By Tengo Gogotishvili | 2024-01-08

TBILISI -- The de facto government of Georgia's breakaway province Abkhazia is handing over a beachfront resort beloved by Soviet leaders to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Many Georgians are criticizing the move as Russia's latest attempt at annexation.

Georgia and Russia fought a brief war in 2008 over South Ossetia, a Russian-backed breakaway region of Georgia. After rapidly defeating its much smaller neighbor, the Kremlin recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and established Russian military bases in both regions.

Only five countries including Russia recognize Abkhazia as independent.

The self-proclaimed parliament of Abkhazia on December 27 approved the transfer of the Black Sea resort of Pitsunda to Russia.

Under the deal, the land on which the resort sits will not be owned by Russia, according to Russia's envoy to the breakaway region, Mikhail Shurgalin.

"The territory will be rented [by Russia] for 49 years. Only the buildings will be owned [by Russia], and their maintenance and repair work will be conducted by [Russia's] Federal Guard Service," Shurgalin said earlier.

Nonetheless, the resort's dachas (vacation cottages), swimming pools, and housing for security guards and servants effectively have become Putin's personal property.

The move makes him an heir to Soviet leaders like Nikita Khrushchev who vacationed there.

Abkhazia's self-proclaimed president, Aslan Bzhania, in January 2022 signed an agreement transferring Pitsunda to Russia and sent it to the region's "parliament" for approval.

As part of the deal, the complex was to be handed to Russia free of charge, with a symbolic annual payment of 1 RUB (1 US cent) for each land parcel.

Bzhania himself explained his motives surprisingly frankly.

"During a meeting with the President of Russia in November 2020, this issue was raised [by Putin] ... 'Dear Aslan Georgievich, we have repeatedly appealed to Abkhazia's leadership regarding the transfer of buildings and structures into our possession. We plan to carry out a major overhaul so that the facility functions as a residence of the President of the Russian Federation,'" Bzhania quoted Putin in July 2022.

Taking control of Pitsunda continues a Russian pattern of buying up client states' valued assets. In 2014, for example, Russia's Gazprom bought Kyrgyzstan's natural gas monopoly for $1, thus gaining control of a strategic asset. That move came three years after Gazprom bought Belarus's natural gas pipelines, albeit for a much larger sum.

An unpopular move

Built in 1958-1961 at the order of Khrushchev, the Pitsunda complex has stirred many strong emotions.

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili condemned what she called "another land grab by Russians in Georgian territories...and their creeping annexation policies," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) reported in December.

The decision has also been unpopular in Abkhazia, with hundreds of demonstrators rallying against the move in front of the de facto parliament's building in Sukhumi in December.

The region has only 8,660 square kilometers of territory, so losing that parcel of beachfront property is even more painful.

Abkhaz lawmakers have long known that the issue is politically fraught and attempted to avoid it.

The breakaway region's constitution prohibits the transfer or sale of real estate to foreigners.

However, Putin clearly is beyond the reach of that law.

In July 2022, the Abkhaz parliament asked the region's constitutional court to rule on the agreement. But the judges evaded responsibility for the agreement and returned the MPs' request untouched.

"Nobody wants to make this decision. Everyone understands perfectly well that there is popular discontent... It's clear that in this instance the lease is an implicit transfer of land," said Izida Chania, editor of Nuzhnaya Gazeta, as quoted by the Caucasian Knot news site in August 2022.

"Parliament does not want to go against the president's will, but it also does not want to take responsibility. It's the same in the constitutional court," Chania said.

Russian authorities have been much clearer on their stance on the matter, even in the face of public discontent.

"More than 80% of Abkhazia's citizens oppose the transfer of ... Pitsunda to Russia," representatives of the Aiaaira Union of Veterans and Citizens of Abkhazia told Shurgalin the Russian envoy, also in the summer of 2022, as reported by Caucasian Knot.

"We consider the agreement's ratification to be yet another threat to the national security of the Republic of Abkhazia."

This defiance greatly displeased Shurgalin.

"Investments related to airport and railway construction and other programs will stop," the ambassador responded to the prospect of Abkhazia refusing to hand over Pitsunda.

'Everything will be as Moscow decides'

The ambassador's threat regarding "other programs" -- namely the provision of electricity to Abkhazia -- may have played an outsized role on the final decisison.

Abkhazia has long had an acute problem with electricity supply.

Bitcoin mining farms in particular have caused a shortage of electricity. Such crypto farms are controlled by officials, say locals who refuse to pay for electricity in protest, aggravating the crisis.

The Enguri Hydroelectric Power Plant, which is under the jurisdiction of both Georgia proper and breakaway Abkhazia, no longer satisfies all Abkhazia's needs.

To make up for the shortfall, Abkhazia has long depended on Russia.

According to the separatist government, from 2020 to the first quarter of 2023, Russia supplied Abkhazia with electricity worth 6 billion RUB (almost $70 million) or approximately half of Abkhazia's "state budget," and the breakaway region did not pay for it.

"Russia knows that the local regime can't live without it and that, in the end, everything will be as Moscow decides," said Malkhaz Pataraia, leader of a Georgian refugee movement.