Abkhazia

Abkhazia was the great seaside holiday destination of the Soviet Union (every Soviet Premier from Stalin to Gorbachev built dachas along the coast) where white limbed Russians came to sun themselves under the pine trees along the pebble beaches of the Black Sea. The capital Sukhumi still carries the faded old-lady grandeur of its art nouveau hotels and luxurious Soviet sanatoria, but many of the buildings remain pock marked by shellfire since the Abkhaz-Georgian war of the early 90s. Ethnic violence pushed a quarter of a million Georgians out of Abkhazia (despite a 40% intermarriage rate) and none have been able to return.