"Russia's number one bathing resort" a Sochi Travel Page by Pavlik_NL

Sochi, deep down the South of Russia's Black Sea coast, is by far the most popular bathing resort for this huge country and the only remaining hotspot within the countries borders (the popular Krym-area and Odessa surroundings, are now situated in the Ukraine). Sochi stretches out between Adler on the Georgian border and Tuapse vicinity. Until the third decade of the 19th century, this area was Turkish (Osman) territory, but slowly the Kozak army of the tsars conquered Southwards until the mountains of the Kaukasus. These mountains create a beautiful coastline along Sochi's long spread territory. On one side the blue waters of the Black Sea and on the other side the green mountaintops rising until 1.500 meters heigth. Further land inward tops exceed over 4.000 meters to reach the highest European peak on the Elbrus, 5.642 meters!

The shape of Sochi-territory is strange, very strange. It stretches out over 270 kilometers close against the coast and concists of several towns and villages, that are connected by a coastal road and a railway. One can regard to Sochi as one district, but longest city of Europe is maybe a little overdone. Lazerovskoe is the most Northern outskirt of greater Sochi, to follow over many other little villages (such as Loo and Dagomys) to "Central Sochi". South of this true Sochi that I will show in this page are several townparts (or actually quite independant looking towns) again: Khosta and Adler.

Still, Central Sochi is very much worth your attention and I will show you some delights in this summer resort of Russia. True, it is actually from and for Russians and you will hardly find any foreign tourists in this place. This is on one hand a shame, on the other hand, Russian tourism is hardly inviting foreigners with necessary flexibility (lingual skills, foreign ways for booking holidays and international flights to and from Sochi-Adler). If these things would change, Sochi can very well be a popular holiday resort for Europeans and people from other continents. Temperatures are in summertime very hot and the sea water temperatures even reaches an outrageous 28 degrees Celsius. Besides this beachfun, the area offers a wide variation in interesting cultural, historical and entertainment attractions, such as mountain villages, traditional Russian items, caves, castles, museums, dolfinarium, waterfalls, hiking traisl through amazing nature and more. Check out also my Dagomys, Adler and Krasnaya Polyana page to get a full image on the Sochi territory.