Abkhazia has a president, a flag, a national anthem and even a visa system for foreign visitors but the country doesn’t appear on any maps. Officially, this small piece of sub-tropical Black Sea coastline with a population today of about 170,000, is a province of Georgia. But since a vicious war in the early 1990s, it has been functioning as an independent state and, in the aftermath of Kosovo’s independence, the Abkhazians hope their statehood will be recognised by the international community. Only four United Nations member states — Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru and Russia— recognize Abkhazia, a small territory on the eastern coast of the Black Sea bordering the Caucasus Mountains. I was drawn to the ambiguity of life in a place not marked on a map when I had visited this country first time in August 2018. Time felt like it had stopped after the break up. Therefore, this former paradise remains unknown to the Western world.