Fourteen such schools, staffed mostly by teachers originally from Abkhazia, teach an estimated 5,000 children throughout Georgia. The schools fall under the administration of the Abkhaz Ministry of Education and Culture in Exile, part of the Tbilisi-loyal Abkhaz government based in the Georgian capital.
US Vice President Joseph Biden's July 22-23 visit to Tbilisi may have been more about show than results, but for Georgians wearied by war and wary of Russia that show of support was all that mattered.
A controversy in the remote mountainous region of Racha is highlighting the fact that in some areas of Georgia, the border separating Georgian and Russian forces is blurred.
In the nine months since international donors agreed to give Georgia $4.5 billion in war-recovery aid, Tbilisi has taken in nearly half of that sum. These days, monitors are busy examining how Tbilisi is employing the funds.
Georgia is hoping the European Union will help keep the peace in the sensitive border areas near the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But a recent tour with European Union monitors suggests that Tbilisi's expectations may be too high.
According to the most recent projections, Georgia's economy will contract by 1.5 percent this year. This estimate establishes a trend of declining economic expectations. Calculations released in April by the Georgian government projected 2.5 percent growth for 2009, based largely on $4.5 billion in pledged foreign aid that began trickling into the economy late last year.
