На Северном Кавказе депутаты - это декорация. На местах в своих интересах работают князьки – клановые наместники глав республик. Это противоречит Конституции, но за тех, кто пытается выступать в защиту закона, не вступается и ФСБ.
Azerbaijan’s strategy over the disputed, Armenian-held territory of Karabakh is also aimed at eliminating domestic opposition. But the country's rising troubles make this a self-defeating strategy.
Many civilians were killed in the war between the newly independent states of Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. But the disputed period raises larger questions of common suffering, says Gerard Libaridian, adviser to Armenia's president at the time, who reflects on one incident that casts
Europe's politics of migration control are being exported to Georgia with potentially dangerous results, says Gavin Slade.
The conflict in Abkhazia has devastated the landscape. Tourism could be encouraged by restoring some of the old buildings, now in ruins, but ownership is often unclear, so they remain a stark reminder of the desperate need to rebuild the economy, while preserving the architectural legacy, says Max
A flawed presidential vote that confirms the incumbent in power also exposes anew the dysfunction of democracy in post-Soviet states, says Krzysztof Bobinski
The election victory of Bidzina Ivanishvili has reconfigured Georgia's political landscape, dominated by Mikheil Saakashvili since the "Rose Revolution" of 2003. But there are already concerns over what the billionaire leader is doing with his power, says Donald Rayfield.
The first constitutional transfer of power in Tbilisi has implications for an assessment of the immediate past as well as for the future, says Ghia Nodia.
The eve of an election is usually a moment to predict which side might win. But as interesting with regard to Georgia's vote on 1 October 2012 may be to suggest who might lose, says Nino Nanava.
Behind Georgia's prison-abuse scandal lies a large-scale, self-funding penal system whose effects - not least psychological - pervade the society, says Gavin Slade.
The exposure of violent abuse in the Georgian prison system has shocked its people and rocked the government of Mikheil Saakashvili. The intense focus on zero-tolerance and mass incarceration in the criminal-justice system is a key to understanding why it happened, says Gavin Slade.
The Avars are an ancient people living in the mountains of Dagestan (North Caucasus). Many of them are shepherds. The blandishments of modern life are encroaching on their centuries-old way of life, but they have no chance of doing anything else, even military service. Marina Akhmedova spent some
