Photo: parks and recreation, other places, Therapeutic Park, Yessentuki

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Therapeutic Park: A Horse Spring, a Centenary Fitness Hall and Baths of Youth

Parks and recreation • Other places

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The Therapeutic or Kurortny Park in Yessentuki is one of the main city attractions. It was laid out on the outskirts of the city in a swampy area, where springs spouted accumulating into a small river Kislusha. This place was called a «horse spring», as the Cossacks carried their horses here to water. At the beginning of the XIX century, St. Petersburg doctors took water samples here and recognized its exceptional healing properties. Total of 20 springs were found, which were given serial numbers. The construction of the Kurortny Park started in 1847 by order of Prince Vorontsov, the namestnik (vicegerent) of Caucasus.

The Kurortny Park in Yessentuki is decorated with rotundas, grottoes and park sculptures. Several walking routes, which connect mineral springs to each other, are laid along it. Each spring is intricately decorated in its own way, but not all of them are reactivated. Not far from the entrance to the park there is a gallery of spring No. 17, built of sandstone in Moorish style. Outside the gallery is decorated with a cast-iron gazebo made by the Ural masters. Inside the gallery is decorated with light marble, antique statues and stained glass windows. The famous white summer colonnade is located at spring No. 4. Now it serves only as a decoration of the park. You can collect water No. 4 in the neighboring well-room building. In addition to water from springs No. 17 and No. 4, water from spring No. 2 is also in use today. Moreover, there are crying grottos — caves in the park, where water constantly drips. Water drops originate on the stone ceiling and fall into a small pond, creating an effect of falling tears.

The eye-catching in the Therapeutic Park is the building of Tsanderovsky Institute of Mechanotherapy. From outside it is a medieval half-timbered house with traditionally white walls trimmed with a carvel pine, and from inside it is an amazing world of old simulators, preserved from the XIX century. Having bought a ticket, you can try to sport on mechanical devices which are more than a hundred years old! In the deep of the park there is the Bathhouse of Nicholas II, built in 1899 for the visit of the emperor who eventually did not come to Yessentuki. You can get in this building with an excursion, but it’s better to get a doctor’s prescribing and take a rejuvenating mineral bath here.

Therapeutic Park: A Horse Spring, a Centenary Fitness Hall and Baths of Youth

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