Gagra is a town in Abkhazia, Georgia’s breakaway republic, sprawling for 5 km on the northeast coast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains.
It had a population of 26,636 in 1989, but this has fallen considerably due to ethnic-cleansing and mass expulsion of ethnic Georgians from Abkhazia.
According to the Georgian scholars, Gagra is derived from Gakra meaning walnut in the Svan language.
According to the Soviet sports tourism master Bondaryev, the name of the city originates from the local Gagaa clan.
The town was established as a Greek colony called Triglite, inhabited by Greeks and Colchians. It came under the control of the kingdom of Pontus in the 1st century BC before being absorbed by the Roman Empire, which renamed the town as Nitica. Its geographical position led the Romans to fortify the town, which was repeatedly attacked by Goths and other invaders.
The name "Gagra" appears for the first time on a map of 1308 made by the Italian Pietro Visconti, which is now in the Library of Saint Mark in Venice.
In the 16th century, Gagra and the rest of Abkhazia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The western merchants were expelled and the town entered a prolonged period of decline, with much of the local population fleeing into the mountains. By the 18th century the town had been reduced to little more than a village surrounded by forests and disease-ridden swamps. Its fortunes were restored in the 19th century when the Russian Empire expanded into the region, annexing Abkhazia.The town suffered badly in the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878, when Turkish troops invaded, destroyed the town and expelled the local population. Russia won the war, however, and rebuilt Gagra again.
Having raised a large sum of money from the government, he built himself a palace there and constructed a number of other buildings in an eclectic variety of styles from around Europe. A park was laid out with tropical trees and even parrots and monkeys imported to give it an exotic feel.Despite the expensive work, the resort was not initially a success, although it did later attract a growing number of foreign tourists visiting on cruises of the Black Sea.In the Russian Revolution of 1905, a local uprising produced a revolutionary government in the town, which founded a short-lived Republic of Gagra. This was soon defeated and the revolutionaries arrested en masse. The First World War a few years later was a disaster for Gagra, destroying the tourist trade on which it depended.
In the late 1980s, tensions grew between the Georgian and Abkhazian communities in the region. All-out war erupted between 1992-1993 which ended in a defeat of the Georgian government's forces. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians were expelled from their homes in Abkhazia in an outbreak of mass ethnic cleansing in which thousands of Georgian civilians were massacred.
The resort grew and was developed intensively as part of the "Soviet Riviera".
It had a population of 26,636 in 1989, but this has fallen considerably due to ethnic-cleansing and mass expulsion of ethnic Georgians from Abkhazia.
According to the Georgian scholars, Gagra is derived from Gakra meaning walnut in the Svan language.
According to the Soviet sports tourism master Bondaryev, the name of the city originates from the local Gagaa clan.
The town was established as a Greek colony called Triglite, inhabited by Greeks and Colchians. It came under the control of the kingdom of Pontus in the 1st century BC before being absorbed by the Roman Empire, which renamed the town as Nitica. Its geographical position led the Romans to fortify the town, which was repeatedly attacked by Goths and other invaders.
The name "Gagra" appears for the first time on a map of 1308 made by the Italian Pietro Visconti, which is now in the Library of Saint Mark in Venice.
In the 16th century, Gagra and the rest of Abkhazia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. The western merchants were expelled and the town entered a prolonged period of decline, with much of the local population fleeing into the mountains. By the 18th century the town had been reduced to little more than a village surrounded by forests and disease-ridden swamps. Its fortunes were restored in the 19th century when the Russian Empire expanded into the region, annexing Abkhazia.The town suffered badly in the Russo-Turkish War, 1877-1878, when Turkish troops invaded, destroyed the town and expelled the local population. Russia won the war, however, and rebuilt Gagra again.
Having raised a large sum of money from the government, he built himself a palace there and constructed a number of other buildings in an eclectic variety of styles from around Europe. A park was laid out with tropical trees and even parrots and monkeys imported to give it an exotic feel.Despite the expensive work, the resort was not initially a success, although it did later attract a growing number of foreign tourists visiting on cruises of the Black Sea.In the Russian Revolution of 1905, a local uprising produced a revolutionary government in the town, which founded a short-lived Republic of Gagra. This was soon defeated and the revolutionaries arrested en masse. The First World War a few years later was a disaster for Gagra, destroying the tourist trade on which it depended.
In the late 1980s, tensions grew between the Georgian and Abkhazian communities in the region. All-out war erupted between 1992-1993 which ended in a defeat of the Georgian government's forces. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Georgians were expelled from their homes in Abkhazia in an outbreak of mass ethnic cleansing in which thousands of Georgian civilians were massacred.
The resort grew and was developed intensively as part of the "Soviet Riviera".
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