I arrived in Supsa almost by mistake the fall of 2001. I moved to Georgia with the goal of documenting the economic effect of oil. My plan was to document life along the current pipeline, which has been open for the past two years and runs from Baku, Azerbaijan to Supsa, and document life along the proposed pipeline of the new, main pipeline that will run from Baku, through Georgia and into Turkey. For the past 10 years, oil and gas have been championed as a savior for Georgia. According to Pipeline and Gas Journal (May 2000), Georgia could earn as much as $52 million dollars in transit fees from the existing pipeline. That is small change in comparison to how much the oil companies will make from the sale of that oil, but it is enough to make a serious difference in the lives of people in that region. I was interested in knowing how much of an impact the pipeline really has on peoples' lives; if they see any of that money, if their lives have at all improved due to the pipeline during the past two years. I arrived at the Supsa Terminal with the intention of spending a few days there before moving on to the towns along the proposed pipeline. But when I got to the village itself, when I saw the condition of the roads and the school, saw the rampant poverty that flooded every corner, I decided I could make a much more powerful and meaningful statement by telling the story of these people. With these photographs, in addition to others from the region, I hope to show that oil money does not reach the population and the public funds being used to finance the new pipeline would be better spent on the villages themselves. I welcome any comments and suggestions you might have.