Once again, Abkhazia is experiencing rolling blackouts, which have already become a long-standing and familiar tradition. Every winter the same thing happens, and despite fierce debates and the existence of an entire small library of various projects and concepts aimed at saving Abkhazia’s energy sector, as the saying goes, things remain exactly where they were.

I will reveal a small secret to Abkhazians: everything will be exactly the same next winter, and the winter after that, and from now on and forever, unless the approach to energy demonstrated by Abkhaz society is radically reconsidered.

The main mistake lies in the fundamental principle that is considered a priority by absolutely everyone: “the energy system must belong to the Abkhaz people.” This is an inherently unworkable condition, as the many years of experience of the USSR clearly demonstrated: nothing in this world ever “belongs to the people.” Everything always has a specific owner—if it is a private company, it is an owner or shareholder; if it is a state asset, it is a government official who will try to extract as much value from it as possible until someone else is appointed.

Nothing belongs to the Abkhaz people, and nothing can belong to them. This is a very simple idea, but Abkhaz society has not yet matured enough to understand it.

The Abkhaz attitude toward energy is also based on several other misconceptions that make the restoration of the energy system practically impossible.

From the principle that “energy must belong to the people,” axiom number two naturally follows—no private investors. Energy facilities must not be sold to private owners, and if an exception is allowed, it should be accompanied by various conditions. For example, one “expert” allowed the possibility of privatizing energy facilities only if they leave half of the energy they produce to the state.

In other words, in Abkhazia, investments are confused with charity, and it is believed that operating the energy system for profit categorically contradicts the postulates of “apsuara.”

Abkhaz society also categorically opposes any increase in electricity tariffs. I have long followed this issue but have yet to encounter a single Abkhazian—perhaps with the exception of Aslan Bzhania—who recognizes one absolutely undeniable truth: the cost of electricity in Abkhazia is so low that it is no longer even amusing. Add to this the fact that almost no one pays even this laughable tariff.

In this context, only one question arises: how is Abkhazia’s energy sector still alive and functioning at all? In theory, there should long since have been nothing left of it.

There are no practical arguments behind the completely irrational desire of Abkhazians to preserve implausibly low electricity tariffs. In addition to the idea that “energy must belong to the people,” there is another argument that everyone considers unassailable. “Before raising tariffs, raise salaries,” all Abkhazians say without exception, believing that this leaves nothing to object to.

In fact, there is a rebuttal. What does the level of salaries have to do with electricity? Electricity is a commodity with its own price, and the level of salaries in a country is not, strictly speaking, the concern of energy providers. That is an entirely different field.

Why does no one come up with the symmetrical idea of demanding lower bread prices? It is just as much a market commodity as electricity, so why does the same principle not apply to it? Is electricity more important? Have you tried living without bread? Try it—and life without electricity will not seem so frightening.

I have read dozens of statements by various Abkhaz experts, some of whom even dare to call themselves “economists.” Their concepts contain everything except economics.

The favorite Soviet toast—“May we have everything, and may we pay nothing for it”—perfectly describes the solutions to the energy crisis proposed by Abkhazians.

I am not an expert and not an economist, and I do not write sophisticated concepts. But I can say with absolute certainty: there will be no relief for Abkhazia’s energy sector without its transfer to a private investor, without a radical increase in tariffs, and without the establishment of a proper accounting system. It is clear that investors can only be Russian, and Abkhazians are reluctant to hand over crumbling energy assets to them, although in essence these assets are today more liabilities than assets.

Why are Abkhazians afraid to let Russians into the energy system? After losing one’s head, one does not cry over hair. To receive 50 percent of the budget from Russia, to survive on Russian tourists, to use the ruble as currency—in short, to place one’s “country” under Russian care, and then to dig in one’s heels over some power stations? This is not serious.

As for administration, everything should be done roughly the way it is done by the “Zainingurians”: if the deadline for debt repayment expires this evening, the non-payer is disconnected from the grid the very next morning. It does not matter how many small children they have, how seriously ill their mother is, or what their salary is at work. There are no other options.

The eternal Abkhaz desire to conjure change in such a way that everything fixes itself, to preserve the Abkhaz way of life while achieving Austrian standards of living, will very soon end in failure.

I cannot help but recall the history of Georgia’s energy sector, which survived cataclysms compared to which the current restrictions in Abkhazia are mere trifles. In the 1990s, people lived without electricity not for hours but for days—and this was in the capital. In the regions and rural areas, entire generations of children grew up who considered a light bulb in the home to be a useless decoration. At that time, the greatest stroke of luck was to live near a hospital or a bread factory—resourceful citizens tapped into their cables, and as a result, their homes had electricity around the clock, while everyone else sat in complete darkness.

Back then, as in today’s Abkhazia, the population of Georgia considered it vitally important for energy to “belong to the Georgian people.” And so the people managed the energy sector as best they could and as they knew how—everyone stole in their own place. Only after the energy system ceased to belong to the Georgian people and acquired a specific owner did the electricity outages stop.

Abkhazia will either follow this path or one day remain in complete darkness.

Tengiz Ablotia