Abkhazians celebrate Georgia’s humiliation

In Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, people are getting ready to party. The palm-lined pedestrian walkway along the seafront has been repaved, buildings have been given a new lick of paint, and green-white-red Abkhazian flags flutter from almost every car. Tuesday is Independence Day, the day the Abkhazians celebrate the routing of the Georgian army in the 1993 war and the freeing of their territory from Georgian control.

This year, the celebrations are extra special. After last month's war in South Ossetia, Russia recognised the independence of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. For the first time, the Abkhazians are able to celebrate recognition - by some, at least - as a real country. So far only Nicaragua has followed Russia's lead, though there is hope that Belarus, Venezuela and Syria might follow.

It is Moscow's recognition, however, that is most important for Abkhazia, because it comes with a security guarantee: Russia promises to defend Abkhazia against future Georgian aggression. "For the first time in our lives, we feel secure," says Irakli Khintba, a local political analyst. This security, it is hoped, will lure back some of the millions of Russian tourists who used to relax along Abkhazia's idyllic Black Sea coast (Josef Stalin's favourite holiday dacha was at Gagra, up the coast from Sukhumi). It also throws open possibilities of huge economic progress, with Russian business set to flood Abkhazia.

"Russia has come out of this looking just and fair, while the West has proved how hypocritical it is," says Sergei Shamba, the Abkhazian foreign minister. "All the West talks about is Russia intimidating Georgia, they don't want to see that Georgia has been doing the same to us for years. The Americans first stated the right of peoples to self-determination, and now they're cynically going back on it."

When I last visited Abkhazia for The First Post in May 2007, I found a mood of