On August 26, Abkhazia marked the fourth anniversary of its independence as recognized by Russia. Along with it a year from Alexander Ankvab’s election to the position of President was marked. However, it is too early to draw conclusions about his work, considering the fact that whole autumn, winter and early spring a sharp political confrontation was observed in Abkhazia. It was ended on April 3 with election of the speaker of the new Abkhazian parliament. In general only recent five months have been spent under rule of Ankvab.
On August 14 the republic marked another memorable date – the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Georgian-Abkhazian war. This date was birthday of modern independent Abkhazia, as in 1992 the Abkhaz conducted negotiations with Tbilisi and hoped for peaceful settlement of the issue on the republic’s status. Only launching of Georgian troops to Abkhazia made establishing of the defense headquarters inevitable. Thus, the 20th anniversary of the war beginning Abkhazia marked as an independent republic.
Today a general decrease of tension can be observed in Abkhazia. The point is not in the opposition’s time-out, but I n attitudes of people. The right to make choice is good, but sometimes people want to rest from politics. Moreover, coming tourists change an atmosphere in the republic. This time the number of tourists increased in comparison with other seasons and reached its peak in August. It is interesting that Russian tourists are always sensitive to political stability.
One of the biggest problems for many years was crossing the Russian-Abkhazian border on the Psou River. But today one won’t see huge queues standing there in the 1990s. However, too long procedure of crossing the border has always caused claims of population toward Russian authorities. This check point was a torture for Russian tourists who come to Abkhazia with children, heavy luggage, who count every hour hoping to get to the chosen town by the dark. A new bridge was built to cope with the situation, but it didn’t help, as not all customs cabins were working. When a queue began to decrease, customers closed a half of cabins and went to make some other business. In summer 2012 the situation improved, but it is not perfect still.
Today Abkhazia discusses whether it should remain a resort republic or other promising segments should be developed. First of all, agriculture should be revived as today a lot of money is spend for food import. However, resorts are a sphere which is able to gain income to the population. At the same time, development of other segments demands huge investments.
The economic issues are the main for Abkhazia today. Reanimation of the Abkhaz economy is the main task of President Alexander Ankvab and Premier Leonid Lakerbaya. Everybody understands that if Abkhazia proves its economic independence, it will be another argument in favor its future integration into the international society.
That is why the republic doesn’t pay attention to “mini-sensations” spread in Internet: as if Abkhazia is to join Russia or tension between the Abkhaz and the Abazins or negative changes on the Russian-Abkhazian border in the context of Russian accession to WTO… Artificial problems are not interesting to the Abkhaz, they get used to cope with serious difficulties.
