By now, everybody has seen the footage of the newly-built maternity home in Sukhumi where the head doctor told Prime Minister Putin that newborn twins had been named Vladimir and Dmitry in his and President Medvedev's honour. Izvestia rang up the Sukhumi maternity home to find out how the lucky mother felt about these names.
"How is the mother doing?" Mr Putin inquired. Head doctor Liana Achba provided a rather enigmatic response: "The parents probably won't object."
Indeed, the twins' mother was in no position to object. She was in the operating room due to severe hemorrhaging after childbirth. While Mr Putin was surveying the maternity home, the Chief Obstetrician of Abkhazia, Rita Trapsh, was busy fighting to save the life of the mother, Indira Parazia.
I called the Sukhumi maternity home. After a long wait, a male voice answered: "I'm a telephone specialist installing this phone. You are the first caller. I don't know anybody around here."
"Get somebody in a white gown!"
As luck would have it, Rita Trapsh herself was passing by at that moment. "It was a very tough delivery. After the placenta was separated, Indira lost at least a litre of blood. She didn't even open her eyes until evening. We let her know that her twins had already been named. She was glad to hear it. She said, ‘Thank God, we're all alive.'"
"How is she feeling?"
"Very weak, but she is recovering. Would you like to talk to her? I can make an exception for Izvestia. Call me on the mobile in five minutes. I'll bring the phone to her bedside."
"Indira, Izvestia readers congratulate you on the birth of Vova and Dima. Do you like the names? Maybe you had other names in mind for them?"
"Thank you so much," the mother's voice was weak but steady. "Teimur and I had not thought of any names. I didn't get an ultrasound scan, so I didn't know whether to expect boys or girls. But the names are good; we both like them. They are named after such highly respected people. And most importantly, they should be healthy!"
Indira Parazia (nee Bartsits) is an Abkhazian from Gudauty. She works as an English teacher at a local school. Her husband Teimur is a mechanic who is temporarily out of work. The couple already has a three-year-old daughter, Sonya. The birth of the twins came as a surprise, or in this case, a double surprise, since their birth coincided so perfectly with Mr Putin's visit.
"Now all of Abkhazia knows that I have twins!" Indira said with delight.
"Not only Abkhazia, all of Russia, maybe even the whole world. But, as Mr Putin pointed out, Russia's awareness is more than enough."
A Georgian boy was born in the same maternity home in Sukhumi that day. Some journalists suggested that he might be called "Mishiko" in honour of Mikheil Saakashvili.
"Nonsense," said Rita Trapsh. "His father is Georgian and his mother is Abkhazian. The family is in the process of deciding on a name. But I'm sure it will not be Mikhail."
Then perhaps they will name him Sergey? That is, after all, the name suggested by the head doctor at the maternity hospital, in honour of Sergey Bagapsh, the President of the independent Abkhazia.
Yuri Snegirev