Paradise Lost: 20 Years of Independence in Abkhazia

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via Time: http://lightbox.time.com/2012/07/23/paradise-lost-20-years-of-independence-in-abkhazia/#1

This is equally bittersweet for photographer Yuri Kozyrev, who summered in nearby Sochi as a boy, and who remembers, like all children of the Soviet Union, the paradise that was Abkhazia. Imagine: high mountains dive toward a warm sea. Beaches against verdant forests, long promenades lined with ice cream vendors under palm trees.