Sights of Cherkessk
Natural attractions of Cherkessk and its surroundings
Sofia Lakes
These are three beautiful alpine lakes. They are famous for the fact that in each of them the water has its own shade of color: black, bright blue and turquoise.
Teberdinsky Reserve
Located 100 km from Cherkessk. If you are a nature lover, then you will be delighted by the beauty of this reserve. You can enjoy the silence, clean mountain air and the wild beauty of alpine lakes, forests, meadows and snow-covered slopes.
Mineral springs in the village of Arkhyz
It is 120 km from Cherkessk. These Arkhyze mineral springs are a place of pilgrimage for tourists.
Baduk Lakes
This is a cascade of three lakes at an altitude of 2000 m. The hiking route to these lakes will take at least a day. You can get to the beginning of the walking route by personal or rented car.
* Family holidays with children and entertainment in Cherkessk
Alley "Lukomorye"
Located in the Green Island Culture and Recreation Park. Your kids will love the cartoonish wooden sculptures.
Light and music fountain
Located in the central square. Light, water and musical performances are held every evening. A very popular entertainment for locals and city guests.
RTI Park
Located on Gutyakulova Street. Created specifically for families with children
Note. Also available to vacationers and city guests are numerous restaurants, cinemas, theaters, entertainment centers, bowling alleys, cafes, shopping centers, and karaoke clubs.
Architectural, historical and religious sights of Cherkessk
Cathedral of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
Located in Cherkessk, on Kirov Square. This majestic temple was originally built in 1896. His veche bell weighed 13.6 tons!
In 1934, the authorities destroyed the temple. Only 50 years later its restoration began. In 2012, the revived cathedral was reconsecrated and became operational. The total area of the cathedral is 1.5 thousand sq/m.
This magnificent temple is a real pearl of the city of Cherkessk.
Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Located in the city park, on Lenin Avenue. The history of this church is simply amazing. It was built in the village of Khoperskaya in 1730. The material for construction was black oak. For a hundred years the temple stood in the village of Khoperskaya, and in 1829 it was moved to Stavropol. In 1831, the Khoper Cossacks dismantled the church and carried it on foot to the village of Batalpashinskaya.
The church will soon be three centuries old, but it still stands. An equally amazing fact is that throughout its history the church has never closed and has always been active.
Externally, the church is very beautiful - the walls and domes are painted in a heavenly color.
Cathedral Mosque
Located in Cherkessk on Lenin Avenue. It is also an amazing iconic landmark of Cherkessk. This mosque does not have an ancient history - it was founded in 2007, and became operational in 2013. But this is more than compensated for by its magnificence. The Cathedral Mosque spreads over an area of 4.2 thousand sq/m! The mosque building is 32 m high, and the height of the 4 minarets at its corners is 52 m! It is unlikely that you will find another mosque of the same beauty in the North Caucasus.
Note. The main religious churches of Cherkessk are listed above. There is also the Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh on Gutyakulova Street, the Church of St. George the Victorious on Dovator Street and a small mosque on Polevaya Street.
The Church of St. Sergius of Radonezh is interesting because it was built from Solikamsk pine, without the use of nails.
Northern Zelenchuk Temple
Located in the Bolshoi Zelenchuk gorge, in the village of Nizhny Arkhyz near Cherkessk. This temple is worth mentioning separately, as it is a valuable historical and cultural heritage of these places. The history of this temple goes back more than a thousand years! It is built of sandstone, well preserved and looks very picturesque against the backdrop of the mountains. In total, there are 3 ancient temples in the Zelenchuk Gorge - the Northern Temple is the largest.
Fresco "Face of Christ"
A unique ancient fresco was discovered in 1999 in the Zelenchuksky district on one of the rocks. Experts believe that it was created in the ninth century.
Museums of the city of Cherkessk
Karachay-Cherkess Historical, Cultural and Natural Museum-Reserve
The oldest museum in Cherkessk. It was founded in 1916. Now this museum can rightfully be called a museum association. It includes more than 9 dozen buildings and more than 80 thousand exhibits. The museum contains many artifacts of past times - historical documents, photographs, etc.
The main building of the museum is located in Cherkessk, on Krasnoarmeyskaya Street.
Museum of Local Lore
Located in Cherkessk, on Lenin Street. In the museum you can examine bronze and ceramic products from the Kuban and Kuban cultures. The collection of traditional clothes made of rich gold fabric and jewelry made of precious metals is very interesting. The museum has more than one hundred thousand exhibits.
Art Gallery
Located in Cherkessk, on Krasnoarmeyskaya street. It was opened in the 90s of the last century. Occupies a historical building, built at the beginning of the last century. In the museum you can see paintings by Circassian and Russian artists.
Temples and cathedrals
Representatives of more than 70 nationalities live in Cherkessk, so in the center of the city’s coat of arms there is a golden stele, which symbolizes the friendship of peoples. The religion of the population of Cherkessk is diverse. There are three main religious directions:
- Orthodoxy;
- Islam;
- Protestantism.
On the territory of the capital of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic you can see both churches and mosques. Ancient and modern buildings that amaze with their grandeur include:
- Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
- St. Nicholas Cathedral.
- Sergievsky Temple.
- Central Cathedral Mosque.
Orthodox landmarks
The history of the Church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Pokrovsky) is quite unusual and goes back to the 18th century. In 1730, in the village of Khopry (Don region) on the banks of the Khopyor River, the Cossacks erected a church made of black oak. It stood for 99 years. But in 1829 the church was moved to Stavropol-Caucasian, and two years later - to the village of Batalpashinskaya (as Cherkessk was called at that time). At the same time, the temple in Stavropol was dismantled, and the Cossacks carried the logs on foot to a new location.
In 1901, due to the construction of the majestic stone St. Nicholas Cathedral next to the church, it was decided to move the wooden Cossack church to another part of the city.
It is believed that the first settlers entered the Batalpashinskaya village on October 14 (the Feast of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary). In honor of this event, the sanctuary that they moved with them was named Pokrovsky. Shrines located in the Intercession Church:
- relics of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker;
- icon of the Mother of God “It is worthy to eat”;
- Iveron Icon of the Mother of God.
In 2007, a Sunday school was opened at the temple, and a hotel complex was built for pilgrims.
The Circassian St. Nicholas Cathedral is named in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, since the consecration of the temple took place in 1896 on the day of memory of this righteous man - December 19. It took five years to build the sanctuary. The necessary material was brought from surrounding villages. Notable is the fact that to strengthen the walls and foundation, eggs were added to the solution, which were delivered by whole carts. There were 222 steps leading to the bell tower. There were twenty bells inside. The largest of them weighed more than 13 tons. The building was not heated, but due to the large number of people gathering for services, the room was always warm.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, power in the country changed. Attitudes towards religion also changed, so in 1934 the temple was blown up. The resulting stones were used to build the city library, executive committee and bathhouse.
The revival of the cathedral began in 1998 and was carried out using funds allocated by the authorities and donations from residents of the entire republic. In 2006, the first Divine Liturgy was celebrated in the not yet fully equipped cathedral. The consecration of the completely revived temple took place in 2012. St. Nicholas Cathedral amazes with its grandeur:
- size - 32x45 m;
- wall height - 12 m;
- The height of the bell tower is 37 m.
The temple can accommodate more than a thousand people at the same time.
The Circassian Sergius Church was built relatively recently. In 2006, it was assembled in Solikamsk from Ural pine. A month later, it was dismantled and transported to Cherkessk, where contractors reassembled it. A church shop, baptismal center, and Sunday school were built on the territory of the temple.
The room can accommodate 120 parishioners. The peculiarity of the building is that it was built without a single nail. To protect wooden beams from mold and fire, they were impregnated with resin and special solutions.
Central Cathedral Mosque
This is the main Islamic center not only in Cherkessk, but throughout the entire republic. Construction of the mosque began in 2007, and the opening took place in 2013.
The domes (33 pieces) were made in Volgodonsk. It took 22 long trucks to deliver them. Main dimensions of the mosque:
- total area - 4200 sq. m.;
- height - 32 m;
- the height of each of the four minarets is 52 m.
About 5 thousand people can be in the building at the same time. The architectural style of the building is Byzantine with elements of Muslim architecture, but the Circassian mosque is not similar to the Turkish ones; the features of the Caucasian spirit are clearly manifested in it.
The Central Cathedral Mosque in Cherkessk is one of the city’s brightest attractions, attracting pilgrims and tourists. In terms of grandeur, it is not inferior to the largest Dagestan, Chechen and Moscow mosques.
“For the 100th anniversary of Karachay-Cherkessia, we will open a number of socially significant objects in Cherkessk”
In the capital of Karachay-Cherkessia, Cherkessk, schools, kindergartens and nurseries are being built, new park areas are being developed, roads are being repaired, and sports and social facilities are being built. The mayor of Cherkessk, Alexey Baskaev, in an interview with Interfax, spoke about what was accomplished in the past year and what are the plans of the city authorities for the coming year.
— Alexey Olegovich, more than a year has passed since you became the mayor of Cherkessk, today you can already sum up the first results. What are the main tasks of the city authorities?
“My goal is to make life in the city become more comfortable every year, better, so that guests come to us, see and celebrate changes for the better. The most necessary and important things are the urban environment, transport, education - all the main spheres of life. I've been working on this all year. We will continue to work in this direction.
Our main task is to provide the population of the republican capital with comfortable, favorable and safe living conditions. This is an almost endless process, because the city is like a constantly working mechanism that requires constant attention in every part of it.
— Today one of the most important topics is the situation with coronavirus. How do the city authorities and the healthcare sector of Cherkessk manage to cope with this situation? Was the city able to fully meet its obligations?
— Of course, the pandemic has affected the situation in the republican capital, and not in the most favorable way, both in the economy and in public life. But this happens everywhere.
Of course, the main burden fell on the republican Ministry of Health, on our medical workers. They are real heroes! For our part, we monitor compliance with all COVID-19 prevention measures in the field of trade, services, public catering, and transport. This is yielding results: today, safety measures are observed in almost all places where people gather in large numbers.
We are also increasing the pace of vaccination - the only way to create herd immunity. To date, more than 31.3 thousand people have been vaccinated in the republican capital - more than 40% of the number of citizens subject to vaccination.
As for our social obligations, we have no lags. We implement them in full. There are no arrears either in wages or in basic plans and programs. It’s the same with federal projects - we complete them not only on time, but sometimes ahead of schedule.
— Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of the formation of Karachay-Cherkessia. How will the capital of the republic celebrate the anniversary?
“I really hope that we will celebrate the anniversary, having defeated the coronavirus infection, and this will allow us to organize a real celebration.
Of course, traditionally, the opening of new socially significant facilities is also a great gift for all citizens. One of these facilities is the Center for Youth Innovative Creativity - a platform where our children can engage in engineering, technical creativity, and IT programming for free with the help of high-tech equipment and modern programs.
In 2022, the reconstruction of the city art school and major renovation of the oldest music school N3 will be completed. This will create comfortable conditions for more than 700 children receiving additional education.
By the beginning of the new school year, a Center for identifying, supporting and developing abilities and talents in children and youth will appear in Cherkessk. For this purpose, laboratories, creative workshops, a video recording studio, concert, choreographic and sports halls will be opened on the basis of the new school in the “Northern” microdistrict of Cherkessk. And in gymnasium N18 we will open another “Quantorium”.
We are reconstructing the Central City Park with a modern LED musical fountain. City residents voted for the improvement project for this public area as part of the national project “Housing and Urban Environment.” So, on an area of more than 5 thousand square meters. meters there will be high-quality tiled covering, modern lighting, the area will be landscaped with flower beds and trees, benches, trash cans and other park elements will appear.
We will also complete the comprehensive improvement of the park, which the townspeople call “Motherland.”
As part of the national project “Housing and Urban Environment”, we will continue to improve courtyard areas. To date, more than a hundred yards have already been put in order. Every year we repair at least 20 adjacent areas of apartment buildings. We expect that we will complete the program planned until 2024 ahead of schedule.
At the same time, five universal winter-summer sports grounds for year-round use will begin to function in Cherkessk. They are intended not only for students of schools near which they are built, but also for all citizens, including people with disabilities. We are currently working on a project for the construction of a physical education and health complex, which, if everything works out, will be located near school N18, where an open-type sports and recreation center with a stadium, treadmills, street exercise equipment and a workout area was launched in 2019.
— How are things going in Cherkessk with nurseries, kindergartens and schools?
— There are no problems with places in kindergartens in Cherkessk. In recent years, several preschool educational institutions have been built in the republican center. But the city is growing and developing, and we continue this work. In a new microdistrict in the northern part of the city, the construction of a new comfortable school for 800 students and a kindergarten for 150 students is being completed.
Nursery buildings for eight kindergartens have also been built. We opened five of them this year.
In general, within the framework of the national project “Demography” we have created 620 nursery places, which will completely resolve the issue of waiting lists in kindergartens for children aged from one and a half to three years.
We should not forget that many of our schools are in need of renovation. We have entered the federal program for the overhaul of schools, and next year repair work will begin in secondary school N3 of Cherkessk. We are working to ensure that our other schools are included in this program.
— What has been done this year in the field of road transport infrastructure, what are your plans for 2022?
— Since the beginning of the implementation of the national project “Safe and Quality Roads,” more than 40 km of roads have been repaired in the city. This year we have completed the repair of 30 road sections with a total length of about 15 km.
At the same time, we do not forget that the city is not only for motorists, but also for pedestrians. So, last year we built 7 thousand meters of sidewalks, this year - about 8 thousand meters, next year the tiled covering will appear on the sidewalks of the central street of Cherkessk - Lenin Avenue. By the way, this year sidewalks have been installed on our guest road, Pyatigorskoe Highway. By the way, it has been completely transformed: a new road surface has appeared here, trees have been planted, modern LED lighting has been installed, and later fences will appear.
In the new year, we will repair at least 15 km of roads, including planning to focus on secondary roads in the private sector.
As for urban transport, already in the first quarter of the upcoming 2022 it will be updated for the first time in 12 years. 20 new comfortable multifunctional “Vector NEXT” buses will enter the line. These are passenger buses with 52 seats, 19 of which are boarding. They will serve intracity flights in Cherkessk. The new buses run on environmentally friendly fuel and will be equipped with air conditioning and video surveillance systems, an expanded doorway and a mechanical ramp, which will make the trip comfortable for both passengers with disabilities and mothers with strollers.
All this became possible thanks to the personal decision of the head of the republic, Rashid Borispievich Temrezov.
— The constant formation of spontaneous landfills and garbage removal are problematic issues for many cities. How does Cherkessk cope with this?
— To improve the quality of work in the field of municipal solid waste management both in the adjacent areas of apartment buildings and in the private sector, monitoring of container sites for the collection of MSW has been carried out in Cherkessk since 2022.
We have made a complete recalculation of the required number of containers at the sites and this year we decided to install about 48 sites and, accordingly, equip them with 200 containers.
In addition, as we have already announced, this year Karachay-Cherkessia, among 46 constituent entities of Russia, received almost 25 million rubles for the purchase of 1,500 garbage containers, a thousand of them will be installed in Cherkessk both in local areas and in the private sector to replace the containers, fallen into disrepair.
At the same time, we continuously monitor the work of management companies servicing the housing stock of apartment buildings in Cherkessk. The regional operator for the management of solid waste, Eco-Service LLC, and the city municipal enterprise Spetsavtohozyaystvo monitor container sites for waste in terms of their maintenance and operation.
In Cherkessk, systematic work is underway to identify and eliminate spontaneous landfills. Subbotniks and months of sanitary cleaning of urban areas are held.
— Alexey Olegovich, in continuation of the question about garbage, I would like to ask about “visual garbage,” as you called unauthorized advertising on city streets. Tell us what you managed to do during this time and is it possible to talk about a noticeable improvement in this direction?
— Indeed, “visual garbage” greatly spoils the appearance of our city. People need to learn to work in the legal advertising system and adopt advertising culture. Every entrepreneur, enterprise, and organization operating in the city must understand that the placement of advertising structures is possible only in strict accordance with the requirements of the Federal Law “On Advertising.”
This year alone, 420 illegally installed advertising structures were dismantled in Cherkessk, and 206 orders were issued to eliminate unauthorized, disorderly advertising.
Moreover, when we identify illegally installed advertising structures, we send their owners an order with an obligation to dismantle the advertising on their own within a month. If they do not do this, then these structures are dismantled at the expense of the local budget.
— Plans were recently announced to come to the creation of a unified design code for the design of signs and advertising on the facades of buildings in Cherkessk. When is it planned to introduce this concept in the republican capital?
— In fact, this work in Cherkessk has already begun. The City Duma approved the regulations on the procedure for placing and maintaining information structures on the territory of Cherkessk. This provision clearly establishes the requirements for advertising structures and defines their types.
I think everyone will agree that outdoor advertising should fit into the urban appearance, and not degrade its appearance. Therefore, the placement and design of outdoor advertising on the facades of urban buildings in the capital of Karachay-Cherkessia are brought to uniform standards. Gradually, we must come to the point where a unified design code will be created for the design of signs and advertising on building facades.
Our city is growing, developing, and the issue of its appearance and improvement is becoming increasingly important.
— You talked about different directions of the city’s development, but how will Cherkessk develop in terms of the development of urban areas?
— Cherkessk is a small city geographically, but despite this, we are creating new microdistricts with all the necessary infrastructure.
As you know, the Severny microdistrict has already been developed and is accepting its first residents. Here, in addition to multi-storey residential buildings, modern healthcare and educational facilities have been built, shopping areas have been erected, high-quality roads and everything necessary for a comfortable life have been equipped.
A new microdistrict “Sputnik” is planned to be built nearby soon. It will be located on an area of 207 hectares, where 580 thousand square meters will be built. meters of living space.
The creation of a new microdistrict became possible thanks to an agreement between the head of the republic, Rashid Temrezov, and the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Marat Khusnullin.
Designing a new microdistrict is a serious, large-scale job. We need to see what this territory will be like in the future, what the houses, roads, school, kindergarten will be like. It should be a well-maintained, modern and beautiful place.
— Cherkessk, despite the difficulties, is looking for free land to implement the law on the allocation of land plots to large families. How are things going this year and what are the prospects for the next period?
— Indeed, the issue of allocating land plots is quite difficult for everyone. We have carried out serious work on the inventory of available land, distributed more than 130 plots, and by the end of the year, the same number of large families will receive free plots for individual housing construction. Since 2012, more than 500 large families have received them, and there are about 900 families with three or more children in the queue.
We will continue to strive to fulfill our obligations to implement the KCR law.
— What, in your opinion, was the main achievement for Cherkessk this year?
— The main achievement, as I have already said, is to always fulfill our obligations to people, in all areas outlined by the head and government of Karachay-Cherkessia.
The year was really difficult, but I think we managed it. It is important, as before, to set the right goals and objectives and move towards their implementation. If we can implement our plans in the new period, this will be our common achievement - the residents of Cherkessk and the city authorities. For my part, I will put all my efforts and strength into this.
