Russian aggression in Georgia, august 2008

Teachers In Abkhazia's Gali District Under Pressure To Give Up Georgian Language

By Eka Kevanishvili

TBILISI, March 20, 2009 (RFE/RL) -- Schoolteachers in the southern Gali district of Abkhazia have long been accustomed to operating on a shoestring.

For them, the free delivery of brand-new textbooks should be cause for elation. Unless, that is, the textbooks are in Russian.

Teachers in Gali, the one district in breakaway Abkhazia where at least 40,000 ethnic Georgians are believed to be living, say they are coming under pressure from local officials to drop all Georgian-language instruction and give up their standard textbooks.