Yana Vinetskaya, exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
"Imagine a pretty elegant bonbonniere, thrown from heaven by the gods between Mounts Beshtau and Zheleznaya deep in the woods. This is what Zheleznovodsk is like, a village which is going to become a city in the near future," is how Georgiy Moskvich described Zheleznovodsk in his "Illustrated Practical Guide to the Caucasus" in 1913.
Friedrich Joseph Haass, a Russian physician of German origins and a philanthropist, was the first to show interest in Zheleznovodsk as a resort. In 1810 he discovered two mineral springs at the foot of Mount Zheleznaya. Already two years later, after the end of the Patriotic War of 1812, the first patients started to arrive there for treatment. If at first they could count only on very basic amenities, already in 1819, the hero of the War of 1812, A. P. Yermolov, the commander in chief of the Caucasus province, ordered the construction of the first hotel and bath at Zhelesnye Vody, as well as for the alleys to be paved in what would soon become a resort.
In the 1850s a stagecoach ran every day between Pyatigorsk and Zheleznovodsk with mail and tourists, and in 1897 the first railway station was opened in Zheleznovodsk, which connected the resort to Beshtau and through Beshtau to other resorts of Kavkazskie Mineralnye Vody. A guidebook from 1913 noted that "in addition to the pleasures presented to the public on a five-verst trip in comfortable and elegant cars, one cannot not mention that these five versts pass through picturesque woodland, which unwittingly attracts the attention. This route is mostly interesting because of its steep ascent: for every 1,000 horizontal fathoms there are 36 vertical fathoms. Nowhere else in Russia is there such a steep ascent. The duration of the trip is 20 minutes." Unfortunately, at the moment, there is no more rail connection between Zheleznovodsk and Beshtau.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Zheleznovodsk was a resort for medium- and high-income vacationers. There were relatively inexpensive hotels (2 to 4 rubles per day), rooms for rent ("in the high season the minimum charge for a mediocre room was 30-40 rubles a month"), a colony of the Red Cross, where it cost 35 rubles for a stay in a common room and 50 rubles for a single room per month, as well as luxury villas with 7-8 rooms for wealthier holiday-makers.
The advantage of the chalybeate springs of Zheleznovodsk is their high varied temperatures, which allowed the water to be drunk without heating it, that is, keeping all of its beneficial properties. The resort was also famous for its mud baths. The high iron content in the water makes the water of Zheleznovodsk particularly beneficial in the treatment of various forms of anemia and metabolic diseases. At the same time, the humid climate, very similar to the climate of the central Alps, made Zheleznovodsk a great place for the treatment of tuberculosis, as well as other lung and nervous diseases.
At the beginning of the 20th century Zheleznovodsk began to practice children's spa treatments. In 1911, it opened the first sanatorium for children called "Mountain Air." "Based on diseases which are treated with its water, Zheleznovodsk long ago established its reputation as a women's resort, but with the same right it can be called a children's resort. The lovely mountain air, rich vegetation, abundance of spa facilities, mineral water, mare's milk, and so on in combination with outside mobile games involving more than one hundred children lead to a rapid recovery of unwell children's organisms," the guide from 1913 tells us.
According to a guidebook written in 1885, patients spent their leisure time in Zheleznovodsk "pretty gleefully. In the morning and in the evening there is music in the park near the Kazenaya Hotel, patients take walks in the beautiful park, there is a shooting range in the park, as well as bowling and gymnastics. Sometimes there are dance evenings organized in the Kazenaya hotel and occasionally it hosts concerts. Patients also walk in the outskirts, the favorite walk is the ascent to Mount Beshtau on horseback, in carriages and on foot." In 1913 Gregory Moskvich wrote that there was also the Pushkin Gallery in Zhelesnovodsk, which "by its beauty and elegance leaves the Lermontov Gallery in Pyatigorsk far behind, where a symphony orchestra gives concerts and where evening dances and performances are organized."
Undoubtedly, the most interesting and enjoyable pastime was trips to the stunningly beautiful outskirts of Zheleznovodsk. The most comfortable trip was to the top of Mount Zheleznaya. Several well-trodden paths of four levels of difficulty with benches all along the route led to the top. At the end of the ascent not only majestic views of Zheleznovodsk, Mount Mashuk and Mount Lysaya awaited the holiday-makers, but also a restaurant "with fairly high prices."
