Sukhumi-Moscow Railway Link to Resume in September

Railway connection between Moscow and Sukhumi – the capital of Georgia?s breakaway region Abkhazia – will be resumed on September 10, RIA Novosti new agency reported on September 2, quoting the Russian railroad department official.

According to the press office of the Russia?s North Caucasian Railway, the tickets are already being sold in Sukhumi.
 
The rail link connecting Georgia and Russia was running through Abkhazia and was broken after Abkhazia de facto seceded from Georgia in a violent conflict in 1992-94.

Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin have agreed to re-open communication between the two countries via Sukhumi in December 2002, with the Georgian side demanding return of the Georgian displaced persons to Abkhazia’s easternmost Gali region as a necessary precondition. Official Tbilisi protests resumption of the railway communication between Moscow and Sukhumi, without Georgian involvement.