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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov I believe Abkhazia's status hasn't changed since 1994, when the conflict more or less ended. There is a large DMZ between Georgian troops and the Abkhaz, and a lot of internally displaced people (mostly ethnic Georgians fleeing Abkhazia) still have no place to settle. The United Nations has a distinct mission to Georgia to try and maintain peace along the DMZ, though skirmishes still take place from time to time.

I actually lived in Sochi for a good portion of my 13 years in Russia, which is about 60 km from Abhkazian border. I got to see a lot of refugees, mostly Georgian of course, settle in our area. Yes, the skirmishes still do occur, and unfortunately, the Russian "peacekeepers" sometimes die in ambushes ...

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Abkhazia has a fully functional government, replete with foreign ministry, though it isn't recognized by anyone. The main task in front of the government is infrastructural, and largely pertains to building schools and other necessary parts of Abkhazian society. Some people believe the Abkhaz government may be more capable of doing that than the Georgian government.

I don't know muych about this, but from what I've read, I have to agree with you on this one. Though the recent change of rule in Georgia might make them a better country.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov As far as Tatarstan... this seems to be a fairly comprehensive site for your basic information. I'm not sure how much historical information is on there... you may have to do more searching for that. -->Link<--

Hehe, I've actually done some research, the results of which were very surprising to me personally. I went to the main Tatarstan website, and read a lot of interesting information about their culture, language (haha, it's Arabic based on Cyrillic letters :wtf, some interesting history pieces and of course, their current status within the Russian Federation.

I was surprised to find out that the Russian government under then Yeltsin actually had a lot of dialogue and they came up to a very good compromise in the Tatarstan independence issue. Tatarstan agreed to remain within Russia in exchange for an autonomous status and greater share of taxes collected and money earned from mineral extracts on the territory of the republic - all of this happened around summer of 1994, before the first Chechen conflict. So I can assume that Russian government tried some dialogue with the Chechens, which as we know ended in no results. Either the Russians wanted too much, or either the Chechens gave a high price to the Russians - whatever happened, the Russian government DID attempt to peacefully secure a deal without the use of force. I dont think Yeltsin was very stupid - he couldn't afford a war at that moment, as his cash-strapped government had many other problems of its own to look after. So you let me know what you think.

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Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov Oh, and Basayev + Azerbaijan more or less lost the war with Armenia. So he's not completely invincible.

Well, sort of ... I have to do some research on that conflict, but from what I know I dont think Armenia won the war by much. Of course, they were backed by the Russians - to date their BIGGEST ally, and I mean Russia's CLOSEST ally in all terms. In fact, from what I've read, Americans tried to buy their way into building a pipeline through Armenia, which was refused. Thats very impressive. Now thats what I call an ally. Both countries have very strong economic relations - several billion dollars every year in trade done between the two countries (hehe, I've tried many of Armenian products in our stores in Sochi, I love their herbal tonics).

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