A fire ravaged Abkhazia's National Art Gallery on the night of January 20-21, destroying the vast majority of the museum's collection.

The blaze engulfed the entire building of the Central Exhibition Hall in the Russian-backed Georgian breakaway region's capital Sukhumi. It was contained in about three hours but only some 200 of over 40,000 paintings could be salvaged. 

"Everything burned down," said Dinara Smyr, Acting Minister of Culture, including some 300 works by Alexander Chachba-Shervashidze (1867-1968), the most famous painter whose works the gallery housed.

Abkhazia's de facto Interior Ministry said it was investigating all possible causes, including arson.

The Director of the National Gallery, Suram Sakaniya, reported that the fire appears to have started from the roof due to a short circuit in the electrical wiring.

Witnesses reported on social media that the fire was sparked immediately after power was restored following a planned outage. Abkhazia has been experiencing electricity shortages recently due to a sharp spike in demand, at least some of which might be attributable to illegal cryptocurrency mining. 

Local artists accuse the government of negligence over the state of the building. "We are all responsible that the National Art Gallery was in such a state. We knew that this would happen, every time we talked about it with both the previous leadership and the current one, but the response was zero attention," said famous Abkhaz painter Sergey Tsvijba.

Local Abaza TV reported as early as 2014 that paintings were being poorly maintained at the gallery. Suram Sakaniya, the gallery's director, in a 2016 interview said the facility was not properly equipped to either store or exhibit paintings and called for more budgetary funds. 

Russia's Culture Ministry expressed sympathy and offered to send art restoration experts to Abkhazia.

Georgia's Culture Ministry has not commented but President Salome Zourabichvili, in a post on X (formerly Twitter) called the fire "a direct consequence of the neglect of cultural identity both by the de facto leadership and the Russian occupants."

Member of the European Parliament Viola Von Cramon similarly commented, "Everything Russia & Russkiy mir touch turns to ashes, be it in Abkhazia, Donbas, or other occupied territories. It's a tragedy to see the loss of such cultural heritage. This is a direct result of negligence and incompetence during the occupation."

Abkhazia has been de facto independent from Georgia since a war of secession in 1992-93 that resulted in the expulsion of most of the region's ethnic Georgian population. Since 2008 Russia has recognized Abkhazia as an independent state and stationed military bases there. Under Georgian law, Abkhazia, along with another breakaway region, South Ossetia, is regarded as under Russian "occupation."

There is a pervasive sense of grief in Abkhaz society after the fire. 

"We are left without a history, without a past, like savages," said one of the citizens who helplessly watched the fire.