Popular accounts of the Soviet Union generally render it a giant monolith, a nation where independent parts were dissolved for the greater good of the whole. At the time, amidst Cold War politics, the Soviets did everything in their power to encourage this perception, as a show of solidarity.
But the reality on the ground was different. What was portrayed -- in the media, on maps, in text books -- as an immense, unified red block was really a constant struggle, a battle of conflicting ethnicities, languages and religions all under the hammer and scythe.
Georgia was one such region.
For many, knowledge of Georgia starts and ends with Joseph Stalin, the pre-eminent figure of Soviet Communism. Perhaps to demonstrate his commitment to the greater USSR, Stalin ruled Georgia with an iron first, blanketed its people behind the Iron Curtain and squashed any nationalist sentiment and cultural expression.
Image: Russian troops sit in the back of a military truck while driving through the Georgian breakaway region of Abkhazia on the outskirts of the town Gali.
Photograph: Viktor Drachev/AFP/Getty Images
Also read: Russia, Georgia trade accusations over conflict
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