| |
Essentuki, history and sights
Among resorts of Caucasian Mineral Waters there is a town with an unusual name. An ancient legend narrates about the time when these places were deserted steppe. A young family stayed here for a night. A baby was very feeble: he was often ill, hardly walked and hair don’t almost grow on its delicate head. In the morning the mother saw that the son disappeared and rushed to search. She found him at the spring where the boy washed himself and drank cool tasty water. The baby cheered up, grew strongly and thick, shining hair began to grow on his head in some time. Since that time the legend narrates that people become to call this small river Essentuki, that means “living hair”.
Essentuki town is situated in the steppe valley of the Podkumok river. Principle medicinal remedies of the resort – over 20 springs of mineral water. Climate here is continental. Summer is warm with large number of hot and dry days. Average temperature of July +24.4?C, maximal temperature – up to +30?C. Average temperature of January is +4.6?C. Fogs are often at this time. Autumn is long, warm with cool nights. First frosts are registered in the middle of October. Spring is very short, already in April temperature rises rapidly, average relative humidity is 78 %. Number of clear days per a year is 112.
History of the resort developmentThe first edict, starting studying and development of hydromineral riches of Pyatigorje, was issued by Peter the Great on the 22nd of June of 1717. In 1803 the Caucasian Mineral Waters were officially declared a medicinal region of state significance. First sick men began to come here from Russia; descriptions of characteristics of the springs, effectiveness of their influence on organism of a sick man. Settlements emerged at the places of egress of springs.
Development of Essentuki resort began later than of Kislovodsk one, Pyatigorsk and Zheleznovodsk. It is connected with the fact that report of P. P. Gaaza in 1811 about opened Essentuki springs didn’t attract attention of doctors and visitors of the resorts; and the fate of these valuable waters turned out a little differently, than of hot springs of Zheleznaya mountain, which were discovered by P. P. Gaaz at the same year. Sick men came here for treatment at once and Essentuki waters had been waiting for its real unveiling another 13 years.
Cossak village Essentukskaya emerged here in 1826. A bathing hut with two wooden baths was built on money of Volzhsky Cossak regiment. Sick men, making use of a regiment doctor’s advices, drank water of the sulphurous alkaline spring, and swam in salino-alkaline water. Since 1840 water of the salino-alkaline spring ¹ 4 and ¹ 17 has been destined for drinking.
Real sanguineous life of the resort began only after 1925, when some large buildings on the Caucasian Mineral Waters were reequipped into sanatoriums, constructing of new trade union sanatoriums and patient care institutions began. A well-equipped physiotherapeutic hospital and the first dietary canteen of the country at the clinic of a balneal institute were put in operation. Works in accomplishment of the resort and planting of greenery in it. Essentukskaya village acquired status of the city-resort in 1925.
During the Great Patriotic war a medicinal base of the resorts of the Caucasian Mineral Waters was turned into a hospital base with 30,000 beds. Building of sanatoriums, which have still worked at present time, began. Up to 250 thousand people per a year rested in the bases of 32 sanatoriums and rest homes in the period before Perestroika.
Plain in the past, the city wonderfully transformed owing to human labour. Work of several generations of gardeners turned it into an island, buried in verdure and flowers. The air is clear and it is quiet here which is unusual for a citizen. Essentuki resort is the youngest on the Caucasian Mineral Waters.
Now Essentuki, a former Cossak village, is a well-equipped city-resort, where there is a railway station, plants of food and light industry, servicing first of all the resort economy. Over 30 sanatoriums and rest homes, among which there are three special sanatoriums for children and teenagers, functionate here.
Resort zone and the famous springs of the cityIn Essentuki there is no intricate rock, waterfall, of which its “neighbors” are proud. 2 extensive resort parks – Glavniy and Komsomolsky – side with the resort from the north and the south. Flower beds, shady alleys, fountains, decorative pergolas, after which careful citizens of Essentuki look, other forms of small architecture invite to have a rest. Here there are also routes of dosated walking.
Balneotherapeutic department, attached to which a therapeutic mud bath, three belnearies, an inhalatorium, a department of mechanotherapy, springs of mineral water work, is considered a heart of the resort. In each sanatorium there is a bath compartment on issue of therapeutic baths – coniferous, pearly, coniferous-pearly. Departments of electromud procedures, inhalatoria functionate. Institutions of balneotherapeutic department serve sick men with over 12,000 various procedures. Most part of the all-resort balneal institutions and drinking well-rooms are situated in the medical parks.
In the marshland, where the Kislusha brook flew, Cossaks discovered saltish and unpleasantly smelling springs, people didn’t drink water from them but horses came for watering right here. Cossaks told doctor P. P. Gaaz, who had came to Caucasian Mineral waters for studying of the springs, about it. He investigated the “horse” springs and described them but he didn’t attach large significance to them. Professor A. P. Nelubin, who investigated a valley of the Kislusha brook in detail, discovered these springs for the second time in 1823. In all Nelubin described 28 springs, partially his numeration has been kept to our time - ¹ 4 and ¹ 17.
Sights of the resortOver a hundred year has passed since the time when first trees were planted here. Many of them have survived to our time. Great attention is given to accomplishment of the park. Original park ensembles of various sorts of trees, bushes and flowers. Summer light pergolas, fountains, grottoes, cascade stairs, wonderful flower beds make the park ensemble unusually beautiful and smart. A ground of roses, where hundreds bushes of various sorts of roses flower, fountains work, is especially popular. Well-groomed flower beds, shadowy alleys, decorative pergolas, fountains and other forms of small architecture invite to rest.
Main sight of the resort is a dacha-museum of the famous surgeon Razumovsky. Architecture of the city is also interesting. One of the most beautiful buildings is Upper mineral baths, made in classical forms of Russian Empire style. A mud bath, which is built of local stone and Kislovodsk dolomite, corresponds to high models of Roman classics.
These “ancient Roman therms” were built specially for a successor of the Russian throne in 1915. Tsanderovsky institute of therapeutic physical training for treating of sick men with diseases of musculoskeletal apparatus on special equipments and training apparatuses.
In the resort park there is a drinking gallery which is a historical and architectural monument. On the central alley there is a principal pavilion ¹ 4. A lower alley of the central park is a way of health. Three times a day it revives: thousands people go to the springs. Separate well-rooms, from which only pergolas have survived, functionated in the central alley formerly.
In Essentuki one may visit the oldest construction of the resort – Drinking gallery of Spring 17, which was laid in 1848. Limestone and sandstone, of which it was built, was brought on oxen from Alikonovskoe gorge, and white travertine – from the open pits at the feet of Mashuk. In our time the gallery is tiled with grey and pale-yellow marble on the outside, the floor is covered with colored concrete.
A large hall of the museum of regional in Essentuki is assigned for an exposition about feats of compatriots in the fronts, about heroism of medical men, who worked for days and nights in the hospitals of the city on saving life and health of wounded fighters.
Buildings of hospitals are marked off with memorial plates. Eternal flame (park of Leninsky Komsomol). The better way to the monument is by Semashko street through tunnel. This memorial (author I. I. Mednikov) was unveiled on the 6th of May of 1972 in commemoration of compatriots, who had been killed during the Great Patriotic war.
In the central part of the city-resort there is a resort park, occupying more than 60 ha of green belts. The resort park is divided into Upper and Lower one. In the Upper park there is a physiotherapeutic hospital, Upper baths, a sanatorium of Sverdlov, a well-room of mineral spring ¹ 1, a musical stage of summer type, a library.
In the Lower one there are summer springs of Essentuki springs, a drinking gallery, in which springs of Essentuki resort ¹ 17, ¹ 20 are concentrated, well site ¹ 1, Lower baths, Tsanderovsky institute (department of mechanotherapy), a resort theater.
The Lower park is connected with the central part of the city by a beautiful architectural ensemble – a cascade stairs with fountains, terraces and arches. Most part of sanatoriums and rest homes, a resort polyclinic, hotels, dietary canteens, mud baths are situated in immediate proximity to the resort park.
Former dacha of I. G. Zimin, built in modernist style, is three-storied. Two small turrets, two- and four-storied, side with its southern facade. The highest one has a knob in parapet form and only vaguely resemble a Svan tower. Abundance of windows with various embrasures, brick figured details, light-yellow color of brick make the thick construction affable.
Western facade – front, with main entry – is interesting. On the level of the third floor there is a loggia with a vaulted overhead cover. An embrasure of the door, leading to the loggia, is of the same form. And above them in the three-cornered pediment is a mezzanine with three tiny windows. Round turrets are built into the parapet of the roof at the corners of the principal cube of the building. When sculptures of three eagles were set on the pediment of the mezzanine, the dacha acquired name “Eagle’s nest”. A sanatorium of Pavlov was accommodated here in 1923. A resort library is accommodated in the old mansion now.
Museum of household occupies a house, which was built specially for it. Most collections still need systematization but review of old goods of life, photos and unique books give visitors pleasure. Here there is an exposition of mountain-dwellers’ utensils (Chechen, Dagestan, Ossetin’s jugs), a unique collection of Russian samovars (up to 300 items), various mortars, potteries of different time, dishes, clocks, furniture and others. Among establishments of culture are Legitimate theater, cinema.
The process of forming of the springs, hidden in the Earth’s interior, can be observed by the example of Crying grottoes. One of them is situated behind Oreanda, if walking into the lower part of the park along the principle alley, past the sanatorium of Sverdlov. A metallic grille with a drop image is seen downstairs. Real drops of water, falling down from the earthen vault, are observed. Clear and sonorous, they attract attention: the grotto cries – there is no exacter definition.
In the Essentuki there is a concert hall of Shalyapin (a former Guest theater), in which famous actors regularly perform. Besides “Lermontov’s house” there are also other museums which are interesting. Among them mansion of artist-Itinerants Nicholas Yaroshenko and dacha of opera demon Theodore Shalyapin.
Indications for treating in EssentukiDigestive apparatus disease (reflux esophagitis, chronic gastritis, gastroduodenitis, stomach ulcer, duodenal ulcer, inveterate bronchitis, enterocolitis, inveterate hepatitis, cholecystitis, cholangitis, pancreatitis, biliary dyskinesia, cholelithiasis, peritoneal commissures of abdominal cavity).
Endocrinology (pancreatic diabetes, polyneuropathy and angiopathy, alimentary obesity).
Gynecopathies (chronic inflammation of appendages, chronic pelvic celltiltis, pelvic peritoneal adhesions, malposition of uterus, infantility (sexual), uterus hypoplasia, ovarian dysfunction, infecundity).
And also concomitant diseases: pulmonology, auricle, guttur and nose diseases, dermatology, nervous system diseases, peripheral vascular diseases, locomotor apparatus diseases.
The soul awake here together with morning bird’s singing and noise of the old forest soothes and lulls it to sleep. They say that energy on the height and at the church temples is special. The air here is clear and it is quiet unusually for citizens.
[2011-06-09 02:40:22]
I would like to know how ESSENTUKI WATER affects a person with type 2 diabetes. If the blood sugar levels are lowered or does it heal the pancreas. Thank you. Please reply
|
|
