Enclave Hails Tight Embrace From Moscow

Source: NYT

TSKHINVALI, Georgia — The last time South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia — the last three times, actually — hardly anyone noticed. Even Russia, its great friend to the north, declined to take up the cause.

South Ossetia is a piece of mountainous land with a population of around 70,000. The capital, Tskhinvali, is a mess of crumbling apartment blocks, their facades pocked with bullet holes. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has had no economy to speak of, except for apple orchards and illegal trade in drugs, armaments and counterfeit hundred-dollar bills.

But a lot has changed in the last two weeks.

First Georgia, then Russia, sent troops into South Ossetia, making the tiny territory the center of a cold war-style struggle between Russia and the West. On Monday, Tskhinvali residents listened over a loudspeaker in the city’s main square to a live broadcast from Moscow, where the Russian Parliament voted unanimously to support independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a second breakaway region, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast.

The news spread quickly, and people leaned out car windows with Russian and South Ossetian flags, spraying pedestrians with Champagne.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/world/europe/26ossetia.html

russia moved a lot of it's citizens into all of these territories -- and obviously there is resentment in estonia, latvia and -- yes georgia -- to get along with age old borders.

isn't it the same story.

There are some sweetheart people in both of those states, but both states are dominated by some of the most heartless humans in this hemisphere.