Sochi is the largest resort in Russia, the most popular cult holiday destination, which became even more famous after the 2014 Olympics were held here. The city provides a huge amount of entertainment: sports, cultural, and children's. Sochi is the lush nature of the Caucasus, attractions, parks and museums - there is everything for a good rest.
TOP-10 sights of Sochi
Olympic park
Since 2014, the most important attraction in Sochi has become the Olympic Park, built for the Winter Olympics. There is a huge Fisht stadium, designed for forty thousand spectators, ice palaces, arenas, hotels, and the Olympic village. There is also a racing track where Formula 1 races are held annually.
Now in the Olympic Park there is a recreation area with an observation deck and a model of the park, bicycle paths have been laid throughout the territory, an embankment with a beach has been equipped - bicycle paths also lead along it. Bicycles or scooters can be rented. The park has a museum center, which includes three small museums. This is the Leonardo da Vinci Museum, where you can see the mechanisms assembled according to his drawings, the Nikola Tesla Electric Museum and the USSR Museum.
The most spectacular part of the park is the Olympic Flame Bowl singing fountain, with 264 fountains and jet heights reaching 70 meters.
Sochi Park
In fact, Sochi-Park is one complex with the Olympic Park, they are located next to each other. This is an amusement and amusement park built in the same years.
The theme park is decorated in the national Russian style, and most of its attractions have fabulous names, for example, the longest roller coaster is called "Serpent Gorynych".
- The most extreme and fastest slide in Russia is the Quantum Leap.
- There is also the highest free-fall attraction in Russia - the 65-meter-high Firebird tower.
- In addition to entertainment for adults, there are also quite children's "Geese-Swans" and others.
- It has its own Ferris wheel, a huge children's playground "Country of Bears", many water attractions.
- The park has its own small Dolphinarium with three dolphins and fur seals. Shows are short - up to 30 minutes, and often run, so it is especially convenient when visiting with children.
Park "Riviera
This is the oldest and most popular amusement park in Sochi, located on the coast next to the city beach. It has its own amusement park - less extreme than in Sochi Park, but more suitable for families with children.
Rivievra Park is decorated with fun sculptures and art objects. It has its own small Oceanarium. But the Dolphinarium is the largest on the coast, shows are held twice a day. In addition, the complex also includes the Penguinarium and the Butterfly Garden, as well as the Children's Museum of Entertaining Sciences.
Among the interesting architectural objects of the Riviera is the Khludov dacha, restored in 2012, built in the Art Nouveau style at the beginning of the 20th century.
Arboretum and cable car
The Sochi arboretum was founded in 1899. Exotic tropical plants from all botanical parks of the Caucasus and Crimea were specially brought here. The Adventures of Prince Florizel was once filmed here. Now it is a huge beautiful park, to the high observation deck of which an 897-meter cable car leads. There are wonderful views of the coast from there.
The Arboretum has two parts. There is another observation deck in the Upper Park, a collection of conifers has been collected, there is an alley of different types of palm trees, a Chinese and Japanese courtyard. There is a small museum - Villa "Hope", the home of the founder of the arboretum. Next to the villa, the park becomes regular, gazebos, fountains and flower beds are arranged. The sculptures around the villa are replicas of the famous sculptures in the French Tuileries.
In the Lower Park there is a magnificent rose garden, a real bamboo grove, and a pond, decorated with gazebos and sculptures.
The address of the lower station of the cable car: Sochi, md. Svetlana, Pushkin Avenue, 6.
Sochi National Park and Berendeevo Kingdom
The main natural attraction in the vicinity of Sochi and one of the first national parks in Russia. There are more than 60 natural monuments here: waterfalls, caves, mountains. The closest part to Sochi is occupied by Mount Akhun, on top of which there is an observation deck, and next to which there are Agursky waterfalls - this is where the easiest way to get from the city. There are historical and archaeological monuments in the park: an ancient basilica, megalithic primitive structures, ruins of estates. Rare animals are preserved in the Sochi National Park, for example, leopards are bred.
Several tourist routes of varying difficulty have been laid in the park. One of the most interesting distant objects is 33 waterfalls, a cascade of waterfalls and rapids on the Dzhegosh stream, the other is a whole system of caves called "Vorontsovskie". A few kilometers from Lazrevskoye there is Berendeevo Tsarstvo - an entertaining fairytale zone designed for children. There are 7 waterfalls, a sculpture park, children's fairy shows are held.
Museum of the History of Sochi
The Sochi Regional Museum has existed since 1920, and the collections themselves have been collected by the Caucasian Mountain Club since the beginning of the century. Now the museum occupies a building that was built in 1936 as a school in the Stalinist Empire style.
The main exposition occupies 13 rooms:
- Two halls are occupied with a story about the nature of the North Caucasus and the marine abodes of the coast.
- The archaeological collection is interesting - people have lived here since ancient times.
- The collection also contains antique Greek gold, items telling about the life of the medieval Circassians, and much more.
- The history of the resort city in the 19th-20th centuries is described in great detail in the museum: cultural life on the Caucasian Riviera before the revolution, the tragic events of the revolution and the civil war, the reconstruction of the city in Soviet times, a hospital during the Great Patriotic War.
- The last hall is dedicated to the holidays in Sochi of famous cosmonauts.
Address. Sochi, st. Vorovskogo, 54/11
Vladimirsky Cathedral
In 2005, a new temple appeared in Sochi, which has rightfully become one of the main adornments of the city - this is the Vladimir Cathedral. This is a large solemn temple in the Byzantine style, built by the architect D. Sokolov. It was built of concrete, taking into account the earthquake-prone situation - so there are two additionally fortified lower floors, additional emergency exits and galleries. It is believed that the structure is capable of withstanding an earthquake of up to 12 points.
From the inside, it is decorated by modern Palekh craftsmen, the iconostasis is gilded with gold leaf - it took several kilograms. Most of the interior and exterior décor is made of modern, robust ceramics, and the dome is adorned with four huge sculptures of the apostles.
In the evening, the temple standing on a hill is beautifully illuminated, and its territory is a small park with trees and flowers.
Address. Vinogradnaya st., 18, Tsentralny district, Sochi
Sochi Art Museum
This is a very large and interesting museum with extensive collections. During the revolutionary years, a lot of art treasures from the estates and estates of the Caucasian coast appeared in this museum.
The main exposition is devoted to Russian art of the XIX-XXI centuries. There are paintings by I. Aivazovsky, N. Sverchkov, S. Zhukovsky, D. Burliuk and others. The museum contains a unique antique Mzymta treasure of silver items of the 6th-1st centuries. BC. In addition, temporary exhibitions are constantly being made from the rich funds of the museum.
Sochi, ave. Kurortny, 51.
Sochi Oceanarium
An hour's drive from Sochi and half an hour from Adler is the largest oceanarium on the entire southern coast of the Black Sea. It opened in 2009. Its building is spread over two floors.
There is a whole lake with freshwater carp that you can feed, more than 30 huge saltwater aquariums. There are sharks and every day there is a shark feeding show in front of the huge observation window. The pearl of the complex is a 44-meter long tunnel, surrounded by water on all sides, where the largest inhabitants of the Oceanarium swim.
The exposition is divided into 13 thematic zones in different regions of the planet, the most colorful and largest dedicated to the world of coral reefs in Australia and the Red Sea.
The Oceanarium hosts diving sessions - for a fee, you can dive into one of the large aquariums and swim among sea turtles and stingrays.
Address. Sochi, Adler district, st. Lenin, 219a / 4 "Kurortny town".
Stalin's dacha
At the foot of Mount Akhun in the sanatorium "Green Grove" is the former estate Mikhailovskoye, which belonged to the wife of the gold miner M. Zenzinov. In this picturesque place in 1937, a dacha was built for I. Stalin, who came here to improve their health.
His dacha is located on the side of a mountain at an altitude of 160 meters and is well camouflaged - it is almost impossible to see its green walls. Stalin himself and his daughter Svetlana rested here, he sent his family here during the Great Patriotic War. There were other government dachas nearby, but they have not survived.
Now Stalin's dacha has been repaired, and there is a small museum in it, which can only be entered with a guided tour. Here they show the furnishings preserved from the generalissimo: for example, a bullet-proof leather sofa, a complex layout, windows made of rock crystal, keyholes of a special design so that poison gas, memorial things and photographs cannot be let in.
Address. Kurortny prospect, 120, bldg. 2, Sochi
