James Duncan

I awoke to see on the news that more shootings have happened in South Ossetia. Amateur stuff though: there are pictures of houses which have hundreds of bullet holes and the person inside survived when a single aimed shot through the window would have killed them. Sloppy. They also shot civilians, guaranteeing bad press. I'd have ambushed some soldiers and dragged them across the border for pictures and a claim they'd invaded Ossetia in front of the press. Again, governments are lucky their enemies are mostly stupid, depressing though it is regarding the average competence of the population.

We went for a walk around Bakuriani town centre, and got many suspicious looks. The town lacks features such as paved roads and the school has holes in the walls. I was surprised at the looks as this is a ski resort and must have tourists; I assume most of them are Georgian as I was constantly looked at in a hostile way. People keep talking to me in Russian so maybe it's political overspill from Ossetia. The houses are poor, but the mountains are beautiful. I got shots of both.

The drive to Borjomi is back through the same area as before, with poor houses and heart-stoppingly beautiful mountains. The drive has been enlivened by the fact that the Russians are now officially backing the Ossetians and apparently mercenaries are streaming over the Russian border. IMO this could be bad, last time the Russians paid for mercs the Abkhazian war happened. I'll obviously be fine; I can't imagine that the Russians will want to invade Georgia in any major way and it would not be worth the money spent in any case. It's all getting a bit more serious though.