Rafał Milach, Anaklia, Georgia (c) 2013. Courtesy: the artist.
An unfinished viewing tower. In 2011, President Micheil Saakashvili
visited Anaklia, a village located on the Black Sea. He conferred town
rights on it and announced the beginning of an ambitious development
programme which would transform it into a luxury resort. Resplendent
with lavish glamour, Anaklia was intended both to become the new
authorities’ political flagship and to compensate for the nearby city
of Sukhumi, which was lost during the Georgian-Russian-Abkhazian
conflict of the early nineteen nineties. Construction work began
in 2012. After Saakashvili’s party was defeated in the parliamentary
election of 2013 and Saakashvili himself fled the country, the work was
discontinued and the colossal building site rapidly transformed into
crumbling ‘modern’ ruins.