Pachulia, Vianor. Historical Places of Abkhazia (Po istoricheskim mestam Abkhazii). Sukhumi, 1958. In Russian.

Пачулиа, Вианор. По историческим местам Абхазии : научно-популярный очерк / Академия наук Грузинской ССР, Абхазский институт языка, литературы и истории ; редактор доктор исторических наук профессор И. Г. Антелава.
Сухуми : Абхазское государственное издательство, 1958. 184 с. : ил. ; 19 см.
Твердый издательский переплет. Тираж 5 000 экз.
На переднем свободном форзаце штамп «Сигнальный экземпляр».
Переплет - хорошее: общий износ. Блок - хорошее: прочный.
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Pachulia, Vianor. Historical Places of Abkhazia : a popular-scientific essay / Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, Abkhaz Institute of Language, Literature and History ; editor Professor Ivane G. Antelava.
Sukhumi : Abkhaz State Publishing House, 1958. 184 pp. : illustrated ; 19 cm.
Publisher's hardcover. Print run of 5,000 copies.
Stamped "Signal copy" (Сигнальный экземпляр) on the front free endpaper.
Binding good: general wear. Text block good: firm.

A compact illustrated guide to the historical and architectural monuments of Abkhazia by Vianor Pachulia (1929-1988), an Abkhaz historian and archaeologist who worked at the Gulia Institute in Sukhumi, took part in the 1957-58 excavations at Anakopia, and later headed the republic's monument protection society and the USSR's only laboratory of tourism and excursions. He was twenty-nine when this book appeared, and it is an early work in a career that eventually produced some thirty books. The text is organised as a sequence of itineraries. It begins with Sukhumi, its fortress and the Kaman church, and continues through the New Athos cathedral, the Great Abkhazian Wall and the cathedral of Dranda. It then turns to Ochamchira, the cathedral of Mokvi, the Abrskil cave and the Bedia temple, and ends with the monuments of the Gali district and a bibliography. Black and white photographs accompany many of the sites. Aimed at visitors and general readers but written by a working archaeologist, the book records the state of these monuments in the late 1950s, when Soviet scholarship on Abkhazia was being rebuilt under the Georgian Academy of Sciences. It was printed in 5,000 copies and, like most Abkhaz regional publications of the period, is seldom offered outside the Caucasus today. Although dated 1958, the colophon records signature for printing on 19 January 1959. This copy carries the publisher's stamp "Signal copy" on the front free endpaper, the mark of the first fully finished copy sent from the press to the publisher for approval before release of the print run. Such copies are a minor but genuine point of interest for collectors of Soviet publishing history. A useful addition for collectors of Caucasian regional history, Abkhaz studies, Soviet tourism literature and Eastern Christian architecture.