The author of the VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info Telegram channel continues to report on how the famous resort town of Kislovodsk is being destroyed. It is essentially being turned into "Moscow" – historic buildings and natural monuments are being replaced by ugly new construction. Meanwhile, the pockets of officials and businessmen are being filled. Appeals to Putin are of no avail. One of the last intact wooden railway stations in our country, the famous "Minutka," is facing destruction.
It was built in the late 19th century (estimates vary, from 1896 to 1899) at the request of residents of the time, who asked the passing train bound for the central station to "stop for just a minute" so that locals could offer their goods and handicrafts to vacationers, and passengers could freshen up and arrive at the final station in their best. For 100 years, efforts have been made to preserve it in its original form, surviving all the cataclysms of the 20th century.
Even today, despite peeling paint, the building remains intact; even the roof remains leak-free. However, the local administration has a "grand" plan to demolish it and erect a plastic modular mini-station in its place. They say it will be more modern and better. Why not restore this historic building (I emphasize, one of the last wooden train stations in the country, where a movie was even filmed at one point) to its proper condition, give it a modern interior, and leave a memory for posterity—I personally don't understand.
The house of Rebrov, one of the first residents of Kislovodsk, who hosted Pushkin and Lermontov here, was also lost forever due to a disregard for it. This is what it looked like then and what remains of it now:
To this day, no one has bothered to even build a replica of this house, "there's no money."
To make way for yet another pseudo-hotel, the Elbrus Photo Association, known throughout the Caucasian Mineral Waters and founded and where the renowned photographer Karasik worked for many years, was demolished in 2024. (His work is even known in the US; Karasik's famous photo portraits can be found in many homes throughout the former USSR.) They could always make paper prints from digital photos, take high-quality ID photos, or scan negatives left by grandparents and convert them to digital format. Somewhere high up, they decided that the city didn't need the memory of such a person or a first-class photo studio, and now they're building another concrete box there. Why a hotel for vacationers is needed next to a food market located directly across from a perpetually congested intersection, where even a driveway is impossible and the stalls are constantly noisy, is unclear.
Most likely, the historic building of the Silnikov Boys' Gymnasium, built in 1902, will be demolished. Despite requests to preserve at least the façade (and at least build a replica of this building), it was removed from the register of cultural heritage sites.
Saperny Lane, one of the city's oldest streets, is already half demolished, and they want to build another glass giant in its place, ignoring the prohibitions of geologists, activists, and architects. So far, the ancient "castle-like" building/mansion of the former KGB on this alley has miraculously been saved, but I'm afraid this is temporary. (Sorry, I forgot to add a photo while writing the appeal, but it's easy to Google – the KGB building in Kislovodsk.) On the opposite side of the alley, there are also many old houses and mansions that they want to quickly declare unfit for use and also demolish. This is how the memory of the ancestors who left us these cultural treasures is being destroyed. People are shocked – how can they treat historical neighborhoods that need to be preserved like this? Who needs such barbarism? I won't even mention what the residents of those houses are going through and the outlying areas they're being exiled to on the outskirts of the city.
In the last three years, human anthills have been growing like mushrooms in the resort. Neither environmental standards nor seismological (5.0 magnitude earthquakes are common in Kislovodsk several times a year) or soil safety measures deter developers, and local authorities don't even try to interfere. A striking example is Dekabristov Street, which is located right next to the Dzhinalsky Ridge. This area has a very unpleasant characteristic: the nearby ridge is prone to sending mudflows carrying rocks and mud downhill during heavy rains (the city has flooded several times, most recently in 2002 and 2018, when entire neighborhoods were inundated with water and mud). This, coupled with dormant landslides located in the soil, makes construction there dangerous. During Soviet times, plans to build five-story buildings there were firmly rejected by geologists, who issued a categorical conclusion: only dachas could be built there, and only with dense tree plantings around it to retain the soil. However, even this didn't always work. In the 1980s, a mudflow descended from the mountains after a heavy rain, wiping out several summer cottages and killing people. Even these measures did not guarantee 100 percent safety. Shields from nature's wrath. Now, after 2020, the street has been overrun with high-rise buildings (to the horror of the locals). Most of the forest was cut down and destroyed, everything was encased in concrete, and not a single tree or shrub was left in the area. Notice in the photos how tightly packed the houses are, violating all building codes for mountainous areas prone to frequent tremors. The buildings themselves are made of thin brick walls and plasterboard partitions inside.
A section of Zheleznovodskaya Street, still undeveloped, is visible, adjacent to Dekabristov Street. Previously, nothing but forest and dachas were allowed to be built here.
Notice how the houses are standing. A series of strong tremors from underground or two or three years of heavy rains, which is not uncommon, and the buildings would collapse on each other as the waters began to erode the soil and the foundations would begin to slip. This housing is now being touted as a good option for those looking to move here, while discreetly remaining silent about how and where these buildings were built. We saw something similar in Turkey, when hotels built close together there began to collapse, claiming lives during an earthquake. Why risk lives for the sake of developers' windfall profits? For what?
This is what an undeveloped plot of land on Dekabristov Street looks like. It's still undeveloped, but they plan to build on it this year and continue at the same pace...
To substantiate my claims, I'll give a simple example of how the destruction of trees in our city leads to very serious consequences.
Two years ago, as part of a city "improvement" program, most of the trees near the stairs leading to the amusement park, on the hillside near the Narzan baths, were cut down. At the same time, green spaces on the hillsides along Vokzalnaya Street, adjacent to the road, were destroyed. Despite their promises, the city officials failed to plant any new shrubs or trees. The consequences of the water eroding the slope, deprived of its root support, were not long in coming. The staircase leading up simply collapsed along with a huge chunk of rock, miraculously not destroying the bas-relief of the writer Gubin. It still stands in disrepair, and no one is even planning to repair the damage, although such collapses of unsupported rock could happen again. A similar rockfall on Vokzalnaya Street is only a matter of time; gullies and water-damaged cracks have already begun to appear where trees were felled. The wholesale felling of trees has become a nasty tradition in the city in recent years. Greenery within the city limits has been removed, allegedly due to its "decrepit state and disease," while no one is rushing to plant new ones. The sites of the demolished front gardens and trees are now being covered in concrete and paving. For a city originally designed as a park-like city, where trees helped oxygenate the air, hold the soil together, moderate the continental climate, and provide shade and coolness on hot days, this is downright sabotage. Already, smoke and smog from exhaust fumes hang over the city in the cleared areas. Dozens of healthy chestnut trees were cut down on Dzerzhinsky Prospekt in the resort area, retiled, and now it's impossible to walk there in the heat; it feels like you're in an oven. And what about those who came here for heart and vascular treatment, and those vacationers who are now forced to roast in the sun without the shade of trees?
And this is what Dzerzhinsky Prospekt looked like after the barbaric felling of trees.
The restoration of the "House of Pioneers" on Pervomaysky Prospekt has become the latest city scandal. (After the collapse of the USSR, it became a children's art center.)
During renovations to the building, an antique clock and a dressing mirror, which belonged to the house's first owner, Ter-Pogosov, mysteriously "disappeared." When teachers, outraged by the disappearance, contacted the last director of the Pioneer House and also a city Duma deputy, Fyodor Khudyakov, he replied that the clock and mirror were not on the Pioneer House's books, and therefore were... SIMPLY THROWED AWAY AS BROKEN AND UNNECESSARY. Do you hear that? Antique museum pieces over 120 years old were thrown out like trash! Allegedly, the clock had long since stopped working, and the antique mirror was broken by construction workers during renovations. However, no one believes this; everyone unanimously says they were most likely simply sold or appropriated by private owners. Now, nothing remains to remind us of these items, except for photographs.
The city is currently facing a ton of problems. Our utility networks are more than 60% worn out. The sewer system, which hasn't been replaced since 1936, is a major concern. Heating and water mains are constantly breaking due to worn pipes. The state of the electrical grid is also alarming. The roads in the city, not counting the two "resort streets" that are usually groomed for tourists, are simply appalling; in many areas, you can simply lose your suspension. In 2009, the city sold our factory on Kuibysheva Street (whose products were environmentally friendly, high-quality, and included in the therapeutic diets of sanatoriums and children's institutions), and in its place, another new one was built. The plant refused all requests and demands to build a new pier. We don't even have our own traffic police department—to register or sell our cars, we have to travel to Yessentuki or Lermontov, 30 km outside the city, which, you'll agree, is not very convenient. Nothing is being done to truly develop the city; almost all of the city's universities, except for the medical school, have been closed, leading to a massive exodus of young people from the city.
But all this matters little to the city's leaders—these issues have been unresolved for years.
The city is suffocated by massive traffic jams of out-of-town cars, which, coupled with the felling of trees, has already led to smog and a burning smell even in the resort area (and building a huge hotel on the site of the post office building will only worsen the situation—the city will simply "stand still").
At the entrance to the city, on Promyshlennaya Street, a huge parking lot for vacationers remains from Soviet times, so that vacationers can use public transportation and avoid clogging the city with cars. On the site of the old Narzan distillery, just steps from the city center on Tyuleneva Street, there's a huge, flat area that locals have been asking for as a parking lot. Two parking lots, along with the creation of a municipal taxi and minibus service, like in Moscow, would be enough to relieve traffic from out-of-towners, especially since the city still relies on federal funding. However, all requests and arguments have gone unanswered. Just as unanswered have been the demands to open a bathhouse on Tyuleneva Street, which has been closed for five years for "restoration" that hasn't even begun. The city essentially doesn't have a single public bathhouse; people without their own bathrooms are forced to wash at friends' houses, if they're lucky.
Instead, our local mayor's office, led by Moiseyev, hasn't found anything better than to start installing toll curbs everywhere in the city! Calling all this "the creation of paid parking in the city," at the end of 2024, paid parking signs began appearing everywhere on the side of the road. Everyone, including vacationers and locals, must pay, with no concessions. The absolutely draconian rate of 50 rubles per hour (and paid parking 24/7) shocked everyone. Don't listen to those who tell tales of "heavenly salaries" in Kislovodsk, where a local earning 35,000 rubles is a real fortune; the new curbside tax is a burden on everyone's wallet. It doesn't matter whether you work or live in an apartment without a yard—it makes no difference—everyone must pay. Meanwhile, there are no free parking spaces, and none are expected. The apotheosis of this stupidity can be seen on Koltsova Street, where the St. Nicholas Cathedral and Mosque are located. The entire sidewalk there was made toll-free, and when believers, outraged by such rude treatment, decided to park their cars on the opposite side of the street, they quickly stuck a "No Parking" sign there, thus making the entire street a toll-free zone. This was a huge surprise for residents whose old houses lack interior parking, effectively depriving them of their legal parking space in front of their homes. Either pay, or your car will be towed overnight to the impound lot; the administration no longer cares that you live there.
To be continued
