By the end of the Christmas season, orange is crossing the border between Russia and Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, teeming with the tangerine trade, one of the fruits of Russian family dinners on New Year's Eve.
Farmers in Abkhazia say this year they have achieved a record harvest from the tangerine. Cars, handcarts and baskets filled with bags of this tasty fruit because of an endless flow across the border to a market in the village of Fissoloy near Sochi.
Russia's Rosyzkaya Gazeta reported that the volume of Russian-imported mandarin imported from Abkhazia last month was more than double that of the same period last year.
Yusefi is one of the main exports to Abkhazia, which split off into South Ossetia during Georgia's wars in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russia supports the breakaway regions and recognized them as independent states after a brief war with Georgia in August 2008.
The tangerine imported from Abkhazia represents a point in the sea for the Russian market, which is flooded with the same fruit from China, Morocco and Turkey, but for the small province it has only the Russian market, making this year's harvest a valuable birthday gift for local farmers.
