The article is a review of the book of memoirs by A.A. Demyanov «Notes on Abkhazia and Georgia (1918–1921)», compiled by the prominent Abkhaz historian S.Z. Lakoba. The latter extracted a valuable source from the GARF funds, where it remained for almost a century. An extremely important source on the prehistory of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict has been published; what is described in them echoes the political processes of recent times and sometimes coincides with them. The author of the review focused on the undoubted merits of the publication, including a detailed name index, which introduces to the reader many now little-known characters from the times of the revolution and the Civil War and their role in the history of independent Transcaucasia.