Transcaucasia (The Kalmar Union)

Transcaucasia is a region of Asia roughly judged to be the area between the Black and Caspian seas to the West and East, and Vladimir and the Byzantine Empire and The Caliphate to the North and South. The three major powers of the area have long cherished the idea that they should eventually rule the entire region.

Currently it is a patchwork of states, both recognised and unrecognised, in constant turmoil and sporadic war. Borders tend to be in flux (those described in the map below are extrapolated from the Treaty of Yerevan ending the 4th Georgian-Chechen War (2006-2008)). They are generally sponsored, by either Byzantium, the Caliphate or Vladimir, specifically to undermine each other's influence in the area. Poland has also recently begun to provide assistance to several regimes to further its aims of keeping Vladimir busy. The wars between the three Armenias are particularly vicious.

The Kalmar Union, which has no official foreign policy in Transcaucasia, recognises the sovereignty of the following states:

Meanwhile, the Holy Roman Empire does not recognise Eastern Armenia or Kabardinia and recognises an Eastern Kurdistan.

There is an apocryphal story distributed widely in Western Europe of an Abkhazian ambassador travelling to Frankfurt in the mid 1890s to establish a embassy with the Holy Roman Empire only to reach Constantinople and receive the news that his regime had fallen and that he was a wanted criminal. Fearing for his life amongst Constantinople's Abkhazian populace he fled into Hungary whereupon he received news that the new regime had fallen and his old employers were back in charge. Proceeding onwards to Frankfurt news reports reached him simultaneously that either a) Vladimir had invaded and ousted both regimes or that b) a third regime had taken control. Whether this story has any truth is not clear but it does highlight the problem that the states have of official recognition and constant civil war. It also provides an excuse for many Western European governments not to get involved in the politics of the region.