Advertisement
Pyatigorsk was the starting point of my trip to Mount Elbrus. My spirits, strangely, were not high before the journey. I had worked very hard for three days running after return from Paris and did not have a single spare second to buy the things needed for the mountain trekking, except that I bought a warm jacket in Paris and brought some other items from my hometown beforehand. I would quite literally go to the summit empty-handed but I hoped I’d manage to get things on the spot.
I thought about going to Elbrus earlier and had to cancel the plans. The first time I planned to go there in August 2011 with a friend of mine, but decided to cancel it due to some reasons and the friend was very angry with me. But this year I managed to abandon all work and was completely free to go. To be more exact, I had to check the 230 pages of the Baptism book translation and send it to the author. So, the story of Pyatigorsk will be a short one, as are quite a lot of my stories.
The flight from Vnukovo was pure
DSC01247
the statue of Lenin can be seen almost in every big settlement in Russia pleasure. The sky was blue and the sun was shining and I was looking through the window observing the man-made landscapes of squares and rectangles, green spots of trees and rivers-snakes. The magic became more apparent when, approaching the destination Mineralnye Vody, clouds flew by like creations of unknown imagination. I wanted to see mountains, but mountains were farther and unseen. The weather was most excellent, fine and warm. While waiting for the luggage, I thought whether to take a taxi or not (price 500 Rubles to Pyatigorsk) and finally, given the fact of my pending job, decided to waste the money. One has to pay for convenience. I am rather afraid I’m becoming accustomed to convenience from time to time.
The road took about forty minutes and soon I entered the hall of Yuzhnaya Hotel where I supposed to stay. I booked the room for 1500 rubles by phone. It had no shower but other conveniences were available. The hotel is situated one or two meters from the railway station so it is most convenient, and close to the city centre.
In the hotel I immediately started proofing the translation which quite spoilt
my spirits because I realized the sightseeing would be incomplete. I also planned to find shops to buy the missing things for the trekking. I followed Oktyabrskaya Str. to Kirova Prospect and noted the greenness of the main avenue, definitely the city does not have a large budget because the streets looked poor. Pyatigorsk is one of the health resorts in Russia with many sanatoriums and the like, and mineral water sources. It the centre of a whole cluster of smaller cities which also are health resorts like Kislovodsk, Zheleznovodsk, Mineralnye Vody.
As I saw the trade centre Galereya I decided to go inside but did not find what I looked for (I needed sunglasses, warm cap, a plate for eating; actually, the list does not turn out so large). There are many cafes and shops on Kirova Prospect.
I saw the monument to M. Lermontov who’s often been to Pyatigorsk (read the Hero of Our time), a church being built nearby, then proceeded along Dzerzhinskogo Str. to Lenina Square with its Central fountain and citizens spending their time, and then looked the sights marked on the map and quite quickly went back to
Kirova to see them: Lermontov gallery, Diana grotto, Eagle sculpture, and a Chinese pavilion. The whole city spreads before one’s eyes from the hill. I did not go to the top of mount Mashuk (993 meters, the highest near the city) because I was pressed for time.
Generally I was quite satisfied with the city.
I came back to hotel and by 2.30 in the night finished the proofing and slept till 9.00. I still thought to buy the damned missing things in the morning, but was tired and just lay in the bed till check-out time. I phoned the trip guide. The group would meet at the railway station. The mountain trekking will be described in a separate entry.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.316s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 58; dbt: 0.1385s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb