Nobody wins: A visit to post-war Georgia

Louisa Nersisyan and her family are now ‘residents’ of refugee camp.

Editor’s note: In late September the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (www.iwpr.net) organized a visit of Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani reporters to the conflict zone in Georgia to familiarize themselves with life there a month after the shooting has stopped . . . 

Gori and refugees

The three smoking buildings shown across the globe as a proof of the Russian intervention are under reconstruction with the traces of war swept away from them. But on the other side of the town is the refugee camp that speaks of the still unfinished confrontation.

A World Away from Europe: Pankisi gorge shows another face of Georgia

When still in Yerevan, we got a warning from Tbilisi that women must wear headscarves and long dresses in the Pankisi gorge. It was strange to learn that in Georgia, which is seeking membership of the European Union, there is a region where women are subjected to strict religious and patriarchic laws.

A group of journalists from Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Karabakh left for the Pankisi gorge – a haven of international terrorism and bandit gangs until recently – within the framework of the IWPR Cross Caucasus Journalism Network project.

The Kistins, the population of the gorge, are part of the Vaynakh peoples (the Chechens and the Ingush), who differ from Chechens only in some nuances of dialect and make up part of the Chechen teips (Chechen tribal organizations).