suffered discrimination in the inter-war years, and accused of collaboration with the German and Italian occupiers during the Second World War, the Muslim Chams were expelled from Greece, while the Orthodox Chams were subjected to the same kind of assimilationist pressures imposed on remaining Macedonian and Bulgarian Slavs in Greece.

These issues continue to affect Greek-Albanian relations. Albanians worry that Athens deliberately tries to inflate ethnic Greek numbers in Albania, encouraging Orthodox Albanians to declare themselves as Greeks. A plan to include a question about ethnic affiliation in the census this year for the first time, strongly supported by Greeks, raised fears among Albanians about Greece’s intentions.

And since the end of communist rule in Albania, the descendants of the expelled Chams in Albania have started to raise their voices, demanding the restoration of their lost property rights in Greece. In the past couple of years, the Chams have organised their own political party, the Party for Justice, Integration and Unity (PDIU), which has broadened its message from Cham rights to a wider pan-Albanian nationalism which, if its appeal continues to grow, would be bound to poison relations with neighbouring countries. It is as if the lessons of a decade of ethnic conflict in former Yugoslavia have not been learned.

Nevertheless, Greece’s systematic denial of the rights of minorities is a disgrace in an EU country. Athens’s hullabaloo about the rights of Greeks in Albania, a country that has Greek-language schools, dual-language road signs in Greek areas, and which, by comparison with Greece, is almost a model of a country that respects minority rights, cannot elicit much sympathy given Greece’s ill-treatment of the Chams, Macedonians and other minorities in Greece.

Sukhum and Abkhazia

Journeying to Sukhum, one could almost feel like being in a normal country. Soon after leaving Gali, the road becomes much better. In fact, the road north of Gali is in the process of being re-asphalted. Maybe it will soon extend through Gali to the boundary. But if that happens, I suspect it will be because the Russians, the source of the lion’s share of Abkhazia’s budget, want a proper road for their military base at the boundary, not out of any sense of responsibility towards the Georgian inhabitants of Gali. The police-manned barriers along the road to Sukhum (all up, with no stops during my journey) are a rather intimidating reminder that this is not a normal country.

The burned-out former government building, Sukhum

To an extent, life in Sukhum does seem rather routine. Visiting in July, the place is thronged with Russian tourists there for a seaside holiday. They perhaps give it a more bustling appearance than would be the case out of season. But since the expulsion of its Georgians, Sukhum is a much emptier place than it once was. Away from the seafront, the centre of tourist activity, and a few renovated streets in the town centre, there are lots of abandoned, derelict buildings, the still unhealed scars of the war. The government building, burned when the Abkhazian forces took Sukhum in September 1993, remains as it was, a burned out shell. Like many buildings, the railway station, a vast, typically Soviet structure, is gradually being taken over by greenery. Perhaps this has been the fate of sacked cities over millennia; a remaining, truncated population retreats to a few areas of the town, leaving the rest to collapse and return to nature.

Nature reclaims the ruins, Sukhum

Neal Ascherson described a visit to Abkhazia not long after the conflict in his brilliant book, Black Sea: The Birthplace of Civilisation and Barbarism. At that stage Sukhum was barely functioning, its officials working without pay, its ministers without proper doors to their offices. That is no longer the case. Government offices stand amid well-groomed parks; vehicles, complete with Abkhazian license plates (a crucial symbol for a new state), stop at traffic lights and are directed by traffic police; banks open and close. The place works.

It does better than just work. The seafront is really pleasant, a shady walk, flanked on one side by a mass of pink oleanders, eucalyptus, and palm trees. The lush green of Abkahzia’s sub-tropical climate is a great attraction. It is easy to see why so many Georgians speak wistfully of how much they miss Sukhumi. At one end of the promenade, near the president’s office, men sit in the shade of the oleanders, playing chess and other board games, drinking coffee. There is a special kind of coffee here, Turkish coffee with its own little quirk. The individual cezve coffee pots, filled with coffee and hot water, are pulled to and fro in a tray of burning hot sand until the mushy scum that forms on top just begins to rise and boil over. Once or twice a day I watch this ritual, before taking my little cup to sit under the oleanders, looking out at the sea.

Coffee under the oleanders, Sukhum

Seeing the hordes of Russian tourists on the beaches, in the restaurants and coffee shops, I cannot help wondering whether this might not be the basis of a viable economy. Its other asset, its climate, is suitable for growing citrus and tropical fruits for export. Mandarins are ubiquitous; I did not, however, find freshly squeezed mandarin juice to be a pleasing substitute for orange juice. But no. In reality, Abkhazia depends on the Russian subsidy, and it is the Russians who run the place.

A visit to the Abkhazian foreign ministry, to pick up my visa, was instructive. I had made a note of the address, and there, sure enough, was a large official looking building. The foreign ministry, I thought. But no. The foreign ministry was just one short corridor up the stairs on the first floor. The building housed other ministries and government agencies as well. The finance ministry was situated on a similarly short corridor opposite the foreign ministry. On the foreign ministry corridor, there was an office with a couple of desks for the consular section, another room for protocol, one for information and so on. And just one lavatory, a gents. I guessed that the ladies’ was across the way, in the finance ministry. It brought home what a toy-town place Abkhazia is, recognised as independent only by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela and the Pacific island states of Nauru and Vanuatu (as well as South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria, themselves not widely recognised).

Following the brief renewal of conflict over South Ossetia and the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, the Russian army took control of Abkhazia’s boundary. Many Abkhazians did not like it, and there was even some resistance. The degree of dependence on Russia is troubling to many Abkhaz. But they have no choice. This is not an independent country; its sovereignty is a sham. What the Russians intend in the longer term, whether the eventual goal might be the full incorporation in the Russian Federation, is hard to guess. Probably they are keeping their options open. Even before the 2008 conflict, a leading Georgian international affairs expert told me in Tbilisi that he did not believe Georgia would ever recover Abkhazia (South Ossetia, given its proximity to Tbilisi, was another matter). Yet most of the world continues to affirm its support for Georgia’s sovereignty in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. What must be especially unsettling for the Abkhaz is the thought that a future, post-Putin Russian government might one day change its policy, decide to improve its relations with the West and to normalise relations with Georgia.

For the time-being it is hard to see circumstances in which Abkhazia’s status vis-à-vis Georgia could be resolved. Despite Tbilisi’s attempts to sweeten the prospect of a return to the Georgian fold, including the offer extensive autonomy for Abkhazia, there is, for the present, no incentive for the Abkhazians to take up such offers as long as they enjoy Russian support. But their position is precarious, dependent on Moscow’s goodwill and its ongoing bad relations with Georgia.

It is easy to sympathise with the Abkhaz; subjected to ethnic cleansing by imperial Russia, to a colonial policy which saw their territory swamped by other nations, and to oppression and forced assimilation policies under the Georgians Stalin and Beria (Abkhazia’s longstanding Greek community was, like other Black Sea Greeks, transported into exile by Stalin, their place taken by inward Georgian migration). That Abkhaz were resentful is little wonder. Georgians have rarely shown much sensitivity to smaller peoples in territory they regard as their own. For many, Abkhazia is Georgian land, and that is all. In so far as they would be permitted to exist as a distinct people, Abkhaz feared they faced a future similar to that of the native Americans, living in villages in the hills, much like reservations, while most of Abkhazia was thoroughly Georgianised. Some Georgians do acknowledge the distress of the Abkhaz. One young woman in Tbilisi told me that, if she were an Abkhaz, she would not want to live in Georgia. Another Georgian admitted that the Abkhaz had been treated like second-class citizens during Soviet times.

As the Soviet Union broke up, the Abkhaz saw their opportunity, like other submerged nations, the Baltic peoples and the Georgians themselves, to escape such a fate. But the road they took meant the forcible expulsion of the Georgian population, another injustice that did not in any way erase the earlier injustices suffered by the Abkhaz, but rather compounded them. Of course, there are other examples of states founded upon the violent expulsion of people whose presence was undesirable. Israel springs to mind. But the Abkhazians are less likely to get away with it.

It need not have been so. Unfortunately at the time of the conflict, the government in Tbilisi was dominated by nationalists with no sense of any need to reassure the Abkhaz (or the South Ossetians) about their position in an independent Georgia, or to reach compromises with them. But what kind of future can there be for a state ruled by a people less than 100,000 strong, a minority in their own land, based on the expulsion of nearly half its population, and utterly dependent on a big neighbour whose future support cannot be relied upon? For now, the Abkhaz may see little reason to compromise. The Georgian government, powerless as it is at present to restore its rule in Abkhazia, is offering compromises. Abkhaz suspicions about its good faith are understandable, given the record, including the attempt to retake South Ossetia by force in 2008. The Georgians have a lot to prove. But a future as a fief of Putin’s Russia, based upon the denial of the fundamental rights of the Georgian expellees, cannot be a sound foundation for statehood.

A visit to Gali, Abkhazia

Walking across the Inguri bridge into Abkhazia, there is something of a Cold War feel, crossing on foot the line in a frozen conflict. I travelled by taxi from Zugdidi to the boundary line, and was dropped off just before a barrier closing the road to traffic. The taxi driver indicated that the way to Abkhazia was straight ahead. And so I walked, my backpack on my back, not really knowing what to expect. Behind me, a huge Georgian flag flew at the top of a massive flag pole. Ahead, the Georgian writ no longer ran.

The Inguri crossing, looking towards the Abkhazian side

The Georgian police sitting in a little cabin showed no interest in me, and so on I walked, past a couple of young Georgian soldiers and through a chicane of concrete blocks, and onwards to the bridge. The bridge is long, extending over an expanse of marshes and little streams, the main flow close to the Abkhazian side. I only saw a couple of vehicles crossing, both from international aid organisations. Others were crossing on foot, Georgians from Gali district, the first district on the Abkhazian side, who had been allowed by the Abkhazians to return to their homes, and to pass to and fro across the boundary. There were also a couple of covered wagons that ferried people backwards and forwards across the bridge at a horse trot.

Reaching the Abkhazian side, any apprehensions I had had of potential problems proved unfounded. While there was a large Russian base next to the crossing, no Russian soldiers were in sight. Just friendly Abkhazian border guards, who checked my passport and took the entry permit I had received from the Abkhazian foreign ministry by email attachment. Gaining entry to Abkhazia turned out to be straightforward for a foreign visitor. An application form sent by email to the foreign ministry, and the receipt of the permit a few days later. Then all I had to do was to go to the foreign ministry to receive a visa, at a cost of 20 dollars, once I reached the capital, Sukhum.

Arrived in Abkhazia, I took a taxi to the first town, Gali (in Georgian, Gal for the Abkhazians). Like all the taxis waiting at the boundary, it was a rickety, shaky old thing that clattered and rattled over the bumpy, pitted roads to Gali. It seemed there had been no maintenance of this road since the conflict of 1992-93.

In that war, with Russian support, the Abkhazians succeeded in breaking away from Georgia, of which Abkhazia was an autonomous republic (although it has not gained wide recognition). Abkhazia, or Apsny in the Abkhazian language, had been incorporated into imperial Russia in the 1860s. In what is remembered by Abkhaz as genocide, over the following years a large part of the Muslim Abkhaz, as well as the neighbouring Circassian, Ubykh and Abaza populations, were expelled to the Ottoman Empire, many of them dying when the ships carrying them sank, or from disease as they languished in the Ottoman ports of arrival. Abkhazia was already multi-ethnic, including, like much of the Black Sea coast, a Greek population. Georgians claim there had been Georgians there for thousands of years. What is certain is that following the depopulation caused by the Russian expulsion of much of the Abkhaz population, their place was taken by immigrants, especially Georgians (mainly Megrelians from western Georgia), as well as Armenians, Russians and north Caucasian peoples. The result was a dramatic shift in the ethnic balance, so that by the end of the 1980s Abkahz amounted to less than 20 per cent of the population of Abkhazia, and Georgians some 45 per cent.

Demographics were the key to the conflict, and remain central today. The numbers are disputed, but the wholesale expulsion of the Georgian population as the Abkhazian forces advanced in 1993 drastically reduced the population from over half a million to probably less than 200,000 now. But Abkhaz still constitute a minority, the other significant groups being Armenians and Georgians. Since the late-1990s, the Abkhazians allowed Georgians to return to Gali district. Perhaps as many as 60,000 have done so, although the number is fluid, as many keep a foot on both sides of the Inguri, crossing into Abkhazia to look after their homes and plots of land, and to tend family graves. Many avoid the Inguri crossing, and the bureaucracy and expense of being officially registered in Abkhazia. Instead, they cross by numerous unofficial paths, often by minivans, which can ford the river at some points, dodging the Russian soldiers who monitor the boundary. Sometimes they are caught, fines are imposed and minivans impounded.

A poster with the Abkhazian flag in Gali

As the poor state of the road to Gali and of the taxi that took me along it indicated, Gali is in a dreadful state. Many buildings are abandoned. In some derelict apartment blocks, their facades a series of gaping holes, there are occasional flats that are nevertheless occupied, laundry flapping on the balconies. The market area, with its squalid little shops with a mean little selection of goods on offer, is a depressing place. What kind of life do people have here? One answer to that question is possibly that they have a better life than the people still housed in collective centres for those displaced by the conflict, over the other side of the boundary. I saw some of these buildings in Zugdidi, decrepit and open to the elements, no doubt damp and freezing cold in winter. People have been in these places for nearly two decades. There has been international aid money to repair and improve the buildings, but the work has often been shoddily carried out. These victims of the conflict seem to be forgotten and unwanted, offered no hope or future. They are kept out of the way and left to rot on the pittance the Georgian government pays them.

Gali town centre

Most of the people in Gali are Georgian, speakers of the Megrelian language, part of the same Kartvelian language group as Georgian, as well as Svanetian and Lazuri. They are second-class citizens. Clearly the Abkhazian government in Sukhum and its Russian paymasters have invested almost nothing in this Georgian-inhabited district since 1993. The place is run by Abkhazians. The Abkhazian flag flies there, and a memorial honours the Abkhazians who died in the conflict with Georgia, not the Georgians who were massacred and were driven from their homes. In order to hang on in Gali, the Georgians have to accept many humiliations and compromises. A few thousand of them have even taken Abkhazian citizenship.

Although most of the people of Gali speak Megrelian, the lingua franca, the language of public communication, is Russian. I witnessed a neat illustration of this travelling back by minivan from Sukhum to Gali at the end of my visit to Abkhazia. Sitting in the van in Sukhum, waiting for it to depart, people were speaking to one another in Russian. Not long after leaving Sukhum, the van stopped to pick up a woman who was obviously well-known to many of the passengers, and to the driver. She at once started speaking in Megrelian. The driver jokingly rebuked her. She should learn to speak Russian properly, and not speak ‘Georgian’. Such light rebukes continued as the journey progressed, but as we got closer to Gali, more and more people switched to Megrelian. And by the time we reached Gali, everyone was speaking Megrelian, including the driver, who was called Badri, a typical Georgian name.

A Black Sea voyage

I took a ferry from Ilichevsk, just along the coast from Odessa, to Batumi, in Georgia. It was an experience, on more than one level. First of all were the trials of embarkation. When purchasing the ticket at the ferry company office in Odessa, the friendly clerk explained with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment the convoluted procedures for embarking a ferry in Ukraine. I think he must have been confronted with open-mouthed amazement from other western passengers before me. But this, he told me, was how it was done in Ukraine.

Firstly, while he could tell me the day of departure (or rather embarkation), he could not tell me the time. There was one ferry for Batumi per week. The captain would tell him the time of embarkation the day before, and he would pass on the information by SMS. The message duly came, and informed me that I should be at the embarkation office in Ilichevsk to register at 16.30. I turned up a little bit early, to be on the safe side. Three other western travellers, from England, France and Scotland, had the same idea. Usefully, the Scot had gone through all of this twice before, and was able to show us where to go and what to do.

So we went to the registration office, where we received a stamp on our tickets. Then it was a short walk down to the harbour, taking the short-cut, down a dirt track recommended by our Scottish fellow traveller. But there was no need to hurry. There followed a wait of several hours in a dismal little room, crowded with luggage, with no drinks machines or food, and not enough seats for everybody. Goodness it was tedious. The boredom of the six-hour wait was relieved only by the requirement to go to register once again with another lady at a little hatch in the wall in the corridor, who ticked our names off on a list. There was no announcement that we had to do that, and we only knew to do so because of our experienced Scottish friend.

At one point I needed to go the lavatory. This was hardly surprising given the length of the wait. I tried (with my extremely limited Russian) asking a lady in uniform who also seemed to be checking people off on a list (apparently she was not interested in checking me off), where the lavatory was. She pointed upstairs. So up I went, to what seemed to be an office. As I reached the top, I saw someone come out of the lavatory and lock the door behind her. I signalled to her that I wished to use it too. She seemed affronted, and angrily pointed me back down the stairs. This lavatory was not for passengers. I tried to explain that someone downstairs had told me to come upstairs, but she was having none of it. So back down I went, and tried (again with my very few words of Russian) to explain to the lady in the uniform that I had been told to come back down. At this point she lost patience. I could not understand what she said, but clearly I was nor to bother her further. So off I went to find a bush.

Through all of this, our Scottish friend remained untroubled. In fact, he seemed to being enjoying it. He sat there, with a smile on his face, assuring us that all would be well once we were on the boat. At some point, “that door there” would be opened, and we would be called through. In fact the door did open quite early on, for a man who spoke to us in Russian. His words did not seem to elicit any great excitement among the majority of would-be passengers who could speak Russian, so I did not worry. When we finally boarded the boat, and this same man gave me the key to my cabin, I asked him where we could get supper (we had been told at the office in Odessa that we would be given a meal the first evening). It’s 10.30, he replied, supper finished was hours ago. He had announced that there would be no supper on the boat, and that passengers should eat before boarding. Yes, but you announced it in Russian, I replied, and I don’t understand Russian. “What”, he was incredulous, “not at all?” So to bed without supper.

First thing in the morning, after a peaceful sleep, the ferry was still in Ilichevsk. Why had they made us check in at 16.30 the previous afternoon, when we would not board until 22.30, and not leave until 7.30 the following morning? Not just Ukrainian procedures, I suspect, but rather the lady at the office in Ilichevsk who stamped our tickets, and wanted to leave work by 5 pm.

But finally we were on our way. The ferry was actually first of all a freighter, carrying containers, lorries and, on a lower deck, railway carriages that were trundled on and off, directly on to railway tracks in Ilichevsk and Batumi. Many of the passengers were Georgian truck drivers, who spent the voyage either watching DVDs in the lounges, playing chess or drinking heroic quantities of vodka in the bar. A young Czech who was assigned to the same table as me for meal times spent an afternoon with some of these Georgians getting hopelessly drunk (they, of course, were hardly affected). It loosened his tongue remarkably that evening, as he told us, his voice slurring all over the place, how he was looking for God and could not stand Russians.

Spending three days on a boat, isolated from the world, without phones or internet access, is an unusual experience in this day and age. For a short while you become quite close to a small group of fellow passengers with whom you eat, drink and chat. During our voyage, the sea was calm, the sun hot, and we gently steamed along, each day following a natural rhythm from mealtime to mealtime. We could not understand why the boat sometimes chugged along very slowly indeed, while at other times it set quite a pace.

The Scot, who had made this voyage in both directions twice before, and clearly enjoyed it, was quite a character. In his seventies, I would guess, he made long journeys each year, with a backpack and a sketch pad, sleeping mainly in a tent, just occasionally spending a couple of nights in a cheap hotel to clean up. His trips included long walks of several days duration, pitching his tent by the side of the road, and eating what he could find as he went along. At the start of our voyage he was quite miffed, as his tent had been taken in Odessa, together with his best trousers. He had pitched it in a city park for five nights, and he suspected that the police had taken it. Perhaps not surprising, as pitching a tent in a public park was surely illegal. But he was annoyed that they had not given it back. He entertained hopes that somehow it would materialise, that even at that late stage the police would relent and let him have his tent back. No such luck. He was, however, not unhappy about having to spend a few nights in a hotel in Odessa, as he had needed a wash. He had stayed in a very cheap hotel. Having spent one night in a cheap hotel in Yalta (though not as cheap as his), I knew what cheap Ukrainian hotels could be like. His sounded horrible, complete with bed bugs. Why did he stay there, I asked? Would he at least not have wanted to be somewhere clean? Well, it was cleaner than my tent, he replied. There was no answer to that.

A remarkable man, with enormous energy and youthfulness for his years, gently taking everything in his stride, open to whatever adventures, hardships and pleasures came along. Good natured to a fault, he was also a committed member of one of those hard-line Scottish protestant churches, and held strong, if not always coherent, views on gays, Catholics, Jews and the leading Scottish Aristocracy. He considered that the Papist Scottish dukes really controlled Scotland, were responsible for the deaths of leading Scottish politicians, and were conspiring against him personally.

And then suddenly the voyage was over. Mobile phones were connected again some time before we reached the Georgian coast. And then we all went our separate ways.

Palaces and Princes at Yalta

Along the coast from Sevastopol, Yalta is also marked by history. What student of modern history would not be stirred by a visit to the nearby Livadia Palace, where the February 1945 Yalta Conference took place, where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed on the post-war fate of Europe? To see where the meetings took place, where the document was signed, where the famous photograph of the three leaders was taken?

Where the Yalta Conference Agreement was signed

The Livadia Palace had earlier been a summer residence of Tsar Nicholas II. Upstairs, wandering through rooms where they once stayed, now lined with photos of the imperial family, is also to feel the ghosts of history, from a different era. And the little chapel where the last Tsar and his family prayed, and where the Tsarina was received into the Orthodox Church before their accession to the throne.

A few miles further along the coast is the Vorontsovsky Palace, built as a summer residence for Prince Mikhail Semyonovich Vorontsov, a governor-general of New Russia. Vorontsov was raised and educated in Britain, where his father was Russian ambassador. He employed a British architect to design the palace, which mixes the typical style of an English country house with pronounced Moorish influences. It is a striking combination.

Vorontsovsky Palace

The palace sits above the Black Sea, with the Crimean mountains behind, and fits wonderfully into its setting. Churchill and the British delegation stayed at the Vorontsovsky palace during the Yalta conference. He was apparently not impressed, describing Yalta as the ‘Riviera of Hades’. He also joked that one of the lions in the gardens overlooking the sea looked like him.

One of the lions at the Vorontsovsky Palace

Vorontsov had a notable career, serving with distinction in the Napoleonic wars, and later leading Russia’s campaigns to subdue the north Caucasus. But he is perhaps best known for being cuckolded by Pushkin while the latter was exiled to Odessa. Visiting Vorontsov’s former residence in Odessa, looking at the remains of the terrace that overlooks the bay, one can imagine the great poet dancing with and seducing the princess at one of the balls that were no-doubt thrown.

Yalta was once a fashionable resort for the Russian aristocracy. Signs of its previous, now faded elegance remain as one strolls through some of the streets behind the seafront. In Soviet times, the town and its surroundings were designated by Lenin as a resort for the rest and recuperation of the workers. Numerous sanatoria were built up and down the coast around the town. What is left now is a rather gaudy, tacky seaside resort, frequented mainly by tourists from the former Soviet Union. This combination of faded elegance and mass tourist tat is in some ways reminiscent of Brighton.