Rail transport in Abkhazia

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Abkhazian railways consist of a 185 km main line along the Black Sea coast and a 36 km branch to Tkvarcheli^[1]. It connected Russia's North Caucasus Railway with Georgian railways prior to 1992, however the connexion with Georgia was severed as a result of the War in Abkhazia. The railway is administered by the state-run Abkhazskaya Zheleznaya Doroga (Russian: Абхазская Железная Дорога, Abkhaz: Аҧсны Аиҳаамҩа) company. At the beginning of 2008 there was one regular long-distance train Moscow-Sukhumi and occasional freight traffic. Top level contacts were underway by June 2008 [1]to pursue further reconstruction and technical work was even begun, as the two countries' Presidents discussed by phone. In a separate development, there is also New Athos Subway - an underground electric railroad in the New Athos Cave.

[edit] History

Building a railroad along the Black Sea coast of the Russian Empire was first planned in 19th century. Construction of the Tuapse-Sochi section started during the First World War and was completed in 1923 in spite of the unrest caused by the Russian Civil War. Sochi-Adler, Inguri-Sukhumi (with Tkvarcheli branch) and Adler-Sukhumi sections were completed by 1927, 1940 and 1942 respectively and through traffic began thereafter.

The construction encountered considerable difficulties due to the mountainous nature of some of the railroad's sections. The Abkhazian part of the railway was single track. The Stalinist architecture station houses erected in 1950s were supposed to be some of the most beautiful in the Soviet Union.

Structurally Abkhazian railroad was part of the Trans-Caucasian Railway (that included Georgian SSR and Armenian SSR railways) since 1967.

[edit] Railway in 1990s-2000s

The bridge over Inguri river was blown up on 14 August, 1992, in the day when Georgian forces entered Abkhazia and which is considered the beginning of the War in Abkhazia (the pretext for sending the Georgian National Guard to Abkhazia in 1992 was to protect the railroad^[2]). The bridge was restored and blown up again in 1993 after the end of the war. The track between Ochamchira^[3] (or neighbouring Achagwara^{[citation needed]} ) and border with Georgia was dismantled. The rest of the railways also suffered greatly during the war, however traffic was restored soon after the war had ended. The railway system of Abkhazia was isolated in the 1990s due to the blockade imposed by Russia.

On 25 December 2002 Sochi-Sukhumi elektrichka train made its first voyage since the war which caused Georgian protests^[4]. As the number of Russian tourists increased greatly in the 2000s Sukhumi-Psou (Russian border) section was repaired in 2004 mainly by Russia and on 10 September 2004 Moscow-Sukhumi train came to the capital of Abkhazia.

The Sukhumi-Ochamchira, Sukhumi-Tkvarcheli, Sukhumi-Sochi elektrichkas that operated at some periods since 1993 no longer worked by 2007 due to various infrastructure problems. The last of them, Sukhumi-Gudauta, was closed down on the eve of 2008.^[5]

There have been proposals of restoring destroyed parts of the railway and re-establishing traffic between Russia and Trans-Caucasian countries of Georgia and Armenia (the alternative route through Azerbaijan is significantly longer in case of Georgia and not available at all in case of Armenia due to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict). Georgia has long tied the restoration of traffic with the return of refugees to Abkhazia.^{[citation needed]} By June 2008, the positions may have been thawing (at least tentatively), as Russian and Georgian leaders were discussing reopening the line and Russian workers had even arrived[2] to begin reconstruction works[3] despite tensions over the troubled enclave.

[edit] Sources

• Абхазская Железная Дорога (Abhazian Railways) (Russian)
• История абхазской железной дороги (History of the Abkhazian railway) (Russian)

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