Sukhumi

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Destroyed shop in Sukhumi

Sukhumi (Georgian: სოხუმი, Sokhumi; Abkhaz: Аҟəа, Aqwa; Russian: Сухуми, Sukhumi) is the capital of Abkhazia, a de facto independent republic, which is internationally recognized as being an autonomous republic within Georgia. The city has a long and eventful history. It heavily suffered during the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict in the early 1990s.

1 Naming
2 General information
3 History
4 Monuments
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Naming

In Georgian, the city is spelled Sokhumi (Georgian: სოხუმი), spelling used by some English sources as well, incuding Encyclopaedia Britannica^[1] and MSN Encarta^[2]. However, the most widely used name for the city is Sukhumi, a Russian transliteration of the city's official name. Another Abkhaz variant of the city's name, when they speak and write Russian, is Sukhum (Russian: Сухум, a spelling once preferred in Imperial Russia^[3]).

[edit] General information

A satellite image of Sukhumi.

Sukhumi is located on a wide bay of the eastern coast of the Black Sea and serves as a port, rail junction and a holiday resort. It is known for its beaches, sanatoriums, mineral-water spas and semitropical climate. Sukhumi is also an important air link for Abkhazia, as the Sukhumi Dranda Airport is located nearby the city. Sukhumi contains a number of small-to-medium size hotels serving chiefly the Russian tourists. The city also maintains historic botanical gardens, established in 1840. Until 1992, it remained a multi-cultural city, where nine different languages were spoken.

The city has a number of research institutes, the State University of Abkhazia and the Sukhumi Branch of the Tbilisi State University (currently functioning in Tbilisi). In Soviet times, it contained a renowned ape breeding station. From 1945 to 1954, the city's electron physics laboratory was involved in the Soviet program to develop nuclear weapons.

[edit] History

The Suhum-Kale fort in the early 19th century.

The history of the city began in the mid-6th century BC when an earlier settlement of the second and early first millennia BC, frequented by local Colchian tribes, was replaced by the Milesian Greek colony of Dioscurias (Greek: Διοσκουριός), geographically the remotest that Miletus ever established. The city is said to have been so named for the Dioscuri, the twins Castor and Pollux of classical mythology. It became busily engaged in the commerce between Greece and the indigenous tribes, importing wares from many parts of Greece, and exporting local salt and Caucasian timber, linen, and hemp. It was also a prime center of slave trade in Colchis. The city and its surroundings were remarkable for the multitude of languages spoken in its bazaars.

Although the sea made serious inroads upon the territory of Dioscurias, it continued to flourish until its conquest by Mithridates VI Eupator of Pontus in the later second century BC. Under the Roman emperor Augustus (known in Greek as Sebastos) the city assumed the name of Sebastopolis. But its prosperity was past, and in the first century AD Pliny the Elder described the place as virtually deserted though the town still continued to exist during the times of Arrian in the 130s.^[4] The remains of towers and walls of Sebastopolis have been found underwater; on land the lowest levels so far reached by archaeologists are of the first and second centuries AD. In 542 the Romans evacuated the town and demolished its citadel to prevent it from being captured by Sassanid Iran. In 565, however, the emperor Justinian I restored the fort and Sebastopolis continued to remain one of the Byzantine strongholds in Colchis until being sacked by the Arab conqueror Marwan II in 736.

Cotton field of Sukhum Botanical Garden in 1912.

Afterwards, the town came to be known as Tskhumi, a toponym which is frequently related to the Svan for "hot".^[5] Georgian scholars sometimes explain it as meaning the "hornbeam tree" in Georgian. Restored by the kings of Abkhazia from the Arab devastation, it particularly flourished during Georgia’s "golden age" in the 12th-13th centuries, when Tskhumi became a center of traffic with the European maritime powers, particularly with the Republic of Genoa. The Genoese established their short-lived trading factory at Tskhumi early in the 14th century.

The Ottoman navy occupied the town in 1451, but for a short time. Later contested between the princes of Abkhazia and Mingrelia, Tskhumi finally fell to the Turks in the 1570s. The new masters heavily fortified the town and called it Suhumkale, with kale meaning "fort" but the first part of the name of disputed origin. It may represent Turkish su, "water", and kum, "sand", but is more likely to be an alteration of its earlier Georgian name.^[5] At the request of the pro-Russian Abkhazian prince, the town was stormed by the Russian Marines in 1810 and turned, subsequently, into their major outpost in the North West Caucasus. Sukhumkale was declared the seaport in 1847 and directly joined the Russian Empire in 1864. During the Russo-Turkish War, 1877–1878, the town was temporarily controlled by the Ottoman forces and the Abkhaz-Adyghe rebels.

A House of the Government of Abkhazia, destroyed in the Abkhaz offensive on September 27 1993, still stands in ruins.

Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, the town and Abkhazia in general, engulfed into the chaos of the Russian Civil War. A short-lived Bolshevik government was suppressed in May 1918 and Sukhumi was incorporated into the Democratic Republic of Georgia as a residence of the autonomous People's Council of Abkhazia and the headquarters of the Georgian governor-general. The Red Army and the local revolutionaries took the city from the Georgian forces on March 4 1921, and declared Soviet rule. Sukhumi functioned as the capital of the "Union treaty" Abkhazian Soviet Socialist Republic associated with the Georgian SSR from 1921 until 1931, when it became the capital of the Abkhazian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic within the Georgian SSR. By 1989, Sukhumi had 110,000 inhabitants and was one of the most prosperous cities of Georgia. Many holiday dachas for Soviet leaders were situated there.

Sukhumi was a centre of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict from 1989 to 1993 which damaged much of the city. During the Abkhaz siege of Sukhumi (1992-1993), the city and its environs suffered almost daily air strikes and artillery shellings, with heavy civilian casualties.^[6] The battle for Sukhumi was concluded by a full-scale campaign of the ethnic cleansing against its majority Georgian population in the fall of 1993. Although the city has been relatively peaceful and partially rebuilt, it is still suffering the after-effects of the war, and it has not regained its earlier ethnic diversity.

[edit] Monuments

Sukhumi houses a number of historical monuments, notably the Beslet arcaded bridge built during the reign of queen Tamar of Georgia in the 12th century. It also retains visible vestiges of the defunct monuments, including the Roman walls, the 11th-century castle of Bagrat III, several towers of the Great Abkhazian Wall constructed by the early modern Mingrelian and Abkhazian princes amid their territorial disputes; the 14th-century Genoese fort, and the 18th-century Ottoman fortress. The 11th century Kaman Church (12 km from Sukhumi) is erected, according to tradition, over the tomb of Saint John Chrysostom. Some 22 km from Sukhumi lies New Athos with the ruins of the medieval city of Anacopia. The Neo-Byzantine New Athos Monastery was constructed here in the 1880s on behest of Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Northward in the mountains is the Voronya Cave, the deepest in the world.