Having stayed in Stavropol for more than four days and visited the “Fish Lake” and the village of Pelateada, the water level is at its lowest (up to 600 f.a.s.l.) to the west and east in relation to the Stavropol plateau, I, through the village. Maryevsekoe, Beshtagir and Sertevekoe again returned to Sultanovekoe. On this path, of particular interest is the m%fetnost of the village of Beshpatir, along its own sands, the origin of which is due to the ignorance and negligence of the inhabitants of the said village. The fact is that the top of the mountain near which the village is located was previously covered by a shallow layer of black soil, densely overgrown with grass. This was the case until the time when the survey first began (this was in the fifties of the current revolution). Under the chernozem there was a small layer of stone, limestone, suitable for construction, and under the limestone there was a thick (several tens of arshins) layer of sand. The local residents, settling comfortably along the slope of the mountain, little by little chose a stone for their needs and exposed the sand lying under it. (the cat, destroying vegetation every day, obstructed its overgrowth, and the sand, exploding from the eastern winds, began to descend into the village and cover everything that came across in its path. First, it covered springs and wells, then courtyards and gardens, and finally residential buildings. Over the past twenty years, about 50 households have been registered. Their owners had to move to another part of the village. At first no one paid attention to this phenomenon: n15; then, when they saw that the sands were threatening to cover the center of the village with the church, school and tavern, the peasants became alarmed; They let the authorities know. A lieutenant and a landowner were sent, they came more than once, there was even a governor of the province, they invented means of distribution, they undertook m$fras; but one thing is certain, that it is now very difficult to stop the offensive movement of the sands - they started the process too much, they started to correct it too late. There are more than one such villages, kakh Beshpatir, in the Stavropol province. The same thing happened in the village of Tsetrovekom, the same thing will happen, one must think, in the village of Sultanovskoe, where the soil and geological conditions are apparently similar to Beshpagir. In the village of Sultanovskoye, which has existed for only a third of a dozen years, the process of formation of shifting sands is only, so to speak, in its infancy. Now, therefore, its further development can be easily paralyzed if we stop breaking stones and grazing cattle on the peaks of Brykova. But who will care about explaining to the sweeping peasants the need to leave the mountain untouched? Who will give orders about this in time?
Caucasian mineral waters.
View of the snow line and Elborus. Essentuki. Nature of Kislovodsk. Narzan. Zhelznovodsk and Pyatigorsk as treatment groups.
Late in the evening the train took us to the Mineralnye Vody station. From here you can travel to Pyatigorev, Zhelfznovodek and other points of the Caucasian waters in different ways: in postal dilijans of the first or second class, or in a carriage and on the roads of free cabs, of whom there are always a lot of people at your service. Having familiarized ourselves with the prices for passengers and luggage in a mail carriage and a sales cab, we agreed on a day's meal for 10 rubles to Kislovodsk, bypassing the center of mineral waters - Pyatigorek. We had to set off early in the morning before sunrise. The air was quiet and so fresh that, despite the end of June, a coat and a blanket turned out to be insufficient - I had to wrap my legs in a blanket. IN
an impressive phaeton drawn by a trio of nondescript people, but friendly in the work!; horses, it felt cozy and good. Before my eyes I saw a beautiful picture of the first foothills of the Caucasus; on the moral side, apparently, very close, on a completely flat surface, stood a high, conical mountain up to 2 t.f. above the wall, covered with a green carpet of grass and bushes. Behind it, in the distance, a continuous mountain was visible, gradually rising and covering another mountain, even larger, blurred, but with unclear outlines. On the left side stretched a hill, which, apparently, we had to climb or walk around, depending on where our road was supposed to go. The tops of the mountains were bathed in the rays of the rising sun, and far ahead of us in the valleys along which we are now Fhali, we saw fog, which, rising higher and higher along the elevated ridge, took on the appearance of a light and translucent veil, finally melting and disappearing into the blue of the sky from the combination with the rays of the sun.