At the entrance to the cathedral in the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, one Saturday this summer, women kissed the hand of the white-bearded Father Vissarion Apliaa, the self-declared “interim bishop of the Abkhaz Orthodox Church.” Devotional items were displayed on a table near the door, including small pictures of the slain Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family.
The Abkhaz capital of Sukhumi these days amply illustrates French novelist Marcel Proust's maxim that houses are a “fleeting” receptacle for memories. But local authorities are out to prove Proust wrong by launching a campaign to preserve historic homes and restore the resort city’s faded Tsarist-era grandeur.
Michael Emerson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, which is an independent think-tank focused on probing European Union issues through research, debates and publications. This is the second outtake of a 20-minute interview from February 21, 2011.
Michael Emerson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, which is an independent think-tank focused on probing European Union issues through research, debates and publications.
Michael Emerson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, which is an independent think-tank focused on probing European Union issues through research, debates and publications.
It was supposed to be the Las Vegas of Central Asia, a ritzy gambling city on the shores of a man-made lake that would attract high rollers from as far afield as China.
Almaty, the cultural and business center of Kazakhstan, celebrated the spring festival Navruz throughout the city, including a series of concerts attracting thousands of residents and tourists to Astana Square in front of the old parliament building. With balloons for sale by the hundreds, village elders dressed in traditional Kazakh costumes and games of tug-a-war in the crowd, groups of musicians and dancers representing various ethnic and national groups, including Chechen, Cossack, Azeri and Russian, performed throughout the day.
Others gathered in front of the old Academy of Sciences building for camel rides and traditional food including plov (rice pilaf), baursaki (fried dough), shashlik (skewers of grilled mutton) and nauriz köje (yogurt soup made with seven ingredients).
At Republic Square, families strolled with children, admiring the statues dedicated to famous Kazakhs or placing their hands into a bronze book containing the palm print of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and the phrase "Choose and Be Happy." On the top of Kok-Tobe, reached by a cable car from the city, couples embraced on terraces with views across the hazy city as the sun set for the day.
