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Scarred South Ossetia penniless, shaky year after war
Tue Aug 4, 2009 9:28am EDT
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By Amie Ferris-Rotman and Nikolai Pavlov
TSKHINVALI, Georgia (Reuters) - Under a lattice of green grapes dappling their courtyard, a Georgian-Ossetian couple sees a future with Russia for the tiny rebel region over which Tbilisi and Moscow fought a brief war a year ago.
"I don't care if South Ossetia becomes part of another country, such as Russia," said Grigory Loladze, 71, an ethnic Georgian born in the rebel region's capital Tskhinvali.
His South Ossetian wife Zamira, perched on a stool beside their plot of cucumbers, agreed: "We just don't want war."
Russia crushed a Georgian assault last August and sent tanks into Georgia proper, pushing relations with the United States to a post-Cold War low. Moscow then recognized the tiny enclave on the slopes of the Caucasus mountains as an independent state.
A year later, tensions are still high in South Ossetia, and the signs of conflict are omnipresent.
Shattered cement crumbles off government doorways damaged last August and electricity and water shortages are common.
Moscow's backing initially spurred dreams of statehood, but widespread poverty and thousands of homeless have since led the pine-covered statelet to change its tune.
Pro-Russia billboards -- "Forever with Russia!" and "Ossetia is indivisible" -- pepper the ravaged landscape.
Ethnically different from Georgians, South Ossetians say they have been separated from their fellow people in North Ossetia in Russia, who share the same Farsi-related language.
The leaking, four-km (2.5 mile) Rocky Tunnel from North Ossetia is now the only official way into the region.
Once resplendent with Georgian fruits, meat and cheeses traded by Georgians, sellers in Tskhinvali's sole market, where dimly lit stalls are perched in mud, peddle what is left from South Ossetia's dwindling agricultural industry as the roads to Georgia proper have been closed.
"South Ossetia belongs with Russia, with our own people," Liuda Zhdanova, 54, said, perusing the meager offerings.
Unlike Abkhazia, another Georgian rebel region on the Black Sea which Moscow also recognized, South Ossetia has no tourist industry and its population is just 63,000. The rest of the world, apart from Nicaragua, consider both regions as part of Georgia.
FEARS OF INSTABILITY
Western powers worry the impoverished region could destabilize the South Caucasus, which hosts oil and gas pipelines that flow to the West. Continued...
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