Sochi

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Sochi (Russian: ??´??) is the most popular Russian resort, situated in the Krasnodar Krai, near the Russian border with Abkhazia, Georgia. It is located in a spectacular natural setting with snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus mountains overlooking gentle shores of the Black Sea. At 147 km, Greater Sochi is the second longest city in the world. From the 6th to the 15th centuries, the area belonged to kings of Abkhazia, who built a dozen churches in Adler, Loo, and other districts of Greater Sochi. Ruins of an 11th-century Byzantine basilica still survive in Loo. From the 15th century, the coast was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. It was ceded to Russia in 1829, as a result of the Russo-Turkish War. Sochi was founded in 1838 as Alexandria settlement (Navaginskoye fortification, 1864 - Dakhovskiy Outpost, 1874 - Dakhovskiy Posad). It had been incorporated as a city and got its present name in 1896. Sochi was established as a fashionable resort area in the years of the Soviet regime, when Joseph Stalin had his favourite dacha built nearby which was tightly protected. The resort has a temperate climate and boasts many sanatoria and mineral baths. There are also tea plantations, the most northerly in Europe. The permanent population is about 315,400 (2004) but millions more arrive each summer, when the city is home to the annual Film Festival "Kinotavr" and the vacation place of Russian leaders. A UNESCO World heritage site, the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve, sprawls just north from the city. Photo of the Black Sea near Sochi, taken in 1915.Apart from the majestic Caucasus mountains, pebbly and sand beaches, Sochi attracts vacation-goers with its subtropical vegetation, numerous parks, monuments, and extravagant Stalinist architecture. The local markets are made primarily of kiosks grouped together in areas with pavilions and more permanent larger structures. Sochi is also remarkable for its sport facilities: a local tennis school spawned the careers of such notable players as Maria Sharapova and Yevgeny Kafelnikov. In late 2005, the Russian Football Union announced that it was planning to establish a year-round training center for the country's national teams in Sochi. The city's warm climate was cited as one of the main incentives (the city's temperature averages above 14 degree Celsius, which is warm by Russian standards). Sochi is an applicant city for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Sochi is twinned with the following towns: Cheltenham (1959), Menton (1966), Rimini (1977), Espoo (1989), Long Beach (1990), Trabzon (1991), Pärnu (1994), and Weihai (1996).