Abkhazia

Abkhazia, or Аԥсны Аҳәынҭқарра (Abkhazian), or Республика Абхазия (Russian), is a de facto autonomous country on the Black Sea. It was an autonomous republic within Georgia during Soviet times. When Georgia became independent when the Soviet Union collapsed, Abkhazia was threatened by Georgian and ethnic Georgian dominance and declared independence in July 1992. This led to the War in Abkhazia.
 * Fake overprints on Russian stamps and bogus issues are known falsely attributed to Abkhazia. The most famous of these is the souvenir sheet for Marxism-Lennonism (sic) showing Groucho Marx and John Lennon.
 * Abkhazia's first stamp was issued in June 1993, inscribed АБХАЭИЯ.
 * Later 1993 issues were inscribed АРЕСПЧБЛИКА АԤСНЫ. Russian РЕСПЧБЛИКА АБХАЭИЯ would be added on following issues.
 * Sometime in 1994, the inscription became just АԤСНЫ, with the second character sometimes heavily stylized.

 File:Abkhazia first.jpg|Stamp from the first issue. File:Abkhazia allosaurus.jpg|1993 allosaurus. File:Abkhazia 2009.jpg|2009 commemorative. File:Abkhazia Gagra cxl.jpg|2019 Gagra cancel. 

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