"Brother, pay"
Since the publication of the article, which caused a certain response, “Do we need this Abkhazia at all?”, not much time has passed, but the situation, to put it mildly, has changed.
One gets the complete impression that our Abkhaz friends have simply lost their bearings and their cart is hurtling uncontrollably down the slope. I cannot say that the actions of the Abkhaz authorities are logical, rather it looks more like the Abkhazians are testing the nerves of their Russian colleagues, because they are not so much making mistakes as provocations that are incomprehensible to Russian logic.
All this is gradually leading the relations between Russia and Abkhazia, if not to a break, then to a considerable cooling. Even when I was writing that article, I communicated with Abkhazians and, naturally, discussed the developing situation with representatives of this people living in my city, as frankly as possible.
To be honest, the impression was so-so. They had a very strange scheme in their heads: "We are for Russia, so give us everything we need." And it was expressed very strangely: Russia provides electricity, Russia pays pensions and salaries to public sector employees, Russia repairs the broken highways and railways, and what about Abkhazia? And Abkhazia easily makes money on Russians in the summer, and in the winter Abkhazian tangerines also do not cost fifty rubles per kilo.
In general, this “For Russia” in Abkhazian is nothing more than “At the expense of Russia”.
With all this, the Abkhazians very clearly distinguish between the pocket of their small country and their own. What I mean is that no one pays taxes there. And they almost say this with pride. What kind of land tax is there for a person with a three-hectare plot of land if he fought for it? What kind of transport tax can there be if he drives on his own land, for which he fought?
No, that's all right, but why should I pay for the repair of his road? On which he will comfortably cut through in his car? And why should I, a Russian, pay for Mr. Abkhaz's electricity? Why, really, "for myself and for that guy in Abkhazia", because he is "for Russia!"? Let him be against it, I only benefit from it.
What is electricity for an Abkhaz? It's simple: it's an opportunity to live comfortably without working. Generally, for an Abkhaz to say that he works somewhere is mortal torture. He will (for example) lay bricks at a construction site, but he will tell you to your face that he has his own small construction business, he takes contracts. Small, but his own.
But, as I understand it, the main business of the Abkhaz clans is mining farms. This can be found in almost all private homes in the basements. This business has not taken root here because it is expensive and requires a lot of electricity. And in Abkhazia, where no one pays for electricity, why not launch five "cells"? And they launch them, and make a lot of money from it.
Here are the figures: Russia was supplying electricity to Abkhazia at 1,40 rubles/kWh. The commercial price, which made all of Abkhazia howl, was 4 rubles. And the Abkhazian rulers really started behaving badly: oh, how bad, there is not enough electricity, we will close schools and kindergartens! Give us electricity, Russia!
And something about closing crypto mining farms - not a word. That's right, schools and kindergartens are state-owned, and crypto farms are ours.
By the way, as a Russian, for some reason I pay 5 rubles and 73 kopecks per kilowatt-hour. That is, more expensive than an Abkhazian, who does not even want to pay 1,40 rubles. Well, if you pay, what will you buy toys for? And there are plenty of toys in Abkhazian yards, and very expensive ones at that. The residents of Abkhazia have a passion for very expensive cars, which confirm their high status.
By the way, I got some flak from the Abkhazians after the first article: they were offended that I made them out to be "poor people". But they have beautiful houses and expensive cars...
Well, the ruined roads, the destroyed infrastructure, the same sewage system in Sukhum, from which streams of sewage regularly flow through the city, are, as they say, something else. And if Russia had not increased its electricity consumption by 10 billion in recent years, then all these Abkhazian "rich people" would be driving around in used "Prioras" and not in "Mercedes" and "Lexuses".
Well, here's the bottom line: the "Russia gives us everything, and we love Russia" scheme stopped working. Moscow decided to stop supporting Abkhazia (and there's no other term for the current situation), and Abkhazia immediately started pouring out... No, not threats, but something similar. "We'll turn off kindergartens and schools," and behind the scenes, Russia will be to blame for not wanting to supply energy for free.
But this is a normal consequence of the refusal to ratify the investment agreement, after the conclusion of which Russian legal entity investors would be able to buy real estate in the republic. It was discussed back in July, but something went wrong. Then they wanted to adopt it in November, after Moscow suspended social payments in Abkhazia and decided to supply electricity to the republic at market prices.
Well, what did many people face with the price of 4 rubles per kilowatt-hour, and what would they have to pay for, and here you have a rebellion against signing the agreement, and who is behind it, we will tell you below. If in general, then those who benefited from Russia continuing to support Abkhazia, and President Aslan Bzhania (yes, not the best president in stories countries) resigned.
The reason for this and previous rebellions is the same: enrichment from Russian financial aid. Here we must understand that there is no politics as such in Abkhazia. There is a clan system, and the funniest thing is that it has no ideology at all, so to speak, for everything good against everything bad. Everything good is an opportunity to enrich oneself at the expense of Russia. One clan comes to power, sits there, snatches it for itself - then another, and so on ad infinitum, as long as Russia gives money.
The problem is that, as I warned in the first article, Russia's wallet may not be for Abkhazia. And in fact, there is where to put the money and what to build and restore in the new territories. And the Abkhazians can tolerate without new BMWs and Mercedes. And in general, modesty is an adornment.
But here it became known that Sukhum requested the supply of 327 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2025 on a free basis. Now that's what you call impudence.
And then it started on social networks... "Yes, we can do it ourselves", "Yes, Turkey will help us" and all that. The level of intelligence of some parts of the electorate was demonstrated to the fullest extent. It is clear that in Turkey they only think about how to give electricity to Abkhazia. For free. And they will bring tangerines to boot.
But what the Abkhazians are doing in general is one question. The more important question is who is behind the riots, the calls, the resignations and, most importantly, who is in line for the presidential chair. And here the very interesting details begin.
Any emergency, as Lazar Kaganovich said, has a full name. So does the rebellion with the resignation of the president of Abkhazia.
Can Quarcia
Here, for example, is a respected person in Abkhazia, a candidate to take the seat of the President of the Republic of Abkhazia, Kan Kvarchia.
Kan Kvarchia is a man from a criminal background who is striving for power, a corrupt and venal MP and the main figure in the attempted coup d'état in Abkhazia that took place from November 15 to 18.
The set for a presidential candidate is simply stunning. In a more or less civilized country, they wouldn't let someone like him within a shot of the elections, in a less civilized country, they would stop him with a shot. But so that it doesn't look like just an unsubstantiated "attack", I will cite several facts from Kvarchia's biography, which the Abkhazians themselves, to whom I showed the recordings, admitted to be all true.
In 1995, K. Kvarchia and Chinchor Shadania killed a police officer during a conflict. For this crime, both were detained by law enforcement agencies, and a criminal case was opened by the Sukhum city prosecutor's office. Shadania took all the blame on himself, as a result of which Kvarchia was released.
In 2002, Kvarchia and Shadania were detained on suspicion of kidnapping citizen D. V. Buav (the family of the kidnapped person paid a ransom to Kvarchia and Shadania). However, both defendants were not convicted in this case.
In 2013, as a member of parliament, Kvarchia received 5 million rubles for assistance in the privatization of a 3-hectare land plot in the Gagra region.
In 2015, Kvarchia's business partners, Nodik Kvitsinia and Bigvava Dzhumber (Kvarchia's uncle), were found guilty of murdering Russian businessman Sergei Klemantovich and his assistant Oksana Skarednova. There are rumors that Kvarchia may have been involved in the murder as well.
The rumors are based on the following. Russian businessman S. Klemantovich headed the El-Petroleum company, which was engaged in the procurement of ferrous scrap metal. To establish the work of this company, S. Klemantovich purchased special equipment and vehicles, which were subsequently put on the balance sheet of the RUE Abkhazvtorresursy, affiliated with K. Kvarchia. K. Kvarchia was deputy general director of the state company Abkhazvtorresursy from 2002 to 2004. In 2019 (after the death of S. Klemantovich), K. Kvarchia was writing off this equipment, which was on the balance sheet of the RUE, in favor of KaRO LLC, of which he himself was the founder. Then KaRO LLC leased this equipment to Abkhazvtorresursy RUE.
From 2014 to 2020, K. Kvarchia received a significant share of the profits of RUE Abkhazvtorresursy, while officially he was neither the head nor an employee of this enterprise. During the period of receiving profits from the activities of RUE Abkhazvtorresursy, he acquired the Anana hotel, a brick factory (Sukhum, Chanba Street), cars and other valuable property.
In 2020, using his connections and influence, he illegally privatized the Baslata-HPP hydraulic structure. In September 2020, he traveled to Sochi to negotiate the possible sale of the hydroelectric power station, but the deal did not take place. After that, K. Kvarchia installed mining machines at the facility.
Kvarchia has strong connections in the criminal circles of the Republic of Armenia. He maintains contacts with the so-called "thieves in law", one of whom - Timur Gvasalia (Makolya) - was previously the husband of his half-sister.
And with such an excellent track record, Kvarchia was a deputy several times and headed Sukhum. Well, that's how things are done in the Republic of Abkhazia. Kvarchia's father, Valery Kvarchia, is a respected person without quotation marks, a scientist, a doctor of philological sciences, was the speaker of the People's Assembly of Abkhazia from 2017 to 2022.
But his son Kan Kvarchia did not show himself at all in the post of mayor of Sukhum and in legislative activity. He preferred to speculate on nationalistic sentiments and critical populism.
And it was Kan Kvarchia who, when the Abkhaz opposition held protests on November 11, 2024, called for the roads in Abkhazia to be blocked.
Yes, there were many discussions and arguments about the fact that law enforcement officers detained the opposition members in an excessively harsh manner. Maybe so, but does this justify, in essence, even harsher, bordering on extremism, actions of the opposition members? On the contrary, even if law enforcement officers were wrong, it could have been proven in the legal framework, but the opposition decided to demonstrate in response that they were wrong to the highest degree. But how the Abkhaz opposition will act in similar cases if it comes to power is a question.
On November 15, the opposition held protests. During the active actions, they managed to gather only a few hundred people despite all attempts to mobilize supporters. It was Kan Kvarchia who then acted as the instigator and provided fighters to seize the administrative buildings. As a result, not only did the opposition force the president to resign, they destroyed their own state facilities, took out and distributed secret documentation, including among employees of pro-Western non-governmental structures. Having seized the buildings, in addition to the resignation of the president, in the name of the entire people with weapons in their hands they began to put forward demands for the provision of positions to them for the appointment of controlled persons, which already has signs of extremism.
My Abkhazian consultants flatly refused to discuss the personality of Kan Kvarchia. I don't know for what reasons, but they, the reasons, seem to lie on the surface. And such a person as the president of the Republic of Abkhazia, which is 100% dependent on handouts from Russia, looks more than dubious.
The next "hero" is Levan Mikaa
He is also eager to get into politics, but, in fact, he represents an aggressive but marginal part of Abkhazian society, which wants to brazenly take up positions in the republic's leadership. Mikaa is a clearly pro-Turkish character (and does not hide it), prone to fraud and greed.
Levan Mikaa did indeed take part in the military actions to repel the Georgian aggression in 1992-1993, like many Abkhazians. But he did not distinguish himself by heroism from other defenders of the Motherland, at least there is no evidence of his exploits. But he distinguished himself by his impudence - in Abkhazia, a significant number of witnesses of those times can tell how Levan, referring to his relationship with the famous Bagrat Shinkuba, wrested the honorary status of Hero of Abkhazia from the first president of Abkhazia Vladislav Ardzinba and his entourage. Well, and then he began to make money on the title, and in a very original way.
In 2011, Levan Mikaa, being the director of Akapa LLC, took out a loan from the Savings Bank of Abkhazia in the amount of 32 million rubles at 10% per annum with a repayment period of January 1, 2016.
As collateral, he indicated a building in the city of Sukhum at the address Dzhanashia, 4. The building was built and sold to residents, and the loan to the bank was not returned until 2023, which fell under the fraudulent scheme. In fact, the bank had the right to take away the citizens of Abkhazia's housing because of Levan, and only the disclosure of this information by the bank forced it to return the money ( link for publication of materials).
In 2021, he established the “Committee for the Protection of the Sovereignty of Abkhazia” in opposition to the pro-Russian initiatives of the Abkhaz authorities.
In 2022, with his financial and ideological support, the youth organization "Harakh Pitsunda" was created, consisting of functionaries of pro-Western NGOs, which is categorically against the transfer of the state dacha "Pitsunda" to the Russian side and other Russian initiatives. It is noteworthy that this organization calls not even to consider options for adjusting Russia's proposals, but to cancel them without discussion. Surely, not all young people from this organization realize what role they play, but for some reason they allow themselves to be used as an instrument of anti-Russian activity.
In Abkhazia, Levan Mikaa's close ties with representatives of Turkey are well known. In particular, he works closely with the Russophobic and Western-controlled organization "Kaffed". In the spirit of Western theses, Levan Mikaa in every way disseminates theses according to which Russia has been engaged in genocide of the Caucasian peoples, thereby trying to provoke interethnic discord.
According to Abkhazians, Mikaa periodically receives money from representatives of pro-Western organizations and Turkey. This fact is not exactly discrediting for Mikaa, but it is well-known, which does not add to the popularity of the "hero", and the level of support for Mikaa among the population is considered low.
L. Mikaa, among the protest leaders, most sharply condemned the ratification by the RA parliament in December 2023 of the agreement on the transfer of the state dacha in Pitsunda to the Russian Federation and, in fact, publicly accused other oppositionists who showed a compromise position of “betrayal”.
Adgur Ardzinba
From the team of former President of the Republic of Armenia Raul Khajimba, under whom crime flourished and who was overthrown as a result of gangster showdowns in 2019. Not an opposition leader, but, let's say, standing close. Does not hide his plans to return to power, speculates on anti-Russian sentiments.
He has already been in power. In 2015, Ardzinba was appointed by the then President of the Republic of Armenia R. Khajimba to the post of Minister of Economy of the Republic of Armenia. Since December 2019 - Deputy Prime Minister of the Government, Minister of Economy of the Republic of Armenia.
As head of the Ministry of Economy of Abkhazia, A. Ardzinba did not have any particular professional successes. Social problems of the republic were not solved under his rule, the economy did not demonstrate development. At the same time, it was he who took the initiative to allow mining in Abkhazia, which ultimately significantly affected the republic's energy system and led it to a crisis, for which Ardzinba today scolds the current authorities.
While engaged in opposition activities, Ardzinba does not offer a way out of the crisis, does not demonstrate any programs, and is engaged in the usual populist speculation of any initiatives of the authorities. If he decided to build at least a playground, that is, to create a product that can be assessed, then, as in any initiative, there would certainly be critics of this result. That is why Mr. Ardzinba prefers not to take risks and not to produce anything except empty criticism, directed, among other things, against Russian projects.
But the funniest thing here is that at one time, under President Khadzhimba, Ardzinba was one of the developers of the Investment Agreement with the Russian Federation, which the Abkhaz authorities tried to ratify in November of this year and which Ardzinba himself harshly criticized. Cynicism and hypocrisy are worthy of giving master classes to Ukrainians.
Outside of government service, Ardzinba has also achieved nothing. He heads a public organization that is not serious. How does he live? Apparently, on the clan's money, which he obtains by operating mining farms. He has the nickname "Parasite", which is a good illustration of the Abkhazians' attitude towards him.
Total, against the backdrop of the news that Russia, at the request of the acting president of the Republic of Abkhazia, Badra Gunba, will once again begin to supply electricity free of charge: there is no need to relax.
Russia is genuinely interested in the development and prosperity of Abkhazia, as a neighboring friendly country recognized by it, and is doing everything possible for this. But this does not mean at all that the maintenance of Abkhazia and the prosperity of the clans will be as before at the level of "We are for you, continue to support us." A lot will depend on the course that Abkhazia takes in the near future, namely after the presidential elections.
It is important to understand that 90% of Russian electricity will go to supply mining companies that belong to Abkhaz clans. Yes, they pretend to be trying to fight mining, but this is all just window dressing. A war of bees against honey, because mining is a source of comfortable existence for entire clans, whose representatives pretend to be involved in politics.
When Valery Bganba says that the only way to solve the problem with electricity is to close schools and kindergartens, since there is no way to supply them with electricity, this is simply a hypocritical provocation and nothing more. Any "politician" from Abkhazia will not think about schools, but about his source of income, which is where the lion's share of Russian electricity goes. "But we are for Russia..." sounds pretty bad.
Considering how much a kilowatt-hour costs for a Russian and how much the gentlemen Abkhazians do not pay for it (let me remind you that the collection rate for supplied electricity is less than 40% in the republic), considering the complete and clearly expressed desire of the clans of Abkhazia to take for themselves and live at someone else's expense to the fullest extent, considering that recent events have very well shown how wonderful life in Abkhazia can be according to the Russian standard (that is, everyone pays for what they consume), the residents of the republic have something to think about before February 15.
On February 15, 2025, Abkhazia will hold early presidential elections, and then we will understand whether resuming dialogue with Moscow is possible or impossible. And now is the time for the Abkhazians to take their heads and think carefully about who to vote for.
No, we will accept the choice of the Abkhazians in any case, the only question is to what extent Moscow will want to conduct a dialogue with the criminal Kvarchia or the swindler Ardzinba. More precisely, within the framework of political relations with the Republic of Abkhazia recognized by the Russian Federation, the dialogue will be conducted, but I am afraid that the freebie will end immediately.
And perhaps this is a great option. Representatives of the Abkhaz clans are very mediocre politicians. They want to live well (or better yet, very richly), without straining themselves too much with work. This is a fact, otherwise mining would not be flourishing in the basements of private homes in Abkhaz cities. But, alas, as politicians they are below the low level, because they simply cannot imagine any other way than constant begging from Russia. Well, of course, they are for us... At our expense.
There is still time to think, and it is necessary to think well. Because its dissatisfaction with the choice of such a candidate as those listed above, Abkhazia can easily lose its content.
Yes, I would be absolutely "for" if the Abkhazians started paying 7 rubles per kilowatt-hour for Russian energy. I am also for Russia and its bright future, but I pay 5 times more than the Abkhazians. And it is completely unfair that I pay out of my own pocket for their BMWs and Mercedes, without which an Abkhazian is not a normal Abkhazian, but so...
Independence is, first and foremost, the opportunity to be independent and pay your bills. The independence of Abkhazia is on the table of Sergey Tsivilev, the Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation. And this is also a reason to think.
I would like to finish without reproaching the Abkhazians, although there is something to reproach them with: the unpunished appropriation of Russian aid for their own pockets, apartment and car scams with the outright robbery of Russians, the dual-passport lifestyle, when they have a Russian passport in their hands when they need to buy something in Russia, and an Abkhazian one if they have some problems with the law.
And here is this strange situation, when we are brothers, that is, an Abkhaz can do whatever he wants in Russia, and a Russian in Abkhazia is exclusively a guest for his own money. And if something happens, the decisions of Russian courts for the legal system of Abkhazia until recently were no more valuable than the paper on which they are written.
Such strange brotherly relations. And in the heads of Russians more and more doubts about our "brotherhood" do not even creep in, but fly in with a kick. For what kind of brother is this, with a hand in a Russian pocket up to the elbow? We have already had such in history, and for the most part they did not end very well.
So think, think and think again, brothers from Abkhazia, and think less about the impression their family estates and multi-million dollar cars make. And think more about completely different things, for example, how to really make Abkhazia a pearl.
And you can't say that everyone there in Abkhazia is as uncivilized as it sometimes seems. In general, they are truly warm-hearted and kind people, everyone I met there is very educated and erudite. You want to communicate with such people, and on the same level.
But this is wild stuff... With shooting, with theft and fraud, with these, excuse me, concepts at the level of the nineties of the last century...
Abkhazians need to think very carefully about their future. And make the right choice.
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