A housing nightmare in Abkhazia

Image removed.Sukhumi, 2010. Photo © "Liberali"

It is impossible to think that anyone lives in this house. Its walls have holes as big as windows. The day light comes into the entire house. Walking up the stairs is an awful experience: dust, trash, a leg of an old table, a broken drawer, a single high-heel lady's shoe, and a metal grid sticking out of a concrete wall. The house has been like this for the past 18 years. It will probably not come down if I walk into it but climbing up the described stairs is like walking on a thin layer of ice. All the walls in the hallway are damaged. The staircase has no hand-rails and the steps are damaged here and there. If not the holes in the walls it would be completely dark here.

On the second floor of these ruins there are two newly painted doors. Pressing the doorbell lets a murmur-like sound in the grey house. After being echoed several times, it gets quiet again. Tina has been living here for a couple of months now with her two little children. She does not receive guests or journalist but she made an exception for us.

Almost every door on the upper floors reads: "occupied". There are many new doors and the piles of construction trash in front of them indicate that the new owners of the apartments are renovating them.

Before the war of 1992-93, this apartment building like many others in the "new district" of Sokhumi was bustling with life.

Today, the grass has grown in the yards of the "new district" almost covering the traces of the war. The fiercest fights of the Georgian-Abkhazian War took place here. Time has passed. Russia's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia gave Abkhazians the feeling of security but has not given them homes. It is difficult to tell the difference between the unfinished Soviet times houses and the ones where people peacefully lived years ago. Now they all look the same, just the carcasses. The apartments have been robbed after the war. The parquet, wall paper, radiators and bathroom items have been all taken away. The remains of colorful glazed tiles here and there indicate the whereabouts of once kitchen. Instead of a white gas stove and glistening kitchenware there is only dust and trash.

Some of the apartments are inhabited, others are empty. The bullet holes have been filled with random material. Tina's apartment has a hallway, a bedroom, a very little space for a TV and a sofa serving as a living room, a balcony made into a kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet. It is not really enough for a four-strong family but it is definitely better than being in the open air.

The apartment is beautifully decorated. It has light wallpaper, pictures and many small details creating the feeling of coziness. Tina loves her new house. Her family moved from Maikop (Republic of Adighe, North Caucasus) to Abkhazia. "They will soon repair the façade of the house," she says, "and they promised to fix the ceiling as well."

In fact, the house does not need to be "repaired". It needs a serious rebuilding and repairmen but Tina and others who have moved here or plan on moving have no other choice.

The housing problem for the city with plenty of empty houses sounds a bit strange. After the war, those Abkhazians who lost houses in the war moved in the houses belonging to Georgians. The soldiers got the houses of Georgians as military loot but it proved to be insufficient. There have been no funds for repairing the houses and thus, many of them are still empty.

Officially, the ownership issues of these apartments are complicated. Tina does not say whether she bought the house or simply occupied it. "It is my mom's present," she says. "I have not asked her how she acquired this apartment."

Tina is not afraid of living in a semi-destroyed apartment because as she says "the people like her have no means of getting a normal house."

Housing is one of the biggest problems young families face in Abkhazia.

Russia's recognition of Abkhazia's independence was followed by the increase of Russian business interests in the country. Russians started to invest money in Abkhazia and this resulted in the skyrocketing of real estate prices in Sokhumi. If an old, one room "Khrushchovka" type apartment cost 4-5 thousand USD in 2008, it costs ten times more today. The finest parts of the city see the new buildings being built in the style characteristic to Sokhumi one hundred years ago. Almost every window on these new buildings read "For Sale". The price is from two to three thousand USD per square meter. The average official salary in Abkhazia is 200 USD and this means that the new houses are meant for a small circle of elite businessmen and Russians.

However, even Russians have problems in Abkhazia. They cannot easily buy property here. According to Abkhazian legislation, only citizens of Abkhazia can own private property in Abkhazia. If a Russian citizen wants to legally own real estate, he/she does so following a complicated scheme for which a trustworthy Abkhaz business partner is needed.

According to the Russian newspaper "Moskovsky Komsomolets", many Russians have found themselves in trouble as a result of this scheme the problem being Abkhaz criminals simply holding on to the property instead of letting Russians in it. The newspaper claims that it got hold of a secret document prepared by the Abkhazian parliament for local administrative bodies that speaks about declaring the apartments and houses vacated after the 1992-93 war "having no owner" and passing them onto Abkhaz citizens.

One side of this decision is clear: everybody in Abkhazia believes that Georgians will never return to their homes. However, as "Moskovsky Komsomolets" writes, in collaboration with the local authorities Abkhaz criminals have occupied the apartments of Russians as well. The Abkhaz lawyer Tamaz Ketsba says that Abkhazian courts are discussing about 4,000 such cases. The de-facto Abkhaz president Sergey Baghapsh has signed a decree creating a commission to study the legality of property rights of Russian citizens. This idea originally came from Moscow and caused a heated debate in Abkhazia in August.

The finest parts of the city see the new buildings being built in the style characteristic to Sokhumi one hundred years ago. Almost every window on these new buildings read "For Sale". The price is from two to three thousand USD per square meter.

Those who oppose this proposal fear that this will open the doors to the return of thousands of Georgians who have left Abkhazia as a result of the armed conflict in 1990s and now live in Russia and have Russian passports.

"Nobody intends to violate the rights of Russian citizens," the de-facto president of the republic Sergey Baghapsh has stated. "Another case is, for example, the issue of the persons who left Abkhazia in 1992 and decided to come back in 2010 after 18 years. Such people may not find their homes because things have changed over the time and new buildings have been built. Every case needs to be approached individually."

Meanwhile, the dwellers of the "new district" continue to repair their new homes. "We have been given a promise to build playing grounds for children," Tina says. "I believe that over time this place will be better and more cheerful."

The terminology used in the article belongs to the author only and not to “The Liberal”

The article has been prepared with the support of Heinrich Boell Foundation. The views and opinions expressed in the publication do not necessarily reflect those of Heinrich Boell Foundation.