SOUR PEACOCKS, A FEW WORDS ABOUT HOW TO GET YOURSELF FOOD IN THE CITY-RESORT AND “WE WERE ALWAYS STOLEN ...”
Elena Valeryevna and I arrived in Kislovodsk and have already managed to see something in this wonderful city, and even beyond. We ate and sang with the Cossacks, saw magnificent waterfalls and watched a mono-performance performed by a brilliant guide.
Read - who hasn't read the first, second and third parts - and here it is, the fourth.
september 5, 2026
Already in the third morning, when I go out to the wide terrace of the “Eagle’s Nest”, I hear loud groans or screams. Clearly not human.
But whose?
This morning I solved the mystery.
As always here, I went now “for a walk” and went to the pedestrian zone, on Lenin Avenue.
And at the very beginning, at the top, I saw an oriental man who was planting an eagle, an owl and several peacocks on the perches.
Let me tell you right away, the winged prisoners look well-groomed, well-fed, satisfied. They're not nervous.
A huge eagle looked at everyone passing in a very bad way. Nor did the little owl wiggle its head and slap its big eyes.
And then there were three peacocks. One is white, the other is purple, the third is just plain dark.
The colored one has already opened its luxurious tail and opened its beak. As soon as he opened it, I immediately realized whose cries in the morning bother me in Kislovodsk.
Birds can be photographed and birds can also be photographed. But both are for money. I decided not to take pictures of birds or take pictures with birds.
The peacock picture is not the wind. I'd rather get a coffee.
During the morning walk I talked to a local man, friendly, like all the citizens of this resort town. A utility engineer.
He told me how the pedestrian zone appeared here, which became one of the hallmarks of Kislovodsk.
“In Soviet times, there was an absolutely nondescript avenue here,” my interlocutor began his story.
In fact, it is difficult to believe, because now Lenin Avenue is a beautiful beauty.
For many years there was no money to improve it. But next to the avenue and the trail that leads to the famous Kislovodsky Park, and steep by Soviet standards - and today too - sanatoriums.
And recently, there was a lot of money!
As my new friend said, “We have always been stolen, but now somehow less and even this is what happened...”
What happened?
It started with the fact that local money was used, regional, for reconstruction.
Then, in 2021, almost five hundred million rubles were allocated from the reserve fund of the Russian Government to complete the work.
All this was part of the state program for the development of the North Caucasus Federal District.
And Lenin Avenue turned into a cozy pedestrian zone with a length of almost two kilometers. Only a very small part was given to vehicles.
Squares, fountains, benches, coffee are brewed, excursions are offered. In the evening, the musicians sing. Green lights, safe, beautiful...
In the middle of the avenue is a comfortable buffet under the rotunda. I've written about it before.
We decided on food for the whole time - I hope - stay here.
It's simple: we found a spa dining room, which is not far from the lower end of Lenin Avenue, where you can eat, right there, and take it with you.
It's delicious and basically cheap. The portions are very decent.
We have identified three cafes where you can have a hearty and even varied lunch.
What are we doing?
In the evening, we go to the dining room and take delicious meat, fish, pastries, salads for dinner and breakfast.
The room has a refrigerator, a kettle, all the necessary devices: plates, spoons of forks, cups and so on.
We still have tea bags and sugar.
Thus, in the morning and late evening food is provided.
And in the day or immediately after the excursions, we arrange gastronomic madness in some cafe.
Today, for example, they were mad with harcho, fragrant lamb lulla and tender lavash...
september 6, 2026
Good morning again, country, from Kislovodsk.
Just bursts like you want to write about another “chip” of Lenin Avenue and in general Kislovodsk.
There are a lot of small, very cute sculptures that don’t just decorate the urban space. They are an organic part of it, they are its space.
I tried to imagine this prospectus without them - it didn't work out.
So down below you're met by a kind bronze cab driver. In the nineteenth century, it was called “Londo”. "Where will you go, sir?" I'll make it
The mood is already kind of light, almost festive.
Let's go up again and at one of the flights of stairs frozen bronze dog. He has a hind leg... Well, in short, he pees. Even though he does it in a public place, no one grumbling at him. They pet him, take pictures with him. Good luck with the withers and nose - they are polished to shine.
Next, next! And now we are already met by Emperor Alexander I with his close associates.
On March 7, 1803, he had just signed a rescript on the actual foundation of Kislovodsk, "the construction of fortifications at the "acid waters." Excellent composition. One chair at the table is empty. Anyone can take it. Why not sit with the emperor?
And higher than that! Who's standing there? Matilda Felixovna is standing there. Kshesinskaya. Beauty, ballerina and mistress of three Grand Dukes of the House of Romanov.
Is that why her sculpture is there? The fact is that above - right above the ballerina - a magnificent mansion with a garden, rotundas and other attributes of a rich life. It's called "Villa Kshesinska.".
But the funny thing is that Matilda was hardly in this villa at all. Yes, she lived in Kislovodsk from June 1917 to the end of 1919. But not here. It has nothing to do with this magnificent mansion and has never had it. The house was built very famous in the early XX century in Stavropol and in Tiflis province public figure Anton Ivanovich Tvalchrelidze in 1905. Then on the "Villa Kshesinskaya" lived the father of his wife Anton Ivanovich, and then one rich horse breeder. And then the Soviet power came.
But where did the "bullet" about Kshesinskaya and this house come from? As local local historians and old-timers say, this legend was invented in the 20s of the last century by one of the local guides to make it more interesting. The legend took root and became almost true. Sometimes.
But the sculptures are such - cozy, almost home - not only on Lenin Avenue in Kislovodsk. If you go from the avenue to the Resort Boulevard, then we will definitely meet a bronze handsome cat and a girl by the fountain, a couple of bronze lovers and a bronze carefree resort girl on the bench...
... My feet!
Today we went to Kislovodsky Park. Follow the path of health that I "discovered" walking in the first days.
This is at the very beginning - at the top - of Lenin Avenue.
You walk on the pavement first. You walk past a chic new boarding house, a new Armenian church, leave behind some large Soviet-era sanatorium with a colonnade and a huge monument like Lenin.
Then came a concrete path with steps. Higher and higher.
It's pretty hollow at first, then it's cooler and cooler.
And my hind legs are not rubber, my muscles are starting to whine. But he did.
Here's the last steep climb of stairs and we're in the park. In the middle of it.
No, it was worth climbing for this beauty!
The paths, the trees, the views are amazing.
But we need a cable car. We saw her. And they saw a pretty good line on the rope. All right, get up.
Oh, I'll finish it tomorrow. Yelena Valeryevna will call for dinner.
CONTINUATION TO FOLLOW
