Forgotten Dreams

In August 1992, war broke out in Abkhazia, a Georgian region occupied by Russia. The National Guard of Georgia entered Abkhazia to free captive Georgian officials. As the war progressed the Abkhaz separatists implemented a process of ethnic cleansing in order to expel and eliminate the Georgian ethnic population in Abkhazia. About 5,000 were killed, 400 went missing and up to 250,000 ethnic Georgians were expelled from their homes. According to International Crisis Group, as of 2006 slightly over 200,000 Georgians remained displaced in Georgia proper.

Many Georgians once resident in Abkhazia remain the sole tenants of a now abandoned and fogotten former spa town called Tskaltubo in Georgia, the place of refuge immediately after their exodus. More than 32 years later these people remain refugees in their own country, officially Internally Displaced Peoples, living in absolute darkness and abandoned by the State.

Welcome to Tskaltubo, welcome to the darkness.