In Mostly Georgian Part of Abkhazia, Ethnic Lines Seem Indelible

GALI, Georgia -- The old women in the horse-drawn cart tensed up as they approached the border.

"You watch, they're going to yell and curse at us," one of them murmured as they reached the crossing from undisputed Georgian territory into the only district of the breakaway region Abkhazia that is still populated mostly by Georgians. "They're going to ask us for money," the woman said before she got down and was escorted out of earshot.

The sum that Georgians such as the cart's passengers must pay guards to enter Abkhazia, where they live, has gone up recently, the women said, making it harder to travel to the Georgian-controlled side, where they shop, go to the hospital and visit relatives.

For the 50,000 or so Georgians living in Gali district, the recent war between Russia and Georgia has cast new uncertainty over an already shaky existence. In August, ethnic Abkhaz celebrated when Russia recognized their land, along with South Ossetia, as independent countries. Tougher frontier controls are one sign of the sometimes triumphant confidence the Abkhazian authorities now display.

"The checkpoint is on the border of an enemy state that wants to destroy us," said Ruslan Kishmaria, the district's governor. "In the future, we will be looking at each person individually to see if we will let them into the country." He denied that the cost of crossing had gone up.

The argument over whether Georgia has a legitimate claim to Abkhazia goes back to communist and even czarist times. When the Soviet Union collapsed a decade and a half ago, tensions here erupted into a vicious separatist war that sent ethnic Georgians fleeing and locked Abkhazia into political limbo. In most of Abkhazia, displaced Georgians have never returned, but in this southernmost district, many did.

The district's capital, also called Gali, is not the prosperous town of supermarkets, hotels and wide, smooth roads that residents describe from the days when Soviet Black Sea tourism brought in money. Unlike the fixed-up towns of northern Abkhazia, where few Georgians remain, the roads here are rutted, abandoned buildings are draped in weeds, and commerce and city services are skeletal. Many young people have left, and people who stay maintain an uneasy relationship with the local government and the Abkhaz and Russian troops.

In interviews, several Gali residents complained that Abkhaz soldiers often demand cash, as well as a significant portion of their hazelnut crops, as "taxes." As members of a minority, the Georgians said, they have no one to appeal to and no choice but to pay.

While Georgian language is still taught in some schools, along with Russian, Abkhaz and English, it is illegal to hang up a sign in the Georgian script.

Asked why, Kishmaria said, "We hate the Georgians. Why would we want to use their language?"

Georgian residents cited pressure from the Abkhaz government to give up their Georgian citizenship and take Abkhazian passports. "It doesn't matter what kind of passport I have -- I am Georgian," said a middle-aged woman named Aza, who like many Gali residents said she was afraid to give her full name.

Citing a population shortage, the government is trying to draw in as many ethnic Abkhaz as it can. After a vicious war caused the exodus of about 250,000 Georgians in the early 1990s, an estimated 70,000 to 90,000 ethnic Abkhaz remained, along with a significant number of ethnic Russians and Armenians.