An Embattled Enclave Yearns to Be Free (and Liechtenstein)

[Woodmonkey]

TSKHINVALI, Georgia — For the skeptics who raise doubts about their future as an independent state, South Ossetians have one word: Andorra.

The comparison sounded a little strange, looking around this city, the capital of the enclave of South Ossetia, which was burned and battered by Georgian attacks earlier this month. Bullets had torn big chunks out of the pine trees, and the turret of a tank lay upside down in a doorway. Someone had spray-painted the words “Shame, Georgian bootlicker!” on a wall on the main boulevard.

Still, after Russia formally recognized South Ossetia as an independent state, Zalina Tskhovrebova, editor of the city’s largest newspaper, allowed herself to think about the distant, wealth-drenched European principalities of Liechtenstein and Andorra, which are about the size of South Ossetia.

“Of course, I have not been there,” Ms. Tskhovrebova said. “We only know what we have read on the Internet.”

Russia’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent nations has filled people here with hope that other countries will follow. To outsiders, that hope may seem far-fetched; Western leaders have made it clear that they consider the regions part of Georgia.

Critics are particularly skeptical of South Ossetia, whose population of around 70,000 is about the same as that of Passaic, N.J. Most of its working-age men have been fighting against the Georgians for years, and the drawn-out conflict has left its economy a shambles.

Nevertheless, a building has been designated for the city’s first embassy, which will belong, naturally, to Russia. And Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, directly addressed South Ossetia’s smallness in a news conference.

“There are at least half a dozen U.N. members whose population is less than the population of South Ossetia,” Mr. Lavrov said. “I believe the smallest U.N. member state’s population has some 9,000 members.”

This city has been the site of sporadic fighting for 18 years, culminating in five days of fierce shelling the second week of August. People here are still deeply shaken by the attacks. Attending a boisterous rally on Wednesday, Gulo Pukhayeva, 46, said that for two days, her neighbor’s body lay on the street in the late-summer heat, but Georgian soldiers were posted in tanks at the intersection and they were too afraid to pick up the body. Recalling it, she began to cry.

But Elionora Bedoyeva, South Ossetia’s minister for youth affairs and tourism, was preparing to once again pitch the region as an eco-tourism destination. Her efforts to date have been unsuccessful, she acknowledged with wry good humor. Last year, she organized a booth at a tourism fair in Moscow and persuaded one group of young people to come to South Ossetia on vacation.

“We were so poor that we found each other quickly,” she said. They were the first group of tourists to visit since 1990, when the conflict against Georgia began. They arrived in late July and, unfortunately, got caught in a cross-fire and fled the country.

The mountains here are untouched by heavy industry, she pointed out. Besides, young Ossetian men have been carrying out military operations in the mountains for years, she said, and would make wonderful guides. She talked about starting a ski resort, and it was clear that her competitive juices were flowing.

Sochi, the wildly popular resort on the Black Sea, “has snow for four months a year,” she said.

“We have it for seven.”

With Russian aid pouring into Tskhinvali, it was beginning to take on a new aspect.

Two weeks ago, the air was thick with dust and debris, and bodies lay uncollected in the streets. On Thursday, teams of young Russian men were swarming around a few damaged buildings, wearing neat uniforms with labels that said “Special Construction.” They were cutting glass to replace windows, putting coral-colored paint on a primary school and spackling hundreds of bullet holes. A caravan of trucks passed through town, distributing “Genuine Russian Bread” and a popular Moscow daily, “Russian Newspaper.”

The Soviet-era House of Printing has been remade into an International Press Center, and journalists now receive press accreditation by the “State Commission for Information and Press of the Republic of South Ossetia.” An exhibit titled “Genocide” appeared this week, with photos of injured children and burned and mangled bodies.

There was no glass in most of the windows, though, and the bathrooms remained a reminder that a war had occurred.

“I would like it to maximally resemble civilization,” said Alexei Martynov, who runs the press center. Despite the dust and heat, Mr. Martynov appears every day in a fresh business suit and tie, providing a contrast with the thick-necked Ossetian militiamen who lounge in front of the building, Kalashnikovs propped beside them.

Mr. Martynov — the director of a nonprofit group in Moscow called the International Institute for Newly Established States — said it was time for South Ossetia to shrug off of its warrior mentality and usher in a period of “managers and engineers.” He said it could prove to be a model for a number of “states with unclear political status,” like Transnistria, a breakaway region of Moldova that has also moved to reunite with Russia. One possibility would be to make it a tax haven, a strategy that has worked for Monaco, Andorra and Liechtenstein, he said.

“Why can’t Liechtenstein be here?” he said. “The only difference is that they are in the center of Europe. They have the Alps. We have the Caucasus.”

The Source