Yana Vinetskaya, exclusively for VK
Krasnaya Polyana, known now as a ski resort and one of the most important sites of the upcoming Olympic Games in Sochi, has a very long history. Peoples and cultures have replaced one another there, leaving memories only in the architectural monuments - dolmens and fortresses. The last people that lived there before the Russian invasion in the mid-nineteenth century were the Circassians. The Circassians were excellent gardeners, and all the mountain slopes around Krasnaya Polyana and the valley of the Mzymta river were covered with fruit trees. It was the Circassians who gave this place its name - Krasnaya Polyana - Red Glade. When the Russian Army occupied this region in the mid-1860s, the Circassians moved to Turkey or to the Kuban, and Krasnaya Polyana was abandoned. The gardens spread and became overgrown, the houses turned to rubble and the roads crumbled. The Russian Committee for the Study of the Black Sea Coast sadly noted: "The Russians came, and a land that had more than 2000 years of history was abandoned. These grey ruins produce a kind of deadly cold. The invincible mountains loom around them threateningly. Everything is silent, except for the deep murmur of the mountain stream." For many years the only trace that the Russians left in Krasnaya Polyana was a date - 21 May 1864 - carved on a tree by Prince Mikhail.
The deserted Krasnaya Polyana was "discovered" by the Greeks. Greeks from Asia Minor who lived in the Stavropol region learned that the Circassians had left the rich lands in the valley of the Mzymta river, and after the Russian army went back these lands stayed empty. In 1878, about 30 Greek families moved to Krasnaya Polyana and started to clear and cultivate the land. They took the best parts on the plain, while the mountain slopes were still covered by forest.
Only in the 1890s did the central government of the Empire become interested in the Black Sea Coast, and numerous committees went there to study the land for agriculture, resorts and country houses. It was at this time that the authorities remembered Krasnaya Polyana and found the Greeks hidden in the mountains.
The reformer of the Caucasus, Nikolai Abaza, decided to make a resort out of Krasnaya Polyana and for these purposes started the construction of the Krasnopolyanskoye highway. The researcher S. Dorovatovsky left the following account of the visit of Abaza's commission to Krasnaya Polyana in 1898: "The trip from Adler through a mountain passage was extremely difficult. But, when they got down from the Aibga range to the Red Glade, everyone in the Abaza comission was amazed by the beauty of the landscape that they saw. It became clear to everyone that this will be a mountain resort."
Clearly the members of the commission were not mistaken, yet years passed before the resort developed.
Inspired by his plans to develop the place, Abaza even decided to give it a new name - Romanovsk, but it was never used by the locals, and even the telegraph office that opened in 1905 was named after Krasnaya Polyana and not Romanovsk.
The town of Romanovsk existed only on paper in the official documents. Despite the new name, until the early twentieth century it was the same small Greek settlement, with 60 houses, a Greek church and a Greek school, where Greek was the language of instruction. The first tourists, coming to Krasnaya Polyana for the sake of the healthy air and wonderful landscapes, lived in these Greek houses, renting a room for a rouble per day or ten roubles per month. Only later did the first hotel, the "Achishkho", appear - the guidebook promised that "tourists could spend several days there without much deprivation".
Despite the complete lack of infrastructure, shops, roads, hotels and flow of tourists were increasing. Physicians were sending their patients there. The natural environment, healthy air and beautiful surroundings made a name for Krasnaya Polyana, although it was quite difficult to get there - at least 7-8 hours by horse from Adler.
As the author of a pre-revolutionary guidebook wrote, "a place should have an enormous power to attract, so that the public, putting up with all the discomfort in Krasnaya Polyana and suffering from all the different problems, was still going there and enjoying it." Clearly, Krasnaya Polyana had this potential. Most tourists came there for mountain hiking. Greeks eagerly worked as their guides. They knew the mountain trails very well, as they used them for hunting. At that time the Greeks were in a constant state of war with the local bears - they threatened their crops and in one night could destroy the fruits of a year's labour.
The hunting in Krasnaya Polyana was so good that in 1909 an English lord came there to hunt wild mountain goats. The woods nearby also offered boar, deer and birds, while in the Mzymta river the fishermen caught trout weighing 20-30 pounds.
But it was the ring of mountains that attracted the tourists to Krasnaya Polyana in the early twentieth century: "Achishkho on the one side, with its rocky teeth, looming like a threatening wall that protects Krasnaya Polyana from the northern winds; on the other side - the four peaks of Aibga, where the last rays of the sunset stay for so long; and there, in the depths - the Pseashkho Pass, with its snowy peaks far above the Alpine glades!"
