There’s an entrance to the town. A small gate in a fence topped with barbed wire, beyond which lies a swamp, formed from the sewage of nearby villages and the raging sea of recent days. On the other side—an out-of-season resort. Anaklia.

That’s what it’s called now. Before, it was Anakria. That’s in Mingrelian. From the Abkhaz word akra—meaning lighthouse. Or perhaps from the Greek ἄκρον—meaning cape. But a Mingrelian legend says it means “Anna cries”. Because her son was taken into slavery by the Ottoman Empire.

Now, Anakria is a city with developed tourist infrastructure and modern architecture. Towering over it are huge structures resembling the stone stacks people leave on beaches, alongside piles of trash that remain abundant despite the absence of people. These towers were meant to attract waves of tourists year-round. Yet even during beach season, the town—compared to Batumi, Georgia’s main beach resort—remains empty. A real ghost town.

Maybe it’s due to its proximity to Abkhazia, occupied de facto by Russia after the recent war. Or perhaps it’s because the main figure behind Anaklia’s development project, former president Saakashvili, is dying in prison.

Either way, both Anakria and I, each in our own form of exile, have been cast aside by the grand spectacle of political games, onto the margins of economic interests of elites in both East and West, at whose borders Anakria and I find ourselves. Perhaps, for this reason, I found a brief peace in Anakria, if only for a while—a chance to reflect on the personal and the collective, mirrored in the history of this small town that has witnessed great events since the time of Colchis.

Welcome to a story about cows living in the bushes, hundreds of ducks mysteriously dying as they plot their revenge, and stray dogs who have found happiness in their solitude.