In the Kodori Gorge

An Israeli machine gun fell into my hands a couple of days before I got into the Kodori Gorge. I tried it (a machine gun made in Israel) along with the Abkhaz military. In appearance - a black expensive toy with legs, a sophisticated silhouette and all sorts of gadgets are attached.

Upon closer acquaintance, it turned out to be a fragile modern product.

They spared metal on the shells - they are fragile, crease, and although the bullet is two-layer, two-shell, it sometimes inexplicably swells, deformed, gets stuck in the barrel.

A trip to the Kodori Valley took almost 12 hours there and back, and God forbid that the road is so dangerous and bad. Pitching and pitching, as they say in the Navy, and onboard. As a result, at night, when I got to bed, my head was mercilessly dizzy.

In 2001, through the Kodori Gorge, the Chechen fighters of Ruslan Gelayev wanted to break through and go to Sochi. If they did, then there would be a massacre, like dozens of Beslan.

Did not go out. They were stopped and defeated by Russians and Abkhazians (or Abkhazians and Russians). And then, in 2008, we took advantage of the situation to expel the Georgians from the rest of Kodori. And the Svans themselves are gone. They silently gathered and left - they chose the Georgians. They consider themselves Georgians. They left everything, the cattle, it seems, they just took it, the houses were left as they were yesterday. Cherry plum singing, hanging.

I must say that the entire subtropical territory of Abkhazia is covered with a greasy layer of greenery. Where it is not covered with greenery, there are shallow rivers flowing in September, but wide in this season of a turquoise color, or a hellish road is squeezed, not even dirt, but stone, that is, crushed stone under the tires of the car.

Not even a serpentine, but a trail for horses and mules, rather than for cars.

They were screwed into the mountains (the height there is almost 4 thousand meters above sea level, the Great Caucasus Range peeps into the gaps between the mountains), these lands were called Abkhaz Svaneti earlier, although the Svans (essentially mountain Georgians) moved to the gorge not so long ago - in XIX century - and hastily fled from there in 2008.

What kind of tribe is the Svans? A fairly warlike tribe are considered the best fighters in the Georgian army. In their mountains, slavery was widespread until our days. Having a Russian slave was considered prestigious. I personally already have one of their characteristic features that I don’t like at all - they had Russian slaves ...

We drove into the upper part of the Kodori Gorge to capture the former NATO barracks. And captured this two-story Euro casma, gutted inside. True, Russian tanks left several ragged and charred holes in the barracks. Wandering along her damaged corridors and rooms, we came across a peacefully chewing, smelling cow and dung cow. “This is the glory of the world,” I wanted to say in Latin, so that it would be more solemn. It seems sic transit gloria mundi! Like so.

A cow in the NATO barracks - that was cool. The cow looked cool, cooler than "Turning swords to yelling!" Symbolically. A cow is, like, a world. And 50 trucks of NATO weapons were taken out of the barracks.

Diagonally from the barracks, from where the Georgian military fled in 2008, there is a Svan church on a rock, however, it’s rather a chapel, because it’s tiny. Climbed up, panting, entered the tiny chapel - dust everywhere.

Dusty icons and church books in Georgian were discovered there. Probably in Georgian, since I don’t know Georgian, I guess the alphabet with curlicues. The chapel inside is illuminated by a narrow strip of light from the loophole.

Somewhere already on the way back we wanted to eat and asked to sell food from a peasant in a cap. We knocked on the gates - at first the dogs responded. A very, well, very short peasant man came out with an outstanding, but not a hunchbacked nose, in a greasy cap. Like a sinewy pygmy of some kind.

In the house about two floors did not invite. He pulled out chairs and a low table from somewhere. He brought bread (as in all of Abkhazia, white, nostril) of suluguni cheese and a jug of wine. Immediately gathered around all living creatures. Hens, rooster, kitten, hens again, silent dog. The second at the gate, frowning, sat silently on the chain and from time to time looked at us thoughtfully, as if wondering where to bite us - everyone. A vast yard is lined with beehives, but no bees are visible.

It turned out that the man in the cap was a swan. “When our army left ...” - the Svan began to explain his situation to us. Raised toasts for guests and, as they say, for world peace. He sold us three heads of suluguni and a couple of bottles of honey. He told me how he shoots animals directly from the balcony of his two-story house and how he drives to his son in Tbilisi.

Calm, not defiant. He said that he lives alone, but it is possible, however, that because of the shutters, family members, or even militants, were watching us in the yard. There are mountains, and the devil will break his leg, and they are at home here - they know all the paths.

Think fantasize? I'm not sure I'm fantasizing.

At first, I thought that there is nothing needed here - they will poison, but still I ate, I wanted to.

When he went to see us off to the car, one of us asked his name.

“Tsereteli,” replied Svan. That's certainly his name is not Tsereteli. Well, I do not believe that Tsereteli.

Our operators were more naive than me and the Abkhaz driver. Russians are generally prone to fraternizing with the devil who knows whom, as a rule, we are ready to see fraternal peoples everywhere. And some are hostile. Abkhaz and I did not believe the gnome. And looked frowningly.

We continued our journey in the darkness, piled on a thick layer of greenery. The mountains shouted something. Someone screamed in the mountains.

Knowing the mountains, like their pockets, the Svans may have followed us from the tops, passing each other. And so on and so forth. And in Sukhum (Sukhum will be Abkhazian, it is Sukhumi in Georgian) it turned out that Raul Khadjimba was the winner of the presidential election on September 8. He proclaimed himself president at the beginning. Then Russia and the Abkhaz CEC declared Khajimba the winner of the second round of elections. The preponderance in his votes, however, as the Abkhazians told me, was small - two thousand and a few votes. The opposition is also, by the way, pro-Russian. Not particularly surprising: the Abkhazians themselves gossiped that up to 70% of the budget of Abkhazia was Russian money.

For what I bought, for that I am selling it, by golly, Abkhaz comrades said.

The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.