Stephen M. Bland 

Front line in the war with Georgia, much of Gali still lies in ruins

Not a town to get stuck in at night, this scrap metal collector's far pocket bulged with a handgun

You can't beat a Soviet bus stop

Derelict pier on the Black Sea Riviera

In this highly militarised land, monuments to the war dead abound

Abandoned Soviet-era building on the Sukhum seafront

Shoreline of the Abkhaz capital as seen from the burnt-out pier

A placard of Lenin haunts a seafront park

Dilapidated block of flats, used by a guidebook as a landmark

An opportunity to be serenaded Abkhaz style

A Soviet era statue of heftily-built, scantily-clad women stood in front of the half burnt-out Hotel Abkhazia. When I searched the internet for the place, the only listing I could find detailed the building as the “Ministry of Corrections,” which explained a lot

Covered in Led Zeppelin and Motorhead graffiti, the upper deck of the burnt-out pier erratically opened as a bar

Party amidst the ruins; Russian holidaymakers on the Black Sea Riviera

Rusting statue on the promenade of a girl with a gramophone

Shell of the former parliament building, where in September 1993, Abkhaz fighters backed by Chechens and Circassian mercenaries with Russian weaponry killed the remaining Georgian parliamentarians

Old men playing checkers on the promenade shortly before curfew

The monastery at Novy Afon, founded by Russian monks during the Nineteenth Century

Stalactites in the vast underground cave network, a big hit with Russian tourists

Stalacmites in the underground cave network

Eerie crumbling statue on the seafront at Ochamchira

Having had a large ethnically Georgian population before the first Abkhaz War in 1992, 60% of the buildings in Ochamchira remain derelict

Ochamchira Vokzal. With most of the track and overhead lines from here to the border with Georgia having been looted, the station remains abandoned

The waiting room at Ochamchira Vokzal

With all industry in the town having long since shut down, the derelict Oil Extraction Plant is one of numerous abandoned factories