Nowhere else on Earth is the difference between the tranquillity & beauty of the physical world and the brutality & disorder of the people who live in it brought into such sharp contrast as it is in the former Soviet satellites that span the gap between Europe & Asia. Nagorno Karabagh. Ossetia. Abkhazia. Ingushetia. Chechnya. Dagestan. Who’d even heard of them before the 90s?