posted 5 years ago
I think it is time to finally introduce myself and our project here.
I decided to focus on Permaculture after seeing how Physics can't really solve actual problems anymore. Real world problems are apparently not interesting in the scientific community.
With that came the search for a place to do this. Initially I tried my (by then) home town Eutin, but the limitations of a German City with really conservative people, made things very much impossible.
A year ago I did find a good place in the Abhazian mountains.
Why Abkhazia?
It is located between Russia, Georgia, the greater Caucasus and the Black Sea. The climate ranges from humid subtropical to mountainous.
Being a country with high mountains and the sea, it has great water. The best water I have ever tasted by a long way.
There is clay subsoil in most areas and lime bedrock below that in the area where I am.
We are in a small village that is located near three tourist destinations (waterfall, caves, big lake), but this was not actually a reason to go here.
On reason was that there is a community of people (Abkhazian, Russian, Armenian and now German) that is coexisting.
The property itself is about 1ha of south facing slope with 20ha of forest (mostly alder with some honey and black locust) around it.
The advantages of living here are:
Low cost of living (compared to Germany anyway) (no hidden costs and vegetables are affordable – milk products are expensive though).
There is actually a bus that goes to the capital and back every Sunday. Plus Wednesday if you are wiling to walk 5km to the next village.
We still have an internet connection via 3G, which I want to replace with a radio grid network very soon.
No building codes (in the mountains anyway).
But it isn't all paradise here.
If you squint hard enough, it can be an example of a post-apocalyptic world.
After being part of the soviet union, they didn't want to be part of Georgia and Georgia invaded Abkhazia. Many people died during the war and a lot was destroyed or damaged.
To this day the economy is basically only tourism – needs to change (working on it).
Oh and there is a Russian military base nearby which can be heard and felt when they fire their artillery or run bombing trials.
Potentials:
From what I see this country and this place have a big potential, but it needs people from outside to help.
In particular we have a mountain river nearby where a 100kW hydro-generator could be installed just using a fraction of the total water. The limit is the size of the pipe.
There are square kilometers of unused valley space.
Plants grow insanely fast and big.
Now that a place has been found, we are looking for people to join.
Ideally people with interest in Permaculture and who enjoy some physical work.
But also people with skills like woodworking, metalworking, gardening, cooking or building.