Founded in 1593, Starocherkassk (Old Cherkassk) was the Don Cossack capital for two centuries. Once a fortified town of 20, 000, it’s now a farming village with a main street restored to near 19th-century appearance.
Category: Russian Caucasus
Sochi may not have the best European beaches and there’s still an element of tackiness but the city is in makeover mode. Investment money is being pumped in, some by government and some by developers who’ve gone overseas, seen what they’ve liked and copied it in Sochi.
This beautiful and many-faceted part of Russia receives few travellers, despite being only a plane or train journey from Moscow, and that’s a pity. The colossal Caucasus mountains, 1100km of soaring peaks and deep valleys, stride from the Caspian to the Black Sea. Between the mountain range and the Black Sea is a coastal strip that endows Russia with its most southerly seaside resorts. The pearl is Sochi, with glorious summer sun, warm sea, plenty of classy bars and restaurants, and performances by Russia’s top entertainers. In the mountains near Sochi lies Krasnaya Polyana, on the way to being another big European ski resort. Here, in this ‘Switzerland by the sea’, you can easily ski and swim in the sea on the same day.
Rostov-on-Don is an expansive town with the bustle of a regional capital, but the wide leafy streets and scattered parks take away any notion of crowding. Passing through the city is the Don River, celebrated in Mikhail Sholokhov’s novels of the Civil War – And Quiet Flows the Don and The Don Flows Home to the Sea.
Pyatigorsk, the name being a Russification of Mt Beshtau (Five Peaks), began life as Fort Konstantinovskaya in 1780. It quickly developed into a fashionable resort as it attracted Russian society to its spas and stately buildings. Many of these buildings remain today, making this an attractive town to ramble around and appreciate the bars and restaurants on pr Kirova.
Novorossiysk is home to the Russian navy and much of the country’s cement production comes from dismantling the surrounding hills. For travellers it’s a transport hub for the nicer seaside towns of Anapa, Gelendzhik and Sochi, or maybe a boat to Turkey.
Nalchik, pleasant capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, strides the rise of the steppes to the foothills of the Caucasus. It was founded as a fort in 1822 to protect Russian advances into the Caucasus. Apart from a worthwhile museum and a side trips to Chegem Canyon and some medieval villages, visitors come to Nalchik to reach Mt Elbrus.
The central Caucasus rises from the steppe in an eerie landscape studded with dead volcanoes and spouting mineral springs. The curative powers of the springs have attracted unhealthy, hypochondriac or just holiday-minded Russians since the late 18th century, when wounded soldiers appeared to heal quicker after bathing in them. The area had already passed from Turkish to Russian hands in 1774 but still came under attack from local tribes. The first settlements were forts that evolved into graceful spa towns.
From Rostov-on-Don, the overland routes to the Caucasus and the Black Sea coast cross the intensively cultivated Kuban Steppe, named after its river flowing from Elbrus into the Sea of Azov. The trip from Rostov-on-Don to Pyatigorsk or Kislovodsk on the northern fringe of the Caucasus can be made in a day – by road it’s just under 500km.
When Catherine the Great travelled south to tour the lands conquered from the Turks, her lover Potemkin had cheerful façades erected along her route. These hid the mud-splattered hovels that made up the newly founded city bearing her name, Yekaterinodar (‘Catherine’s gift’).