Talk:South Ossetia

Situation in South Ossetia

I earnestly ask anyone to rewrite the news about a situation in South Ossetia. Current Piter's edition is no neutral point of view in my opinion (e.g. compare with neutral in Wikinews statements in [1]). It's impotant for us to clear a tragedy of the situation but not a political estimation. To do this, you can use a some numbers reported by Russian TV: about 2000 killed civilians in Tskhinvali and more than 30000 refugees from South Ossetia. -- (WT-en) Sergey kudryavtsev 11:38, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

I'm not sure what's non-neutral about my write-up (although, of course, we don't aim for neutrality. But also, we should neither be getting into politics nor writing about tragedies—as a travel site, all that we need to do is warn travelers. And right now, I think what a traveler needs to know is: there is a war, it's dangerous, don't go there. That's what I tried to write. In the future it will be necessary to write about these events in more detail in the understand section of South Ossetia, but I don't think we should do that until after the conflict (since we're not a news site). --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 23:31, 10 August 2008 (EDT)

In "Political disputes" of Project:Be fair says: The best way out is to stick to the bare minimum of facts necessary, presented as neutrally as possible, while keeping a firm focus on the traveller's interests. A non-neutral statement is bolded: War has broken out in the Caucasus between Georgia and Russia within the separatist region of South Ossetia, ... (because Russia is not in a war state with Georgia; Russian troops just perform a peacekeeper mission incumbent by UN). I suppose only to remove a bolded text. Are you agree? -- (WT-en) Sergey kudryavtsev 02:27, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

Prime Minister Putin on 8/8/08 called the current conflict between Russia-Georgia a war, Georgia has mobilized all its armed forces and recalled 2,000 troops from Iraq to fight the Russian forces there, Russia has bombed Poti, all major Georgian airports, Bolnisi, and Gori. Prior to 8/8, Russia's presence within Georgian territory was only peacekeeping, but that has changed. The point is, regardless of what anyone calls it, from the traveler's perspective a war has broken out, so travelers should not visit the country! Were this still an ongoing conflict between the Ossetes & Georgians within South Ossetia, then travelers could visit the rest of the country, but that's not the case right now. I still don't see what is non-neutral about the statement as is (it doesn't take sides, does it?) and I think it mentions the bare minimum of facts necessary. Over explaining the conflict would include what I just wrote here, as well as explaining the sources of the conflict, which I think we should avoid, since there are competing narratives, and the reasons why this is happening are controversial. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 03:13, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

If it looks like war and sounds like war, it probably is war. And considering Russian and Georgian troops are involved, I don't see how the war could be between anyone else but Russia and Georgia. You could, I suppose, replace "war" with "intense fighting" and "Russia" with "Russian troops", but both changes strike me as needless weaseling. (WT-en) LtPowers 08:30, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

I change the news item per (WT-en) LtPowers' proposal. -- (WT-en) Sergey kudryavtsev 13:49, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

It wasn't really a proposal; I was explaining that the current wording was accurate and concise and that any changes to the wording would be "needless weaseling". (WT-en) LtPowers 16:50, 11 August 2008 (EDT)

There is a full mutual misunderstanding. You may revert a changes. I already regret that i was started this discussion. It's complicated for me to explain my opinion using a foreign language. I don't want to continue a useless discussion. -- (WT-en) Sergey kudryavtsev 03:06, 12 August 2008 (EDT)

Now you understand how it is for me when I'm trying to make an argument on the Russian version ;) --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 17:47, 13 August 2008 (EDT)

Any news about this region as of 2018? At least from the perspective of safety for tourists. Also, is getting there dangerous? Marathonian (talk) 19:15, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

"Capital"

I've removed the inverted commas around "capital" for Tskhinvali. Tskhinvali is recognised as the "capital" of South Ossetia regardless if one accepts that SO is an independent country or not, just in the same way that, say, Edinburgh is recognised as the capital of Scotland within the UK, or Grozny the capital of Chechnya inside the Russian Federation. (WT-en) Shotlandiya 17:18, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

That's not accurate. South Ossetia formally isn't even a region of Georgia, unlike Abkhazia. It is an ethno-political conflict region, which overlaps the official administrative regions of Racha & Shida Kartli (the majority, of course, being in Shida Kartli). Tskinvali also does not wield control (formally, or even practically) over the whole of the South Ossetia region. It's the capital only in a figurative, assertorial sense. The only real meaning to the notion of capital status is that would likely be the capital of an independent South Ossetia, and that it is the cultural and population center of the Ossete population on the Georgian side of the border.

All that said, I could care less about quotation marks. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 19:52, 25 June 2009 (EDT)

Being sophisticated

Hi Peter! I don't like the opening phrase: And just so you sound sophisticated because first the tone is arrogant to me and second it's more an issue of pronounciation in my view. Why do you like it? (WT-en) jan 04:05, 10 February 2010 (EST)

Hmm, I don't understand why it would seem arrogant. I wrote it with the intention of it coming across as friendly and informal, which I think is what we should aim for. And surely knowing the pronunciation of far-off lands is a mark of worldliness and erudition? ;) --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 15:45, 11 February 2010 (EST)

Terrorism

I track the progress of South Ossetia, and this happens to be the first place mentioning it. Whoever included it must cite a source from where they received this information

"If you find yourself in South Ossetia, you should probably try to find a way to get out."

What does this even mean? Unnecessary remarks about the situation in the country should not be present in in a travel article, regardless of your views

I'm not well aware of the situation in South Ossetia today, but to me that sentence indeed seems unnecessary and tainted. I plunged ahead and removed it, as it doesn't add any new information. The situation is discussed quite clearly above, and anyone who actually is there can make up their own mind on whether or not they should leave. (WT-en) Justme 16:59, 10 September 2011 (EDT)

Description of South Ossetia's status

Currently, the beginning of the article reads this way:

"South Ossetia is a separatist region of Georgia, mostly located in Shida Kartli. It is a partially unrecognized state, only recognized by Russia, Abkhazia, Nauru, Venezuela and Nicaragua."

I would propose to substitute this text:

"South Ossetia, a nation which separated from Georgia in 2008 with the aid of Russian troops, is mostly in Shida Kartli. South Ossetia's independence is recognized only by Russia, Abkhazia, Nauru, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and Georgia continues to claim the land, but an uneasy truce has held since 2008."

My reasoning is that it is in the interest of the traveler for us to simply recognize the de facto independence of the region and not take sides by calling it a "separatist region of Georgia." I would be willing to countenance a description like "South Ossetia, a self-declared nation..." Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:31, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Trouble is Kartli is a region of Georgia. So saying that that South Ossetia is part of Kartli is perhaps not so good. I've changed the wording in that respect. Why not just use "de facto independent" as a term to describe it? It's less politically loaded.Travelpleb (talk) 11:27, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I think your wording is fine. I'll make one other edit, in "Stay safe." Ikan Kekek (talk) 12:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Warning still needed?

There is a large warning in the header relating to the 2008 war between Georgia and Russia. It is now 6 years old, and although there is a tense situation I am guessing the possibility for armed conflict is probably quite low. (The Georgian military lost quite heavily and are probably in no hurry to try and take this territory back anytime soon).

Is it OK to remove this, and probably add some text in the main article itself? Andrewssi2 (talk) 06:13, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

"Tours" section in "Get in"

Keeping in mind this site's tour listing policy, should the section exist? If so, how do we prevent it from becoming a linkfarm for tour advertising? Ikan Kekek (talk) 20:41, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

Russia trying to merge with SO

@LtPowers: OK. Lets' discuss this. What are your sources? Why liberation is in parentheses? Francois (talk) 08:50, 23 May 2017 (UTC)