Yana Vinetskaya, exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
The modern history of Novorossiysk began as a Black Sea district town on the western side of Novorossiysk (Tsemes) Bay, at the confluence of the Tsemes. On Italian maps of the 14th-16th centuries. the bay has a beautiful name - Calo limena, i.e. "Beautiful bay". For quite a long time it was rightly considered the best on the eastern coast of the Black Sea. Its only disadvantage was the so-called "bora" - a strong northeasterly wind blowing here with particular force and even bitterness in the winter months. At the end of the last third of the 19th century the town had a little more than 8,000 inhabitants. It was founded in 1836, when Fort Tsemess was built and merged with the Black Sea coastline. Soon the fort was renamed Novorossiysk, and several years later it became a port city with great benefits for residents and traders. For a very long time, the only way of regular communication between Novorossiysk and Batumi, as well as other coastal towns, was the sea. In 1882 work began on organizing the main road along the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea from Novorossiysk to Sukhumi and further to Zuglo in Mingrelia. "This construction, that is indispensable to the proper colonization and economic development of the rich but deserted coast, meets the greatest obstacles in the topographic structure of the area, lack of population and many mountain streams and large rivers running down to the Black Sea from the Main Range and its foothills," wrote Weidenbaum in 1888, with undoubted hope that construction was soon to be completed, and the entire region would start a new life with renewed vigour. "The trading value of the city will doubtlessly increase significantly with the railway opening," he predicted in his classic guide to the Caucasus. Indeed, in the same year, the city was linked by rail with other important points not only on the coast and in the Caucasus, but also with the capitals. And just ten years later it became the provincial center of a Black Sea province, the smallest one in Russia. In the first third of the twentieth century Novorossiysk was already an important trading center, and its port became one of the key Black Sea ports, while the number of residents exceeded 40 thousand people.
Provision of urban amenities could not catch up with such rapid growth, and in this sense Novorossiysk remained a calm and traditional coastal town for a long time.The old part of the city, in which the majority of administrative provincial institutions were located, continued to live the same life, but in the new part, which was dominated by energetic businessmen and industrialists, everything looked different. Shortly before the railway was brought to Novorossiysk, a French Joint Stock Company "Russian Standard" acquired a large plot of land on the bay coast, where a new quarter grew rapidly, with wide paved streets and beautiful houses. "On a picturesque location a very beautiful building was constructed, which houses the 2nd Novorossiysk Public Meeting House. This is undoubtedly the best club house on the entire coast of the Black Sea," wrote Gregory Moskvich.
Along with the development of the city appeared development ideas for resort areas. Novorossiysk would be very good as a resort: it had beautiful sea beaches, Lake Sudzhuk with its wonderful healing mud was not so far away, it also had a favorable summer climate and overall, in the words of a contemporary, "cheap life in general." the only thing that was to be done was to settle the urban infrastructure, install a water supply and start to do something with the "Tsemess swamp" in the city center, as the locals called the Tsemes river flowing across the city. All these problems were solved by the partnership "Novorossiysk Resort", which was engaged in the construction of water and mud baths, sea bathing devices and improving the entire coastal strip. The surrounding neighborhood of the city was also of great interest. At the beginning of the 20th century the remnants of the Sudhuk Kale Fortress were seen. It was built by the Turks in 1722 as a bulwark against the Russian Empire that was gaining strength. 20km away to the west, near a small lake, there is the farm of Abrau, wonderful for its exemplary economy, particularly in winemaking. Halfway to the estate there is the area known as "the wide valley". The climate is smooth - summer is neither hot nor humid, winter is warm, and almost no frost. In December wallflowers bloom. "The wide valley" was divided into sections, which were put up for sale or lease. Many of them were built very quickly with quality accommodation for tourists and vacationers. There was a special agency that distributed the dachas among the visitors and cared about their comfort. According to Gregory Moskvich, this place was a good competition to Yalta and the southern coast of Crimea, with the only difference being that here life was simpler and cheaper.
