I have never been to Abkhazia — despite my fairly advanced age. My first contact with it was a Pepsi bottled in Sukhumi; my second was a Sukhumi Marlboro. My friends and I noted with pleasure that it was clearly better than the Swiss variety you could get in Tbilisi. Of course, we immediately added, the American one is better still — but that's in a league of its own.

What my third contact was — I won't say just yet. For now, let me first recall how, several months ago, we were all laughing at yet another conspiracy theory from the KGB of the "Republic of South Ossetia." Their analysts had "discovered" that the Tbilisi Lugar Laboratory was conducting experiments on mosquitoes, bats, and so on. And to what end? For what purpose? Medical? No — for the creation of "combat" and "remotely controlled" bats and even mosquitoes. Presumably to use them to destroy the armed forces of the "Republic of South Ossetia" and their Russian allies — since it is obviously beyond the power of the Georgian army alone — and thereby restore Georgia's territorial integrity by such means.

We had a good laugh. But then it occurred to us that there was a time when we in Tbilisi also believed all kinds of nonsense. For instance, that the earthquakes in Georgia were the work of Russian military personnel from the Eshera laboratory. In 2002, Tbilisi was shaken very badly — and the conspiracy theories began to flow.

Over recent years I have come to know several Abkhazians — online. Almost all of them asked me about the Lugar Laboratory. Hardly surprising: after all, it was not so long ago that Lavrov himself was thundering against Tbilisi on this very subject — implying that those wretched Americans in Georgia were plotting to inflict harm on Russia (the Foreign Minister was practically hinting directly that the Americans had created the coronavirus in "Lugar"). And Lavrov knows perfectly well that Georgian doctors have long been running the laboratory — it simply continues to bear the name of an American senator. If it were renamed the "Matviyenko Laboratory," I suppose everyone would calm down.

Understanding that people in Abkhazia mostly watch Russian television channels, I explained to everyone why all these rumors and accusations could not possibly be true. Then, when the coronavirus raged and the Lugar Laboratory became a primary weapon against the insidious disease, the rumors and accusations gradually faded. This happens very often: it takes misfortune to make the elementary obvious.

By the end of the 1980s, Georgia was living splendidly compared to the rest of the Soviet Union. Our people had adapted brilliantly to the corrupt system and many had become near-millionaires. The football team won the Cup Winners' Cup; our artists were received with standing ovations across Europe. And against this backdrop a saying emerged: "If anyone is good, it's the Georgians."

And now I will tell you what my third contact with Abkhazia was. It was two coffins containing the bodies of my classmates, who had been killed there in the war. They had barely finished secondary school when they left for the front in the very first days. They had no idea how to fight.

One of the worst misfortunes that can befall a state is a lost war — especially when defeat means losing land you consider your own. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we Georgians — who considered ourselves the best in the world — lost all our wars. We lost, among other things, thanks to Russian interference — but this does not change the fact of defeat. And alongside that came economic ruin, which hit all the harder after the sweet Brezhnev years of corruption.

The 1990s were a horror one does not wish to remember now. But they served as a lesson: we understood that we were nothing special, and that everything needed to be rethought from scratch. And gradually, rethought it was — both our attitude toward ourselves and toward the rest of the world. We understood that a small country without oil and gas must work, as they say, without rest; and that no one owes us anything. Thank God, we also understood that a bad peace is always better than a good war.

Recently, war flared up again in Karabakh with renewed force. It will bring nothing new. Azerbaijan will probably regain control over a couple of districts — and that will be that. Otherwise, nothing but yet another surge of mutual hatred between our two neighbors. Someone might think Georgia benefits from this. It does not — not in the least — even from purely pragmatic considerations. For Georgia feeds itself on tourism and transit, and therefore needs peace in the region.

Recently I watched a historical series. One of the characters — a King of France — repeatedly said: "War is the business of fools." Unfortunately, the wisdom of those words is hard to grasp until you have personally experienced all the horror and idiocy of war. Again, it takes misfortune to make the elementary obvious.

I have often witnessed Armenians and Azerbaijanis meeting on neutral territory — mostly here in Georgia. At first they insulted one another, but then, gradually, as they began to listen to each other, they discovered that on the other side stood ordinary, normal human beings just like themselves. By the next day they were drinking together. It was a miracle — and that miracle was wrought by contact between ordinary people.

I know that until there is contact, we will continue laughing at the latest revelations from the KGB of the "Republic of South Ossetia." But in reality, it is not funny at all. People live literally next door to one another and believe such things. It is not funny, and something must be done about it. And it does not matter that someone is probably deliberately feeding both Tskhinvali and Sukhumi with nonsense and disinformation. We all suffer from it, and it is we who must clear it all up.

Tornike Sharashenidze

Opinions expressed in the publication reflect the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the editorial board.

The material was prepared as part of a joint project of the Accent news agency and the non-governmental organization GRASS, implemented with the financial support of the Embassy of the Czech Republic in Georgia.