LaLa La Photo

Children of Zugdidi

Zugdidi - a Georgian city on the border with Abkhazia, a disputed territory on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. The status of Abkhazia is a main issue of the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict. The 1992-1993 War in Abkhazia forced thousands of Megrelian people living in Abkhazia to leave their homes and seek asylum in the neighboring regions, Samegrelo and Svaneti. Many of them rushed to the closest cities such as Zugdidi. As a result the population of Zugdidi has doubled from 60 up to about 120 thousand. Nearly 20 years later Zugdidi still remains the main center for Internally Displaced People (IDP) in Samegrelo and a base for Georgian soldiers stationed in Abkhazia.

Some of the displaced Megrelians were accommodated in new temporary homes in Samegrelo but also many were taking over abandoned buildings such as administration offices, old schools, hospitals or buildings assigned to them by the Georgian government. In many cases these buildings weren't adapted for living purposes. With time, the Georgian government started building so-called collective centers - residential areas assigned to the Internally Displaced People. However, the provided living conditions are still isolating IDPs from the other Megrelians living in the region and at the same time deepening their major problems - poverty, unemployment, marginalization and lack of perspectives to change their situation. Therefore many of the IDPs consider their situation as a temporary state, still living in the hope that one day they will return to their real homes in Abkhazia. The last two decades they have been living in an "in-between space", between their idyllic past and a possible future coping with the rough present reality. Despite years of negotiations the Abkhazian status dispute has not been resolved.

The inflow of a big number of people has had a remarkable influence on the whole Samegrelo region and its indigenous residents. From one day to another all the resources, jobs, living spaces, infrastructure… has to be shared by many more people. Zugdidi and the whole Samegrelo region got pauperized, which influenced reciprocal relations between the new-comers and the locals. At the moment the number of Internally Displaced People in Samegrelo and Svaneti region is estimated at over 86 000. Although the IDP and the Zugdidi's native residents, as Megrelians they share the same ethnic origin, the IDP are still marginalized and face many problems trying to integrate with the local community. This is also reflected in the situation of their children - living in the same city, they live in two different realities.

The children we photographed within the project live in Zugdidi. They represent both the IDPs as well as the native residents of the city. All of them were born after the 1992-1993 conflict in Abkhazia. The children of the new-comers have never seen their real homes in Abkhazia, although the image of their homeland is passed to them by their families. They were photographed in front of their temporary homes - collective centers and inhabited old buildings. The children of the native residents are students of a private school run by a local NGO called Atinati. They were photographed in Zugdidi's botanical garden, where the tracks of a well designed and maintained park, overgrown and forgotten today, witness the time of better prosperity of the city.

The "Children of Zugdidi" project was made possible thanks to the great help from Atinati - a non-governmental organization based in Zugdidi, which is supporting the Internally Displaced People in the region and the native residents in order to stimulate their activity, creativity and enterprise. Atinati runs a private school called Georgian Learning Centre which is providing an academic environment that encourages students to continue their education in universities. They also run a Foreign Language Learning Centre and a Computer Centre. One of the most successful projects of the organization is a radio station. It covers among other regions also Abkhazia, reaching 1,6 mln potential listeners. Atinati, as the most popular radio in the area, focuses on raising informational awareness of population and trust building in society.

Special thanks goes to: Rusudan Kalichava, the executive head of Atinati, for her great help and ongoing support in the project and to Tako Jvelia, a psychologist at Atinati, for devoting her time and sharing with us her knowledge in order to complete the project.