urged to tuck in. The vodka and wine taste good, the dishes are excellent. Slowly the guests at the various tables mix with each other, the music is switched on and the vodka clouds our minds. I sit at one of the long tables, if I remember correctly on the lap of a sweet girl who had introduced herself to me as the princess of Abkhazia. We talk extensively in a mishmash of Russian, English and German. In the middle of our brilliant discussion about God knows what, a young man suddenly comes up to me. ‘Your friend, your friend!’ he warns. Another foreign journalist who has been celebrating the evening with us lies bleeding on the floor. He had been dancing with one of the guests’ girlfriends, and that’s something you shouldn’t do here. We take him back to the UN base. A German doctor, whom we have woken up, examines him grumpily - the alcohol fumes are still hanging around his beard - but despite the blood and blackening eye, he can’t diagnose anything except that ‘this man is drunk.’ Clive the Jamaican - who had also been woken up - looks on helplessly. We go to sleep. Several days later, when the Abkhazians have slept off the drink, we can finally get to work. In good spirits we step over the holes in Sukhumi’s streets, on our way to arrange interviews with some bigwigs. The nice woman from the State Protocol Department listens patiently to our request, in which we give an explanation of the issues that we would like to discuss with some ministers and - maybe, if at all possible - the president? Miss State Protocol picks up her mobile phone, talks briefly with someone on the other end of the line and hangs up. ‘You have an interview with President Bagapsh F in 15 minutes.’ We look at each other bewildered. We hadn’t counted on this. Our smart tailored suits are still hanging in the hotel and I just happen to be wearing my jeans with a ripped crotch - a travel incident. You don’t make a president wait, with or without a hole in your crotch. Quarter of an hour later we enter his office and shake his hand. For an Abkhazian he is a remarkably tall man, with the air of a true statesman; grey hair, an equally grey suit and a serious, self-confident gaze. His office is modestly furnished. There are five telephones on his desk, none of which rings during the whole time that we are there.
F
To Sukhumi
37