I have a 'thing' about visiting places that have unresolved 'issues' with 'recognition' - I have wanted to go to Abkhazia...the break away republic of Georgia that few nations recognise for a long time.
As I now have a m/entry visa I emailed a request for a Visa an received an invitation within four days.
I asked for 3 days, but other things cropped up, so it was today, or bust.
The place to ask for it is here...
http://mfaapsny.org/en/council/visa.phpI received this letter of invitation
The border is 20 minutes for SC's home and it reminded me of crossing into the 'Turkish Republic of Cyprus...surreal.
I didn't want to offend so no photos or the border...but I can do better...one can view the crossing by going to
www.sochi.cameraThen click on the capital A in the tool bar...A for Abkhazia
The first cam [r48] is leaving and the second....showing a duty free shop....is coming back.
My goodness, I can understand why the Georgians would be upset to lose this place. It was stunningly beautiful. A time warp.
Much more tomorrow..I am going to have to register my visa ... again...as I left and re-entered Russia...
Russians do NOT need to use their intl. Passports...just the ID one.
When we arrived at the border - the queue didn't seem that long - we had our passports and my visa invitation checked - it is important to have the right of re-entry to Russia
Then we were directed to another place - with a choice of queues - we chose one of the two outer right one's - don't - it didn't split into two checkpoints as the others subsequently did. We queued for 1 hour30 minutes
SC - as passenger - had to go through a pedestrian passport control and I had to drive to a passport control point, alone and produce the vehicles docs and my passport.
THEN - the car was physically searched - all cars are searched - not randomly like UK entry
Finally, I was cleared as having left Russia and drove to a waiting place - to be re-united with SC.
10 MINUTES passed .. no SC
..She was waiting for me in another place and a very kind Russian family - who had queued behind us spotted her and one of the passengers ran to show her where we waited.
Reunited - we drove 300m - then there was another fence and a gate - our docs were inspected for the third time and we were in 'no mans' land' before encountering the red and white duty free shop and the passport control for 'Abkhazia'
My passport and invitation were - naturally - of more interest and the border guard went off to his computer and returned some time later. He was smiling - now THAT worried me... :chuckle:
He asked why I had asked for 3 days and this was the last day. I explained 'time pressures' and he told us that normally we would need to drive to the capital - Sukum and get the visa - but as we were on a day drip and if we wanted to stay longer - we could do this subsequently and he wished us a good time. This was all in Russian.
Our friendly Russian family had got the 'wrong' line and just cleared passport control and we together queued to clear permission to drive on their roads. We then then set off in an informal convoy with lot of smiles and thumbs up - as the whole process of leaving Russia and being clear to enter Abkhazia took nearly 2 hours.
First impressions - we drove towards the mountains we had seen when cycling from the Olympic station - along the esplanade. This time they weren't snow covered - but luscious green.
The local drivers ignored the speed limits and overtake when / where a sane person would not.
The petrol / gas is 5 to 10 percent cheaper than Russia - you can buy Rosneft there - we 'lost' our friends when they peeled off to fill up
I had set the satnav for Sukumi 100km to the SE - hugging the Black Sea coast.
We stopped just north of GARGA and waked through tropical greenness to the beach - still a little stony - so on we went ..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=T2jGF2olwygWe kept seeing adverts for two mobile / cell phone networks and soon realised that our Russian sims had no signal.
This was 'no good' as my maps for Russia ran out and both WAZE and Google maps were not too accurate, without the network.I had forgotten to download maps.me for Georgia
We passed through Garga and headed to Pitsuna - crossing many rivers and encountering many former Spanish coaches - buses - that overtook us on blind bends.
map
http://www.google.com/maps/place/Autonomous+Republic+of+AbkhaziaThere we bought a local sim, bezlimit - without limit for internet and Alina at AQUAFON - faithfully set it all up for us, ignoring the ever growing queue for top ups
Now I had 4G and downloaded the map in less than a minute and we headed for the Monastery at New Athos
As we entered the town, I spotted the Monastery on a hill - high above the town - I followed a local registered mini-bus on a whim and missed the white circle with a red outer circumference - a sign that was supposed to mean - local traffic only - there was no writing to hint at this :chuckle:
SC called on me to stop and an unmarked Police car arrived and asked us to follow them.
As we stopped in a safer place - he tried to stop other traffic - but they ignored him :chuckle:
I played the dumb tourist and SC ignored my advice and spoke in Russian.. I saw his eyes light up ..
She offered him 500 roubles to forget my 'transgression' and he escort us to the 'authorised traffic only entrance to the monastery' and we drove up a steep hill - found a great parking spot and observed everyone else puffing and sweating as they reached the top - form the car park 500 or more down in the town.
IF I had been alone I would have toughed it out - but SC pointed out this is not Russia.
The whole scene was being videoed and I am still debating whether to post it as we want to go again :laugh:
When we drove down the bumpy road to the town - and our next destination - Lake Ritsa - I was paranoid that we'd meet our corrupt policeman, again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fx_hT9JEVKQmore follows ..we are off to Lake Ritsa
NB if someone can remind me how to post youtube links so they show as a photo ...