A boy peers cautiously through a doorway from outside, Georgia, 2018.
Forgotten Dreams
In August 1992, war broke out in Abkhazia, a Georgian region now occupied by Russia. The National Guard of Georgia entered Abkhazia to free captured Georgian officials. As the war progressed, Abkhaz separatists began a campaign of ethnic cleansing to expel and eliminate the Georgian population from the region. Around 5,000 people were killed, 400 went missing, and up to 250,000 ethnic Georgians were forced from their homes. According to the International Crisis Group, as of 2006 slightly more than 200,000 Georgians remained displaced within Georgia.
Many of those once resident in Abkhazia still live as the sole tenants of a forgotten former spa town called Tskaltubo — their place of refuge after the exodus. More than thirty years later, they remain refugees in their own country, officially designated as Internally Displaced Persons. They live in long-abandoned buildings, in near darkness, largely discarded by the state.
Welcome to Hotel Sakartvelo.
Darkness fills the derelict hotel, Georgia, 2018.
The death of a 55 year old man is mourned. He had been a resident of the abandoned hotel for 30 years since fleeing Abkhazia, Georgia, 2018.
Men who fled Abkhazia as boys, hang out in the tattered corridors with little else to do. They have only known this place as home. Georgia, 2018.
The son of a lady who fled Abkhazia as a young girl, sits in one of the dark corridors, Georgia, 2018.
