Description of the attraction
The monkey nursery, located in the village of Vesyoloye, Adler district of the city of Sochi, is a research institute of medical primatology. The nursery was founded in 1927. During the entire period of its existence, various studies were carried out here concerning the study of higher nervous activity in such areas as infectious pathology, experimental oncology and other areas. It is here that monkeys are tested and then introduced into medical practice methods of combating various infectious and viral diseases that are life-threatening (tetanus, diphtheria, Asian cholera, gas gangrene), as well as measures to prevent them. A number of studies have been carried out on tick-borne relapsing fever, viral encephalitis, viral hepatitis, poliomyelitis, measles, and so on. The institute tested new antibiotics for the treatment of many infectious diseases and methods of their use. In the early 80s. AIDS research began. The director of the institute is B. A. Lapin, a full member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
The scientific institution consists of six large subdivisions: a zootechnical laboratory, laboratories of oncovirology and immunology, pathological anatomy, biological control and infectious pathology, and a clinical department. Today the area of the Adler Research Institute is 100 hectares. In small and large halls there are more than 2 thousand Asian and African species of monkeys, including various types of macaques, baboons, green monkeys, hamadryas and others.
The most interesting thing is that it is in Vesely that the monkeys participating in space flights undergo preflight training. They also return here, having completed their space odyssey. Today, chimpanzees Dasha and Tisha live in the nursery; they flew into space in 1998. When entering the nursery, visitors' attention is drawn to a model of a spaceship with a stuffed monkey that made a space flight more than half a century ago.
