Abkhazians

By B. George Hewitte

Apswa (self-designation), Abkhazy and-for those north of the Caucasian ridge- Abazintsy (Russian)

From February 1931 to 1992 Abkhazia had the status of an autonomous republic within the Republic of Georgia, but from 30th Sept 1993 it has enjoyed de facto independence, although unrecognised by the international community. It is bounded on the northwest by the Russian Federation (specifically the Krasnodar region), on the northeast by the Karachay-Cherkess region, on the east by Svanetia, and on the southeast by Mingrelia. The linguistically related Abazinians live in fifteen villages in the Karachay-Cherkess region, north of the Caucasus Mountains at the sources of the Kuban and Zelenchuk rivers. There are also some Abkhazians in Ach'ara (Adzharia) in southwestern Georgia, and many live in Turkey and other parts of the Near East (the result of nineteenth-century migrations). Physically the Abkhazian region is bounded by the Black Sea along the southwest, the Psou River in the north, the Ingur River in the south, and, along the northeast, the main chain of the Caucasus Mountains. The capital, Sukhum (in Abkhazian, Aqw'a), lies on the Black Sea, roughly in the center of the region. Of Abkhazia's 22,360 square kilometers, three-quarters consists of mountains and foothills. In a strip along the coast, the climate is humid and subtropical; moving inland, temperatures decrease as elevation increases (moderate cold at about 2,000 meters, cold at 3,300). The highest peaks are always covered with snow. The average temperature in Abkhazia is 14.5° C, but in the coastal resort of Gagra the average during the summer is 27.5° C. Average rainfall varies between 130 centimeters (e.g., in Sukhum) and 240 centimeters.

The majority of Abkhazians live in their own republic, but within it they came during the Soviet period to constitute a minority. According to the 1989 census, there were 102,938 Abkhazians in the whole USSR. Besides Abkhazians, the 1989 census had counted 239,872 Kartvelians (mainly Mingrelians, with some Georgians and Svans); 76,541 Armenians; 74,913 Russians; about 14,000 Greeks; 11,000 Ukrainians; and about a thousand or so each Jews, Ossetes, and Tartars. Demographic changes in the area have been drastic: the population of Abkhazians fell from about 140,000 in the 1860s down to 58,000 in 1886, but since then it has gradually risen. In 1886 Russians and Kartvelians numbered only 972 and 4,000, respectively. After the start of the war with Georgia in August 1992 the Greek government evacuated most Greeks in an operation known as 'Golden Fleece', whilst a similar operation was mounted for the Jews by Israel. No precise population-figures are available as of 2008, but the total is unlikely to be higher than 250,000. By 1989 about a third of the Abkhazians were urban, constituting about 13 percent of the total urban population of the Abkhazian area. The most densely Abkhazian areas of Abkhazia, however, remain rural, in upland regions away from the coast and north of the Kodor River. Most urban-dwelling Abkhazians maintain ties with relatives in villages, and people frequently go back and forth. (One typical pattern is to send children to spend summer vacations with their grandparents in the country. Another is for young Abkhazians to stay with their city relatives while they attend university or work for a while.) Abkhazians are famous for living to great ages: in 1970, 40 percent of those over 60 years of age were also over 90. Abkhazians tend to marry late and, since the late Soviet period, to have only one or two children.

The Abkhaz language, consisting of Abkhaz proper and Abaza, belongs to the Northwest Caucasian Family, whose other members are Circassian (e.g., Kabardian) and Ubykh (spoken only in Turkey since 1864, and now extinct). There is possibly a remote genetic relation between the Northwest Caucasian Family, the North-Central Caucasian (Nakh) languages (Chechen-Ingush and Bats), and the Northeast Caucasian languages of Daghestan, but any connection with South Caucasian, also called Kartvelian, is excluded. There are two main Abkhaz dialects left in Abkhazia (whereas others are still attested amongst the diaspora): northern (Bzyp) and southern (Abzhywa), the latter being the basis of the literary language. The more northern, Abaza group has two dialects: Ashkharywa and T'ap'anta (the latter being the basis of the literary Abaza language). Abkhaz, like the Northwest Caucasian languages in general, is characterized by a huge inventory of consonants and a correspondingly minimal vowel system. There are many categories incorporated within the verbal system. There are many relatively assimilated items from Arabic and Turkish, whereas the Russian borrowings, pertaining mainly to technology and government, are relatively unassimilated. The first attempt to provide an alphabet for the Abkhaz language was made by the Russian soldier-linguist Peter von Uslar in 1862-1863. After a number of refinements, another alphabet of fifty-five letters, devised by A. Ch'och'ua, was used from 1909 to 1926, when N. Marr's "analytical alphabet" of seventy-five letters replaced it. This script gave way in turn to the unified Abkhaz alphabet of 1928 (as part of the USSR's romanisation drive, known as latinizatsija). In 1938, at a time when the USSR was changing its so-called Young Written Languages to Cyrillic-based scripts, linguists created a Georgian-based script for Abkhaz, and between 1944 and 1954 the Georgian language replaced Abkhaz entirely for use in schools and the public domain, as part of a general attempt to Georgianize the Abkhazians. The Georgian-based script, in turn, was replaced in 1954 by the present Cyrillic-based alphabet. As of 1989, 97 percent of Abkhazians claimed Abkhaz as their native tongue and 78.2 percent claimed fluency in Russian - there have been no accurate figures available since the war with Georgia (1992-93), but the percentage knowledge of Abkhaz is likely to be higher than in 1989; many southern Abkhazians up to the 1992-93 war also spoke some Mingrelian (or, less commonly, Georgian), whereas many speakers of the northern Abaza also speak Kabardian. In Abkhaz-language schools, Abkhaz is the language of tuition through the fifth grade, after which Russian is used. There has been some talk of a return to a roman-based alphabet, but such a shift is improbable.

Abkhazians are, as far as one can tell, aboriginal to the area. The landscape is rich in archaeological sites dating back to the Paleolithic period, notably the dolmens (burial structures built of stone slabs, often weighing many tons) dating from the end of the third millennium BC. Abkhazia later formed part of the fabled Colchis Kingdom, famous in ancient Greek literature as ''the Land of the Golden Fleece.'' This kingdom, which reached its peak between about 900 and 800 BC, was apparently a leader in developing bronze and ironworking technology. The Greeks colonized Abkhazia in the 6th and 5th centuries BC, founding inter alia Sukhum (in Georgian Sokhumi) and establishing themselves as traders. (Using Greek and Near Eastern sources, historians have traced Abkhazian political and social history back to this time; later-in the first and second centuries AD-they are referred to in the works of Pliny the Elder and Arrian, respectively.) The country was subordinate first to the Roman and then to the Byzantine empires and officially converted to Christianity about 543-546 (in the reign of Justinian I); however, neither empire exercised consistent, strong control in Abkhazia, and there were several uprisings (e.g., in the 550s). Between the third and sixth centuries, Abkhazia developed a feudal system similar to that of Europe, although all free men and women bore arms and the gap between princes and commoners was modest. Abkhazians escaped the worst of the Arab invasions (seventh-eighth centuries), and with the waning of Byzantine influence in the Caucasus in the late eighth century, they emerged as a regional military power, notably from the eighth to the tenth centuries in the so-called Abkhazian Kingdom. In 1008, the Armenian-connected line of the House of Bagration united through dynastic inheritance the Abkhazian and Georgian thrones, although war and intrigue continued among the region's princely families. The two kingdoms were legally coordinate, but the Georgian language eventually (though at an uncertain date) replaced Greek in the liturgy. After the Mongol invasions the unified kingdom of the Abkhazians and the Georgians disintegrated, and Abkhazia emerged as an independent princedom under the ruling Chachba family. Islam was gradually adopted under Ottoman influence from the 16th century by some Abkhazians. Many times during the eighteenth century the Abkhazians assisted the Georgian efforts to throw out the Turks even while the Russian presence was growing. The competing influence of Russians and Turks ended in 1810, when the princes of Abkhazia yielded Sukhum, and Abkhazia itself became a Russian protectorate; in 1864 it became directly subject to Russian rule. By 1870 the Russian government had emancipated Abkhazian serfs and slaves; however, most of these peasants already believed they owned their land, and they resented having to pay indemnities. This resentment led to several rebellions and continuing social and economic instability until 1912, when all such debts were canceled. In the meantime, though, the majority of Abkhazians (like many other northwestern Caucasians) had accepted Turkey's offer of sanctuary in a fellow Islamic country and had emigrated, despite the fact that most of them were only nominally Muslim. Many perished as a result of the appalling conditions in which they were shipped across the Black Sea or later in unfamiliar terrain - many Abkhazians do not eat fish because the corpses of so many Abkhazians were devoured by fish in the Black Sea. During and after the Russian Revolution there was fierce fighting in Abkhazia. Georgian Mensheviks destroyed a short-lived commune in 1918. Nevertheless, Bolsheviks reestablished their power and the Abkhazian SSR was created alongside the Georgian SSR. Both entered the Transcaucasian Federation in 1922 in treaty-alliance with each other; in 1931, however, Abkhazia became an autonomous republic within the larger Georgian entity. A policy of Georgianization, initiated under the Mensheviks, was later pursued by Joseph Stalin and the Bolshevik leaders in Georgia: L. Beria (1931-1938), K'. Chark'viani (1938-1952), and A. Mgeladze (1952-1953), who functioned in Abkhazia before his move to Tbilisi. The government never carried out its plans to transport the Abkhazians to Central Asia in the late 1940s, despite pseudo scholarly articles that claimed that the Abkhazians had only resided in their homeland since the seventeenth century. Large-scale, sometimes forced migrations of other groups into Abkhazia reduced the native percentage of the population, and the closure of Abkhaz-language schools and a prohibition against publishing in Abkhaz from 1945 to 1954 weakened the status of the language.

Traditionally, upland homesteads tended to be isolated and hidden in wooded gorges, with gardens and fruit trees adjacent. Villages developed as sons married and established houses near their fathers; thus villages, or groupings within villages, would consist of a cluster of houses around a common lawn with the inhabitants all sharing a single surname. Individual houses might contain nuclear or extended families, however, depending on space and personal inclinations. Such houses were traditionally one-story wattle-and-daub structures, but since the latter half of the 20th century brick and concrete blocks are popular and many houses have two storeys. Houses usually have verandas and balconies with curved wooden railings, where people spend a lot of time in good weather. The kitchen on the ground floor traditionally was dominated by a large pot, hung by a chain over the hearth, in which the family cooked the staple food, millet (later maize) porridge (or grits or pollenta). Also, there would be a long wooden table, on which helpings of pollenta were laid directly. Abkhazians considered it rude to close the kitchen door because that implied that the family was not willing to offer hospitality to any passing guests. The kitchen is still the main locus of family life, along with a downstairs parlor (now equipped with a television set). At least one upstairs room is usually set aside for entertaining and for displaying gifts. Instead of replacing an older house with a newer one, a family may choose to keep houses of different sizes and eras side by side; the newest is reserved for guests, whereas the oldest-the grandparents' house-is still called ''the big house.'' Even in large villages, patrilineally related people live in neighboring houses, cooperate economically, and recognize family shrines (often trees or mountains). They have their own holy days, on which they are forbidden to do certain kinds of work, and their own burial grounds. In the past these lineages and their councils of elders formed the main political entities of Abkhazia, and they continue to meet regularly, make communal plans, and settle disputes. With the exception of Gudauta and the mining town of T'q'warchal, all larger towns are on the coast. In 1980 Sukhum, the capital, had a population of 117,000, though this figure is much reduced following the 1992-93 war, with its widescale destruction and post-war flight of most Kartvelian inhabitants.

Classical authors describe an economy divided between animal husbandry and household craftwork. Maize, millet, and tobacco were the important crops until the Revolution, after which tea and citrus plantations were greatly expanded; maize and tobacco remain the leading crops, but fowl breeding, fish farming, beekeeping, and viticulture and wine making are also all significant. Only about 6 percent of the land is available for agriculture-60 percent of the country is wooded and about 13 percent is used for pasture. Cattle breeding is important, but animal husbandry does not suffice to supply local demands. (Meat is not an essential part of the daily diet in any case.) The staple foods are bread and maize meal (traditionally millet mush), often with cheese cooked into it; these foods are accompanied by yogurt, more cheese, and special spice blends, especially a very hot blend called ajik'a. Fruits and vegetables (but not potatoes) are cultivated locally and consumed in considerable quantities, as are nuts and honey.

Collectivization of the land in the 1930s proceeded relatively smoothly in Abkhazia, in part because existing family-based organizations of labor resembled it. By 1980 there were eighty-nine collective farms and fifty-four state farms. Soviet law allowed each household the use of 0.5 hectare, although in practice this allotment was often exceeded. Rural Abkhazians still raise many of their own fruits, vegetables, and chickens and make their own jams, pickles, condiments, and wine-the last with particular pride.

Major changes since the Revolution include the improvement of roads and railways and an increase in the mining of coal and barite in T'q'warchal, though much of the infrastructure (including the T'q'warchal mines) was ruined in the 1992-93 war. Other important industries are canning and lumber processing; the mighty Ingur hydroelectric power plant is on Abkhazia's southern border. Tourism is crucial economically, especially in the famous resort towns of Gagra, Pitsunda, Novyj Afon and Sukhum, where many sanatoriums are located; though in the first decade of the 21st century tourism returned to Soviet levels in the northern resorts, the extent of destruction in the capital is such that Sukhum is unable to accommodate the numbers that used to holiday there in pre-war days.

Local crafts still practised today include ceramics, leatherwork, wood carving, and repoussé metalwork, especially on daggers and drinking horns.

Local crafts, a good selection of agricultural products, and many other kinds of goods are traded in open-air peasant bazaars.

Much trade is still in the hands of Armenians or Russians, though there are still Kartvelian traders in the bazaars.

Women are the main tobacco pickers and processors, though this work has become more mechanized. (The home was the traditional locus of women's activities, but today many work outside it in the general economy.)

Abkhazian culture, as is typical of the Caucasus, is centered on the family and family relations. Specifically, there is a pattern of patrilocal residence, patrilineal descent (and descent groups), and a strong patriarchal authority, particularly public male dominance. Within the home, older women also command respect from their daughters and daughters-in-law, and mothers may be the family anchor, depending on personality.

Abkhazians consider all the people who eat from the same pot to be an extended family, though they may live in separate structures. It is considered unfortunate when such extended families have to break up, but this practice is becoming increasingly common.

A bride, on marriage, moves into her husband's father's home, or into a new house nearby. She becomes part of that network of relatives, but she also maintains strong ties to her own parents' siblings and relatives by descent, ties that her children later maintain. She is still part of her descent group of birth and remains under the protection of its members. These extended, non-localized ties have become, if anything, stronger from the late Soviet period in light of the characteristically small size of the nuclear family (two children). A man is particularly close to older men in his mother's patrilineal groups, that is, to men who are classified as his ''mother's brothers.'' (The kinship term that literally means ''mother blood'' may be applied to any man descended from the mother's brother.)

Apart from adoption, which is still practised, two forms of ritual kinship also existed prior to the Revolution and the abolition of blood feuds in the area. First, a child often was brought up by another family-typically a noble child by a non-aristocratic family-with the aim of establishing kin ties between the two. Second, the ritual tie of milk brotherhood would be established between adults to cement a friendship: the mother of one would make a symbolic offer of her nipple and the man being inducted into the family would make a corresponding gesture of sucking it. Such kinship was felt to be even stronger or more inviolable than natural kinship.

Ties of blood and marriage are labeled with terms that have clearly recognizable constituents: a ''granddaughter,'' for example, is called ''the-son-his-daughter'' ( a-pa-y-pha ) or ''the-daughter-her-daughter'' ( a-pha-l-pha). An element indicating reciprocal status ( ay-) is obligatory for some kinship terms unless a definite possessor is indicated; thus ay-asha, ''brother'' (with the reciprocal marker), contrasts with s-asha, ''my brother." The interconnectedness between terms-achieved through the workings of reciprocity and through deriving one term from others-creates a special lexical web of kinship among the Abkhazians.

All carriers of the same patrilineally inherited name are regarded automatically as relatives and may be loosely styled ''brother'' and ''sister.'' These people together are an azhwla, a group which is then divided into abipara (''descendants of one father'') who usually all know each other, though they may be scattered over the country.

Women usually get married in their early twenties, but men may wait until their thirties or even forties. Marriage is forbidden with all possible relatives; people do not marry those with the same surname as any of their grandparents, ritual kin, close affines, or, usually, co-villagers. Until Soviet times, marriages were arranged by parents, but no longer. A young man and his friends may occasionally still steal a bride when she has agreed and her parents have not. In any case, the groom brings his bride to his house, where his whole family mounts a large feast. The bride's family, however, does not attend, and the bride herself must stand secluded throughout the feast, not smiling or speaking. The feast itself is the wedding ceremony. Afterward, the bride and groom traditionally spent a few nights in a special hut. The husband would remove his wife's leather corset, but his friends would try to prevent the couple from consummating the marriage on the first night. Mixed marriages, particularly with Mingrelians in those areas where the two peoples lived in a single community (that is, in southern Abkhazia, especially from the late 1930s to 1992) were quite usual; the common language in such cases tended to be Mingrelian or Russian. Divorce is rare. Widows and widowers may remarry.

Women and younger people occupy clearly subordinate positions within the household: they serve food while others eat first, keep quiet, and do as they are told. More generally, people like to spend time with others of the same gender and generation, and there is a strong, assumed distance between such groups, which is often simply respectful. Guests, regardless of age and gender, are treated with the sacred deference shown to older men and are seated with them at table. As across the Caucasus, the coming of guests-and in fact any holiday, special occasion, or even ordinary get-together-is celebrated with a ritualistic supper party. Over wine, hosts and guests go through rounds of toasts, honoring each other and getting better acquainted. Providing hospitality in this way-the food, the wine, and the words-is a matter of family pride, pleasure, and solidarity.

On first entering the family by marriage, brides are relative strangers and are treated with a different, but related, kind of formality-sometimes even hostility. A bride may not speak to her father-in-law until he decides that sufficient time has elapsed; a shorter period of silence is enjoined with the mother-in-law. A bride also avoids using the first names of her husband's siblings (especially older ones); she gives them nicknames, which then tend to persist for that bride. Husband and wife are also restrained in showing their affection for each other in public. A year is supposed to elapse before any children are born to a couple.

From all people a certain stoicism and self-reliance is sometimes demanded. Wounded people try not to cry; women hide that they are pregnant and, formerly, gave birth on their own; children obey their elders even when what is asked of them is difficult. Children are swaddled, and expected behavior is instilled by censure and praise (though corporal punishment is not excluded). Parents (especially fathers) are not supposed to show much concern or affection for their own children in public. Instead, the members of the extended family care for each other's children, building a wide, thick network of relations. The extended family, particularly the joint fraternal one, retains its conceptual and organizational importance even if in the towns brothers can no longer build their homes around a family plot. Because of the clustering of brothers' families, division of land was traditionally not a problem; the parents' house still regularly passes to the youngest son.

Until the Revolution, Abkhazia had a strongly developed class system dominated by a hereditary nobility; the people still remember formerly aristocratic surnames and afford their bearers special esteem. Yet the aristocrats were closely linked to the peasants in many ways (such as child adoption) and in spirit the society had and still has an orientation that is decidedly egalitarian. Kinship or ritual kinship was the basis of most political relations, and village or regional allegiances were often more strongly felt than larger ones; this pattern retains some strength.

When the repression of the Abkhazians was put into reverse under Nikita Krushchev following the deaths of both Stalin and Beria in 1953, Abkhazians began again to function at all levels of society, although their political empowerment was limited during the rest of the Soviet era in specific ways; firstly, they have tended to be farmers rather than merchants; secondly, the preservation of a certain number of administrative posts for the republic's titular nationality (more than would be expected for the 17.8 percent of the population they represented in 1989) loses much of its significance when one recalls that most important decisions were made at higher levels (viz. Tbilisi and Moscow) anyway. Formally, the Soviets established five administrative (Gudauta, Gulripsh, Sukhum, Ochamchira, and Gal) districts plus the area controlled by the Gagra city council; these regions exercised their control through the village councils and the collectives. Informally, however, these typical Soviet organs were significantly influenced by the local groups of elders and by the unofficial Abkhazian Council of Elders. The main post-war administrative reorganisation has been the creation of a sixth district, that of T'q'warchal, taking territory from both Ochamchira and Gal, whilst a Gagra District came into existence in its own right.

Abkhazians, like other Caucasians, used to engage in constant small-scale feuding and raiding, among themselves and with other ethnic groups. Boys were trained in the arts of fighting. This kind of conflict is both glorified and lamented in Abkhazian folklore and poetry. Partly because of their strategic position between east and west, north and south, the Abkhazians have been repeatedly conquered or at least invaded (e.g., by Byzantium, Turkey, Georgia, Russia) and have almost as repeatedly fought back or rebelled.

A dispute with Georgia that had been festering certainly since the period of Menshevik-controlled independent Georgia (1918-1921), and possibly even longer, exploded in violence on 15-16 July 1989. In 1978 leading Abkhazians had requested the right to secede from Georgia and join the Russian Federation. Then, taking advantage of glasnost, Abkhazians made requests (1988, 1989) for a return to the status enjoyed by Abkhazia from 1921 to 1931. A series of Georgian-inspired provocations followed, instigated by such informal leaders as Merab K'ost'ava and Zviad Gamsakhurdia (both ethnic Mingrelians) in connection with the opening of a branch of Tbilisi State University in Sukhum. Few Mingrelian residents in Abkhazia supported their fellow Kartvelians in the actual 1989 fighting, which was prevented from escalating by the swift despatch of Soviet Interior Ministry troops to keep the two sides apart. As Georgia began to move out of the Soviet orbit towards independence, there were calls for the abolition of Abkhazia's autonomy, whereas, to counter this, the Abkhazians repeated their call for the restoration of their republican status of 1921-1931 or an association with other northern Caucasian peoples within the revamped USSR proposed prior to his overthrow by Mikheil Gorbachev. This resistance to being forced to join an independent Georgia was conditioned by the fact that, despite its status as an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), Abkhazia was allowed no real autonomy even after the deaths of Stalin and Beria. The declaration of 'sovereignty' (NOT independence!) on 23rd July 1992, which reinstated Abkhazia's 1925 constitution and with it the area's full republican status (albeit with special treaty ties to Georgia), ultimately resulted in the Georgian invasion of 14 August 1992, though the official excuse offered at the time was (a) to secure Georgia's rail-link with Russia, and (b) to free a Georgian minister who had been taken hostage. Both reasons were spurious, as (a) the railway was subject to attack only on Mingrelian territory (where a civil war between supporters of the ousted president Zviad Gamsakhurdia and supporters of the central military junta headed by Eduard Shevardnadze was in progress), and (b) it was in Mingrelia that the captured minister was being held. With support from volunteers organised by the then existing Confederation of Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus, being mainly Circassians and Chechens, or by the Turkish-based diaspora, or by some Cossack groups, the Abkhazians finally secured a victory on 30th September 1993. As reported by the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples' Organisation (UNPO) at the end of 1993, most Kartvelian residents fled from Sukhum and the south-eastern areas before the victorious Abkhazians and their allies reached the relevant settlements. Despite this fact, the resulting absence of most of the pre-war Kartvelian population has been widely styled 'ethnic cleansing'. Most of these refugees/IDPs have been poorly housed since the war on the Georgian side of the border (some even in prominent places in the capital Tbilisi), becoming a pawn of Georgian propaganda. A formal ceasefire was signed in Moscow in the spring of 1994, according to which a demilitarised zone along the river Ingur was set up to be supervised by troops (essentially Russians) from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS); this peacekeeping force is in turn observed by a UN Observer Mission (UNOMIG). This situation of 'no peace, no war' has basically continued to the time of writing (2008); without the Russian presence, Abkhazia would have been open to attack at any time, and even with that presence there were numerous acts of sabotage and terrorism committed throughout the 1990s by activists based in Mingrelia as well as an attempted large-scale offensive mounted in 1998. Abkhazia's infrastructure in the main theatre of war (Sukhum, Gulripsh and Ochamchira) was destroyed, and it took years of slow progress to restore, the roads, transport, the phone-system and the tourist-trade (specifically in the northern resorts of Pitsunda and Gagra); much of the housing-stock in these regions remains in ruins. All of this has been achieved against a 10-year blockade and sanctions' regime (1996-2008), relaxation coming in the wake of a deteriorating relationship between Russia and Georgia, though the difficulty experienced by Abkhazians wishing to travel any further than Russia once their old Soviet passports expired was eased after Vladimir Putin came to power and allowed Abkhazians to gain both Russian citizenship and, thus, passports, a measure hotly contested in Tbilisi. The protracted peace-talks were broken off in 2006 when Georgia's president Mikhail Saak'ashvili illegally introduced military personnel into the one part of Abkhazia over which Sukhum did not restore control in 1993, namely the Upper K'odor Valley, where Saak'ashvili transferred the so-called Abkhazian Government in Exile from their previous post-war domicile in Tbilisi. Tensions rose again over a reported increase of Georgian troops in both the K'odor Valley and across the Ingur in the spring of 2008, following the NATO meeting in Bucharest in April which held out the promise of sometime-membership of NATO for both Georgia and the Ukraine - the fear was that Tbilisi would try to take back control of the territory by military means before the NATO question re-surfaced. As a consequence Russia increased its troop-numbers in the region; they also sent in a special contingent to restore the rail-line south of Sukhum, another measure to occasion complaints from Tbilisi. The international community has doggedly supported Georgia's territorial integrity, failing to recognise Georgia's responsibility for the war, and dismisses Abkhazians' right to self-determination. Having had 60 years of experience as an 'autonomous' entity within Georgia, the Abkhazians absolutely reject any idea of re-entering a unitary Georgian state, even under conditions of 'the widest possible autonomy' or as a partner within a federation. Although the international community has tended to support Georgia's disapproval of Russian post-war actions in Abkhazia, viewing them as 'creeping annexation', the Russian presence has undoubtedly contributed to the preservation of peace since 1993. .

The Abkhazians subscribe to one of two world religions: about half are Orthodox Christians and about half are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi rite - naturally, the situation is different in the Turkey-based diaspora. Muslims are mostly distinguished by not eating pork. In fact, these religions are a surface layer for the old paganisms, which vary between regions and families. In the Abkhazian conception, God is one, but he is of infinitely numerous parts. Each manifestation of nature and each clan, family, or individual has its own part of God. The word for ''God'' in Abkhazian is Antswa, which has been etymologized as an old plural of ''mother.'' The main local spirits who receive respect from adherents of all religions are Afy, who rules the thunder and other aspects of the weather; Shashwy], protector of blacksmiths and all artisans; Azhweipshaa, the spirit of the forest, wild animals, and hunting; and Aitar, the protector of domestic animals.

Certain trees, groves, and mountains are sacred to clans and villages and are centers of religious gatherings. They embody the strength of a patrilineal line, its connection to a certain place and to God above. Other observances center more on the home and the role of the mother; many holidays feature special loaves of bread or cheeses, which are cut and distributed. Folk medicine is widely practised, most often by older women, given the inadequacies of (post-)Soviet health care. Traditionally Abkhazians believed that the rainbow god was responsible for illnesses. Cures typically involved taking the patient to the riverside and offering prayers and food. Animal sacrifices may be performed to ensure the recovery of a family member who is ill or as part of rain-making ceremonies. Stones with naturally worn holes are suspended outside the home to ward off the evil eye. In general, certain days of the week are regarded as propitious or ill-omened for certain activities. Irrespective of orthodox adherence, the most important holiday is the New Year. Many Abkhazians, especially the younger ones, are essentially atheistic, though, as elsewhere in the former Soviet space, religious sentiment is re-emerging.

Abkhazians share with other northern Caucasian peoples the cycle of epic-sagas about the legendary figures known as the Narts. The Narts were giants, ninety-nine brothers (in one version) who lived together with their revered mother, decrepit father, and beloved sister. The poems tell of their military exploits, of their conflicts with their mother's illegitimate son, Sasryqw'a, and of the wonderful arms made for them by Ainar, the blacksmith. Abkhazians also have a body of tales about Abrsk'jil, a Prometheus-like figure with analogues across the Caucasus. Unlike the case in Circassia, in Abkhazia Abrsk'jil is the people's special benefactor and protector, but he refuses to bow his head before God, and God finally has him imprisoned. In various stories, Abkhazians meet him in the mountains and he asks them how the country has been since his captivity; the answer is always a sad one. In general, Abkhazians have a rich tradition of folklore, kept alive by groups who sing, dance, and play traditional instruments, such as the two-stringed, bowed apkhjartsa. There is a tradition of using music for comfort and healing and to pacify spirits of the dead. The writings of Fazil Iskander, who is considered one of the leading modern-day writers in Russian, are replete with Abkhazian life and culture.

Many elaborate rites are associated with the cult of the dead. In southern Abkhazia the corpse lies in state for up to a week at home, constantly attended by a group of wailing females dressed in black. A line of male relatives waits to receive all who come to pay condolences, and neighbors help to sit with the corpse and to prepare food for the visitors. Further respects have to be paid on the day of the funeral, when guests gather throughout the day for the funeral in late afternoon. After this a feast is held. Further ceremonies at the grave and feasts are held at forty days and at twelve months after death. Depending on their closeness to the deceased relative, mourners (especially females) will wear black until the fortieth day, the first anniversary, or even longer; men will perhaps not shave for forty days. A set of the deceased's clothing is laid at home for a year, and graves are becoming even more ornate. It is very important that a person be buried in his or her family graveyard and that the relatives care for the grave. The soul is believed to remain with the body at death. If the death occurred away from home, a string might traditionally be laid so that the soul could find its way back. The soul is believed to remain in the house until the year's anniversary, when, following the commemorative feast, it is ritualistically chased out, and at this point mourning clothes can be put away. In northern Abkhazia corpses are buried within two or three days of death and with less ceremony that in the south, where there has been much Mingrelian influence; a child under one year of age will be buried on the day of its death. There is classical evidence for the suspension of male corpses in trees, and this custom was noted among the Abkhazians as late as the seventeenth century.

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This culture summary is an updated and revised version of the article "Abkhazians" originally published in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 6, Russia and Eurasia/China. 1994. Paul Friedrich and Norma Diamond, eds. Boston, Mass., G. K. Hall &Co. B. George Hewitt revised the culture summary in June of 2008.