ABSTRACT
I t was a foggy morning in Samegrelo (also known as Mingrelia), Western Georgia, when I began that long-put-off mission — to investigate the psychological landscape of Georgia’s civil war. The sun rose forebodingly over the white Caucasus to the east and struck the water
tanks of Zugdidi, converting them into silver bubbles floating on a lake of mist. Cockerels crowed, a distant bandsaw made use of the hour or so of ‘wake-up’ electricity before it disappeared for the day. I climbed out of bed, stepped onto the veranda, inhaled the damp air on what was to be one of the most surreal days in my history of visiting the Caucasus.
