‘National Traitors’ in Moscow in 2004 Prevented Adjaria from Becoming an Unrecognized State, Amelina Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 9 – “Fifteen years ago, on May 6, 2004,” Yana Amelina says, “Moscow without even attempting to defend its national interests handed over Adjaria, therefore finally unleashing the hands of Mikhail Saakashivili and opening the road to Georgian aggression against South Ossetia,” in an act she calls “the last success of national traitors” in Moscow. 

            But that “tragedy,” one that still rankle, the Russian political scientist who specializes on the Caucasus says, led to a turning point in Russian history, one that has resulted in victory after victory for Moscow and its interests in the years since that time (kavkazgeoclub.ru/content/15-let-sdachi-adzharii-posledniy-uspeh-nacional-predateley).

            In the case of Adjaria in 2004, Moscow was overly deferential to the West and overly influenced by the color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia, betrayed its ally in Adjaria and ultimately closed down the Russian military base there. But precisely because this betrayal and its consequences were so obvious, Russia changed.

            “After the Adjar shame,” Amelina argues, “Russia was no longer afraid of anyone.” Consequently in 2008, it “completed the recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.” In 2014, it absorbed Crimea. And now, “the Kremlin no longer pays attention to world ‘public opinion’ and Western sanctions, thus making itself virtually invulnerable.”

            In short, the Russian analyst says, these events of 15 years ago “changed the fate of the region, Russia and the entire world.”  (Amelina has explored these events in more detail in a 2015 book, Where are the ‘Rose’ Dreams Heading (in Russian, Vladikavkaz, 330 pp., full text at

kavkazgeoclub.ru/sites/default/files/pdfpreview/gruziya_a5.pdf.)

            The history of the Adjars and Adjaria is complicated. Today, they are classified as an ethnographic group within the Georgian nation; but in the first Soviet census in 1926, they were listed as Ajars, a separate nation rather than as Muslim Georgians as they had been earlier. Today, however, of the 330,000 Adjars, 70 percent are Christian.

            Situated in the southwestern corner of Georgia, Adjaria was long a smuggling center across the border with Turkey; and in the 1990s, Tbilisi’s writ did not run there effectively.  But following the Rose Revolution in 2003, Mikhail Saakashvili called for bringing Adjaria and its independence-minded leader Aslan Abashidze to heel. 

            Protests against Abashidze’s authoritarian rule were followed by a withdrawal of Russian support for him, based largely on the Soviet-Russian military base in Batumi. He went into Russian exile, and Tbilisi moved to restore control over the region, limiting its autonomy and even moving the Georgian Constitutional Court to Batumi.

            Amelina’s article is a reminder of how many Russians still view Adjaria as a potential lever against Tbilisi – and how much they regret that Moscow didn’t understand that and defend its ally there more effectively 15 years ago.