National Geographic on Georgia: Along These Shifting Borders, Life is Full of Unease and Adversity

The National Geographic has released a piece about Russia’s occupation of historic Georgian lands and the being of people beyond the barbed-wire fences. 

Fear, thick and unyielding is a constant for many Georgians living along the shifting borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Russian-supported separatist territories that were once governed by Georgia—and officially still are according to the United States and the majority of the international community. 

Could this be the day they wake up and find that—overnight, without warning—their home now sits on foreign soil and their money is worthless?” reads the story by Alexandra Genova, with the photos of Georgian Daro Sulakauri. 

Sulakauri, who has spent nearly 10 years documenting this volatile region, says it is the "psychological games” imposed on those living on the borderlines that she finds most problematic. As a Georgian child of the nineties, she says tensions with her neighboring country were a pervasive part of her daily life. 

You never know how safe you are,” says Sulakauri. "I felt this when I was walking around visiting the [borderline] villages. There is no one around. If you scream out, no one will hear you.”

Read the full story here.