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Mineralnye Vody is a city in southern Russia, in the Stavropol Territory. The administrative center of the Mineralovodsky district (urban district).
The city is located in the
valley of the Kuma River, 172 km southeast of Stavropol. The city
has an airport connecting the Caucasian Mineral Waters area with
other regions of Russia, a junction railway station of the North
Caucasian railway on the Armavir - Prokhladnaya line with a branch
to Kislovodsk, the federal highway M-29 Kavkaz. From here you can
get to the resort cities of Zheleznovodsk, Pyatigorsk, Essentuki,
Kislovodsk, as well as the city of Lermontov.
The city stands
at the foot of the Zmeika Mountain, most of which is occupied by the
territory of the Beshtaugorsky forest massif, and part of it from
the side of the city is a formidable kind of rocks and quarries
connected by a serpentine of old roads. In the middle of the last
century, building rock was actively developed here, a
stone-processing plant worked. In good weather the peaks of Elbrus
are visible from the city, to which in a straight line 91 km. From
the city, you can go to it by sightseeing bus; by road, this
distance will increase to 250 km.
Rivers
Kuma, Surkul,
Dzhemukha.
The climate of the city is relatively
dry, humid air masses from the Black Sea do not reach here, they are
retained by the Main Caucasian ridge. The climate of the city of
Mineralnye Vody differs in contrast - hot, dry summers, slightly
frosty winters. Spring and summer are clearly expressed. The coldest
months are January and February, the warmest are July and August.
Spring begins at the end of February.
Summer begins in early
May. It is warm and long lasting (about 140 days). Autumn begins in
early October. The best time of the year for recreation and travel
is autumn. It can be sunny, dry, rich in fruits and bright colors of
landscapes. Precipitation on the territory of the city falls
extremely unevenly according to the seasons and ranges from 300 mm
to 600 mm per year.
The city of Mineralnye Vody is located
mainly in the steppe zone. The plains here have long been developed,
plowed up and built up, virgin lands with silvery feather grass have
been preserved only in small fragments along the roadsides. Here on
the soils, in addition to feather grass, fescue, thin-legged,
wheatgrass grow, in spring Veronica turns blue, in summer gray
leaves of white-toothed oak, yellow baskets of elecampane, prickly
rosettes of zopnik appear. At the foot of the mountain, on
solonetzic soils, Crimean wormwood, creeping kokhia and kermek are
abundant. The fauna of the territory has been significantly reduced
and changed by man. On the steppe areas, you can occasionally see a
hare, a jerboa, a gray hamster, a hedgehog, a steppe ferret. Vole
mice live here. The mounds of the earth are lined up, which
testifies to the underground work of the common mole rat. There are
also eagle, hawk, owl and owl.
The city owes its birth to the construction of the
Rostov-Vladikavkaz railway (construction was completed in 1875). The
junction station with a branch to Kislovodsk was named
Sultanovskaya, because it was located on the lands that had belonged
since 1826 to the Nogai sultan Mengli-Girey and his descendants. At
that time, about 500 workers lived in the right-of-way (an area
owned by a railroad joint stock company bounded by a concrete wall),
serving the local locomotive depot, station and other railway
enterprises. And nearby, on the lands of the Sultan Dzhanbek-Girey,
new settlers soon settled with his consent. These were mainly
handicraftsmen and traders who supplied their products and goods to
railway workers. The settlers filed a petition with the authorities
to form a village. In 1878 the settlement received the legal status
and the name Sultanovsky.
On May 17, 1894, regular train
traffic began on the Mineralnye Vody - Kislovodsk section.
In
1906, the settlement of Sultanovsky was renamed into Illarionovsky -
in honor of Count I.I.Vorontsov-Dashkov, appointed governor of the
Caucasus.
In October 1921, the village and the station were
united and became the city of Mineralnye Vody with a population of
14 thousand people.
In 1929-1930 enterprises for the
extraction and processing of nonmetallic materials appeared - the
Zmeyka stone crushing plant and the Beshtownit mine. After the
construction of the airport in 1925, the city became an important
point on the main air routes of the USSR. In 1924, the Mineralovodsk
region was formed by the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive
Committee.
Theodosius of the Caucasus (1841-1948) from 1931
to 1948 lived in Mineralnye Vody, after returning from the
Solovetsky Islands he accepted the feat of foolishness. In recent
years, he lived with the novices in a small, damp house with low
ceilings. In December 1994, in the Stavropol diocesan
administration, at the diocesan council, the question was raised
about the study of the life of Hieroschemamonk Theodosius and the
popular veneration of him as a saint of God. The relics of the Holy
Reverend Theodosius of the Caucasus are in the Church of the
Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos.
In the first days of
the Great Patriotic War, 18 thousand minerals went to the front.
Women and children took their jobs. Some enterprises switched to the
production of military products. 6,269 residents of the city were
awarded orders and medals, 12 people were awarded the title of Hero
of the Soviet Union. In the war, 7 thousand inhabitants of mineral
water died.
On the evening of August 8, 1942, the 40th German
Tank Corps of the 1st Tank Army of Baron Leo-Geir von Schweppenburg
approached the northern bank of the Kuma River, where he was met by
the city's defenders - cadets of the Novocherkassk Cavalry School.
On August 10, the city was occupied by the troops of Nazi Germany.
The railway station "Mineralnye Vody" was an extremely important
object, through it went the provision of the German troops advancing
on Vladikavkaz and Baku. In the building of the railway station
there was a German commandant's office, where interrogations were
conducted. Outside the city, near the glass factory, there was a
deep anti-tank ditch, near which massacres of civilians were carried
out every day. More than 10 thousand people from all Caucasian
Mineral Waters were killed and buried there.
On January 11,
1943, a Soviet tank battalion under the command of Captain Petrov
entered the city along the railway line from Prokhladny, advancing
in the direction of the railway station, where the main enemy forces
were concentrated. At the same time, rifle units entered the city.
Soviet troops blocked several trains with German equipment, uniforms
and food at the station. On the street "50 years of October" there
is a memorial for tankers with a T-34-85 tank.
After the war,
Mineralnye Vody became one of the largest cities in Stavropol.
On November 2, 1956, the city of Mineralnye Vody was assigned to
the cities of regional subordination.
On June 5, 1964, the
Council of Ministers of the RSFSR decided to restrict the residence
of citizens in the resort cities of Pyatigorsk, Kislovodsk,
Zheleznovodsk, Yessentuki, Mineralnye Vody and the adjacent
settlements of the Stavropol Territory.
As of January 1,
1983, the Levokum village council was subordinate to the
Mineralovodsk city council, which included the village of Levokumka
(center) and the Sadovy farm.
On November 9, 1991, Shamil
Basayev committed his first terrorist attack, hijacking a plane from
the airport of Mineralnye Vody. The plane with 178 hostages on board
was supposed to fly to Yekaterinburg, but Basayev ordered the pilots
to head for Ankara.
On March 24, 2001, a terrorist act was
committed in Mineralnye Vody - an explosion near the central market
of the city