Kodori Valley
| Kodori Valley | |
|---|---|
| location | Abkhazia Autonomous Republic in Georgia |
| Waters | Kodori |
| Mountains | Greater Caucasus |
| Geographical location | 43 ° 6 ′ 0 ″ N , 41 ° 45 ′ 0 ″ E |
 |
|
| height | 1300 to 3984 m |
The Kodori Valley (also Kodori Gorge , Georgian კოდორის ხეობა ; Russian Кодорское ущелье ) is a river valley in the Greater Caucasus in the northeast of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia in Georgia . It extends at an altitude of 1,300 m to 3,984 m above sea level, is crossed by the Kodori River and, since the 1st century, by a trade route across the Great Caucasus, the later Sochum Army Road .
geography
The entrance to the northeast running valley is around 20 kilometers from the Abkhazian capital Sukhumi . It is bounded in the north by the Tschchalta mountain range , which also forms the border with Russia . To the east lies the Georgian region of Mingrelia and Upper Svaneti . The Kodori Mountains run south of the Kodori Valley . The largest communities in the valley are Shchara, Omarischara, Semo Aschara, Kvemo Aschara, Lata and Tschchalta . A hydropower plant was built near Omarischara in 2005 and 2006 .
climate
The climate in the valley is humid alpine . The summers are cool, the winters are snowy. The annual rainfall is between 1600 and over 2000 mm (120 mm in January, 160 mm in April, 180 mm in July, 160 mm in October). There are over 30 days of heavy rain each year. The snow is more than 180 days. The average temperature is −3 ° C in January, 3 ° C in April, 14 ° C in July, 5 ° C in October. The maximum summer temperature in July is 28 ° C.
Residents and economy
The majority of the inhabitants of the valley are Swans , an ethnic group belonging to the Georgians . According to the Georgian census of 2002, there were 1956 people living in the upper part of the valley, of whom 1912 were swans.
The main source of income for the valley is forestry . Its forests have been used as a source of raw materials since ancient times . In the 1890s , the Russian entrepreneur Maximov, who came from Rostov-on-Don , systematically developed them. He had several iron bridges built over raging rivers, which are still the core of the transport infrastructure today.
history
As early as the 1st century, the trade route through the valley and over the Kluchori Pass formed a branch of the Silk Road , which led from Constantinople via Central Asia to China . It was controlled alternately by the Byzantine , Persian and Ottoman empires .
After the annexation of the Principality of Abkhazia by Russia at the end of the Caucasus War in 1864, the Suchumer Heerstraße was built along the old route . Alongside the Georgian and Ossetian Military Roads , it played a strategic role in the development of Transcaucasian relations well into the 20th century .
politics
The Abkhazian civil war was sparked in 1992 by Georgian rioters who marched from the Kodori Valley to Sukhumi. According to the Abkhazian armistice agreement of May 14, 1994, the upper part of the valley is administered by the Georgian government in Tbilisi , the lower part by the secessionist government in Sukhumi.
In the so-called Kodori crisis , a group of Chechen and Georgian militants under the command of Ruslan Gelayev attacked the secessionist village of Giorgiewskoye in the lower Kodori Valley on October 4, 2001 and shot down a helicopter belonging to the United Nations Monitoring Mission ( UNOMIG ) the following day . It took Abkhaz forces ten days to regain control of the area.
In July 2006 Georgian forces invaded and took control of the upper Kodori Valley. This part was named Upper Abkhazia by the government in Tbilisi in September 2006 ; Chchalta became the seat of the Abkhaz government-in-exile , which the secessionists had expelled from Sukhumi in 1993. The lower part belongs to the Abkhazian district of Gulripschi and is controlled by CIS peacekeeping forces stationed in Lata.
UNOMIG, which was monitoring compliance with international obligations, withdrew its observers stationed in the Kodori Valley on August 9, 2008 in the face of growing tensions between the conflicting parties. On August 12, 2008, Abkhaz and Russian troops occupied the upper Kodori Valley and raised the Georgian flag on the government building in Chchalta.
Web links
- Pictures and stories from the Kodori Valley (en, ru)
- History of the trade route through the Kodori-Tel (en)
- Photo report from the embattled Abkhazian Kodorital
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kodori Under Abkhaz Control , Civil Georgia, Tbilisi, Aug. 12, 2008 11:45 pm, accessed August 15, 2008