A frost-covered resort town
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A frost-covered resort town

Choosing among the ‘jewels’ of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, tourists mainly prefer the resort city of Kislovodsk in winter because thanks to its location, there is almost always sunshine and plus day temperatures at this time of the year. In contrast, the resort town of Zheleznovodsk located on a hill and surrounded by mountains, surprises with frequent fogs, and the clouds, as in Lermontov’s poems, literally ‘cling to the tops’ of the local mountains and ‘slide’ down their slopes.

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In the mornings and evenings, you feel like in a real fairy tale, the main character of which is the fog that hides the surrounding mountains from the travellers’ eyes such as the Medovaya, Zheleznaya, Beshtau, Razvalka mounts and others, which suddenly appear when the sun comes out.

The feeling of unreality of what is happening is intensified even more when the temperature drops and the fog turns into thick frost covering trees, bushes and everything around with thousands of small icy snowflakes. And when a small breeze blows away these snowflakes to make them whirling in the air, it is difficult to express the beautiful view in words.

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The situation is different when the wind is strong as it can break heavy frost-covered branches and even large trees. Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. This winter, the temperature dropped sharply in Zheleznovodsk from plus 18oC to minus 18oC after the New Year holidays. A lot of trees were broken by a strong wind, and for the sake of safety of tourists, the Kurortny (Resort) Park was closed for several days where vacationers usually enjoy walking.

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Zheleznovodsk is the most compact of the towns in the region, and its Kurortny Park seems to be huge and picturesque, it stretches around the Mount Zheleznaya (Iron) overgrown with a forest. In Zheleznovodsk, unlike other towns and cities of the Caucasian Mineral Waters area, the real oak forest is not artificially planted, it is only partially modified, and several terrain cure paths are laid in the forest - from the simplest three-kilometre terrain cure path around Mount Zheleznaya to longer ones leading to such natural beauties as Saltpeter Rocks, Grotto Permafrost or the Ancient Cave. In clear weather, the travellers can admire beautiful mountain landscapes from many viewing decks.

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It should be mentioned that in winter, there can be quite a lot of snow or ice on some terrain cure paths. And even the way up the Mount Zheleznaya, which is usually easy, unlike the way up the Mount Razvalka, can be covered with snow in winter or be too slippery.

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However, you can always wander around the Kurortny Park, go down the very picturesque and long Cascade Stairs to the Kurortnoye (Resort) Lake, drink healthful water from Smirnovsky or Slavyanovsky springs. By the way, Zheleznovodsk is also unique because more than 20 mineral water springs have been found here, several of them can be tasted without leaving the Kurortny Park. The Pushkin Gallery and the Palace of the Emir of Bukhara, the main attractions of the town, are here. An elegant gallery of metal structures and multi-coloured stained-glass windows were just assembled in Zheleznovodsk because the structures for it - and the similar Lermontov Gallery in Pyatigorsk - were made at the end of the 18th century in St. Petersburg, and the stained-glass windows were made in Warsaw.

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The most famous places in Zheleznovodsk associated with Lermontov are the Lermontov Pump-room, Lermontov Square, as well as the Karpov’s Courtyard, where the poet spent the last day of his life. Unfortunately, the house is not in its best condition now, and it is not possible to visit it like the Lermontov’s house-museum in the city of Pyatigorsk.

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It is curious that the Palace of the Emir of Bukhara, in contrast to the nearby Ostrovsky’s Baths (the first hydropathic baths in Zheleznovodsk) built in the oriental fairy tale style are not a stylized building, but a real palace of a real Emir, more precisely, his summer residence. Unfortunately, the Emir did not stay in the Palace as he did not live to see the completion of construction, and his son presented the palace to the Russian imperial family.

By the way, there is not only a building of mineral baths in Zheleznovodsk looking like an oriental palace or a mosque, but there is also an Orthodox Church in the former building of a hydropathic clinic. Another attraction of the resort town is its railway station. Due to the steep slope, the railway to Zheleznovodsk was laid later than to other cities in the region, and shorter trains ran there. It will not be possible to get directly to Zheleznovodsk by a passenger train, for example, from Moscow, and short electric trains run here no more than twice a day.

The main attraction of the Zheleznovodsk’s atmosphere is, of course, its cats. They have chosen the best places there, and are fond of basking in the sun and allow vacationers to feed and stroke them. There is a monument to the Resort cat near the Mountain Air health centre and a beautiful viewing deck located nearby. An old tree is next to it, and happy fat cats of all colours and shades like to rest on its branches. The local dogs have a completely different ‘mission’ - not only basking in the sun, but also accompanying vacationers. One of them, unexpectedly for us, acted apparently in his usual role as a guide: he joined us on a long trail to Mount Razvalka, and accompanied us all the way, never leaving us or losing sight of us. Tasty remuneration for such good services was, of course, appreciated.

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Having visited Zheleznovodsk in winter, you would definitely like to come back here in spring or summer to walk along the trails that turned out to be difficult to access in winter, to see and consider these beauties on warm sunny days. But nearby, there are places that you would better visit in the winter, for example, Honey Waterfalls - when the water freezes in cold weather, the waterfalls turn into amazing natural ice sculptures in the beautiful mountain gorge. Along the way, I also advise you to stop and take a walk near Mount Koltso (Ring). There are stunning views and magnificent mountain air at any time of the year.

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Photo courtesy of the author

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