DECREE ISSUED BY THE  ABKHAZ PEOPLE’S COUNCIL on necessity to occupy Sochi and Tuapse Okrugs.

24 June 1918

The Abkhazia people’s Council, having discussed the political situation and taking into account that the Bolshevik anarchy disintegrates Abkhazia for three months already actually takes resources from Sochi and Tuapse Okrugs and also the fact, that the Bolshevik orientation is based on the lack of food, which followed to the occupation of Tuapse Sea-port by Bolsheviks cutting the communication with the North Caucasus through detaining the cargo from the North Caucasus to the Black Sea regions of Abkhazia and Georgia,

Decided:

to consider necessary the occupation of Sochi and Tuapse Okrugs including the Tuapse Sea-port in order to establish the sustainable order and Abkhazia and resolve the problem of food crisis in Abkhazia, as well as in Georgia.  To inform the Government of the Democratic Republic of Georgia and the Commander of the Detachment Major-General Mazniev about this decision.

Original is signed.

Chairman of the National Council of Abkhazia – V.  A.  Shervashidze

(Jemal Gamakharia, Badri Gogia, Abkhazia-Historical Region of Georgia. Tbilisi, 1997, p. 415/in Russian)