Vladislav Ardzinba (1945-2010)

Vladislav Grigoryevich Ardzinba (Abkhaz: Владислав Арӡынба) (14 May 1945 – 4 March 2010) was a wartime leader and the first president of Abkhazia.
He was born in May 1945 in the village of Lower Eshera (just north of Abkhazia's capital, Sukhum), where his father taught history. He worked at Moscow's Oriental Institute under Yevgeny Primakov, who, as Russian Foreign Minister, was later to play a role in the post-war Georgian-Abkhazian negotiating process.