Adjara is unique in the post-Soviet world, with a successful transformation out of poverty. Under the leadership of its President, Aslan Abashidze, this small part of Georgia, about 10 per cent of the nation’s population and only four per cent of the land area, has risen above the rest of the global transition economies to create a stable environment for investment, commerce and secure living conditions. It is also a crime free bastion in the midst of an otherwise dangerous part of the world.

Because its geography placed the region in a crucial borderland, the dividing territory between the old Russian Empire and the fiefdoms of the Ottomans, history has been both benevolent and uncharitable to Adjara. This part of West Georgia was actually under the control of one family, the Abashidze ancestors of the current elected President for two centuries ending around 1600. Then it came under domination of the Ottoman Empire. When the Turks lost on the battlefields against the Russians in the early part of the 20th Century, Adjara came under Russian domination, along with the larger Georgian nation. At this point, however, the region was placed in its state of autonomy, a condition from which it benefits to this day.

President Abashidze is widely appreciated by his people, originally because he was able to avoid the armed conflict and outright civil war that plagued the rest of Georgia at the breakup of the Soviet Union. The population also knows that the standard of living in Adjara is considerably better than in the rest of Georgia and possibly the most pleasant of any of the 25 or more transitional economies, undergoing the change from state ownership to a market economy. Abashidze attributes this to good policy planning and implement of conditions to support job creation and business development. He is also the kind of leader who knows how to pave the roads, build parks, collect taxes and run a government. This also makes Adjara fairly unique among post-Soviet governing entities.

It is a beautiful little land, entered along the Black Sea Coast either from Turkey in the West or from the rest of Georgia to the East. The visitor arriving by train or by car from Georgia’s capital of Tbilisi is thrilled at the first sight of the beautiful Black Sea and cannot help but delight in the immediate transformation from the continental European climate to one Mediterranean in its softness and lushness. After passing through the beach resort of Kobuleti, today Georgia’s finest, and coasting along miles of beachfront, one arrives in the Adjarian capital of Batumi.

Batumi is dominated by its extremely busy seaport, a beautiful and expansive beachfront city park and a whole town of clean, well-maintained office and residential buildings. This is remarkable only in contrast with the decaying structures of the rest of Georgia. A fine arts Museum, beautiful university buildings and a bustling city life provide relief to the traveler worn from the poverty of the post-Soviet Caucasus.

President Abashidze was chosen President of the Autonomous Region receiving a large majority popular vote in 2001 elections. With his political party, Revival, maintaining a significant majority in the Regional Parliament, Abashidze had the choice to seek the Presidency through a Parliamentary selection process. To ensure that his Presidency would have a broad and deep legitimacy he asked that the election be by direct popular vote. Earlier Abashidze has served as head of the governing Supreme Council, the instrument of government that provided leadership during the period beginning with the end of the Soviet Union. “Our democracy is based on direct election of the bicameral Parliament, direct election of the President and the same process for choosing city and village officials,” says Abashidze.

The region has a broad culture of business and commerce, much of it based on agriculture and on sea-related industry. With the sub-tropical climate, there are large tea plantations and very significant citrus production. The region produces oranges, grapefruit, lemons, kiwi, tangerines and other fruit in abundance. Wine is also an important product.

Large manufacturing facilities for boat building and general construction are present, as well as one of the world’s significant seaports and a huge terminal for oil storage and transport.

As the main land port of entry into Georgia from Turkey, the country’s second largest trading partner, Adjara has the responsibility for collecting customs duties and administering theborder.

All of this activity is undertaken in such an orderly fashion that Abashidze’s Adjara seems more like a first world region than part of the still developing Georgia. President Abashidze says public service is a tradition he has inherited from his family’s sense of responsibility down through the centuries. To a contemporary observer, the positive results seem to derive not only from a sense of family destiny but also from strong leadership skills, a deep sense of history and the application of common sense to the process of government.