#akarmara

The ghost town vanishing in a forest. Reclaimed by nature and animals. Villages such as Dzhantukha, Akarmara, Pyataya Shakhta, Polyana and Kharchilava are located in Abkhazia’s coal basin.

Dzhantukha is the most populous of the ‘ghost towns’ — it has about fifty inhabitants. There are around 38 living in Akarmara, with similar numbers in the other villages.

The khrushchyovkas with a family or two living inside are marked out by laundry drying on their balconies. Every family also does its own subsidiary farming — they breed cattle, keep bees, and grow vegetables. Otherwise it’s hard to make ends meet.

Two young girls, aged seven, peek out from a window in one ruined house. They immediately hide upon noticing the camera in my hands.

‘Our mum forbade us to be photographed’, one of them says.

‘Why?’

‘She forbade it and that’s all’.