PHOTO: Amazing Slideshow by Valery Nistratov about Abkhasia. (foto8.com)

On the blog from Paul Rimple I could see this notice ...

Unification: Abkhazia and South Ossetia

Justyna Mielnikiewicz sent me a link to a very good slide show by Russian photographer Valery Nistratov. Please take the time to check it out - he understands the tragedy deeply.

I have called my project Unification. The unification of space, earth, people, tragedy and farce – unification as it is, a whole with independent parts existing under its own laws and rules, like a railway…

Valery Nistratov: The former Georgian territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have become independent states, officially recognised by Russia and Nicaragua only. The right for self-determination has only been possible with financial and military support from its powerful neighbour, Russia. Can Russian politicians really be that urged to support the Caucasians?

For many days and nights I listened to stories, trying to understand who’s right and who’s wrong in this eternal Caucasian vendetta. I came to understand that there is no one to blame. Exhausted by permanent tension during inter-tribal slaughter, these people have become kind of zombies with unsound minds and inadequate feelings of reality. Suffering from a teenager complex, Russian politicians also live in an alternate reality. Russia perfectly plays the role of the offended teenager, claiming that nobody understands and respects them.

Unfortunately, it is true that the Georgian army acted like barbarians during the conflict, killing civilians and destroying houses with tanks. But maybe they’ve learned this behaviour from Russians in Grozny. And what about the South Ossetians? An army, that was totally intoxicated by vengeance, burning the Georgian villages in South Ossetia, provoking Georgian malingerers, sheltering behind the peacemakers.

So what was Russia, the peacekeeper, doing in the Caucasus all these years? Why did it support puppet regimes and ladle out Russian passports? It was obviously paving the way for future military bases, playing along with the evident weakness of Georgia and local politicians. Maybe those politician-teenagers just dreamed of revenge – getting back at someone or getting back at the entire world for not understanding. Unfortunately, by participating in this senseless massacre, once again, Russia has clearly demonstrated to the world what it is and what it has always been.

We’ve lost a beautiful friend and a nice neighbour. We saved a lot of South Ossetian families, but also murdered Georgian ones and destroyed their homes. We will support former Georgian territories, but still just barely develop Russian ones. We have lost Georgia, and are now trying to attach the broken pieces, like a railway.

Valery Nistratov agency.photographer.ru
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