Khrushchev's dacha in pitsunda. Abkhazian Myussera: Stalin's dacha and Gorbachev's palace. With things in Sochi

And here is herself Pitsunda. This essay is dedicated to the only town of Abkhazia that I liked. Instead of one big barbecue, which is the Country of the Soul, I remember Pitsunda with its stylish layout, shady streets, and the intelligence of the resting contingent.
Apparently, therefore, housing prices here - from 2500 rubles. Therefore, I had to settle in the suburbs of Rybzavod, and from there to get to a pleasant town on crowded buses. But a few pleasant moments remained; I share them with you, reader.
As I wrote earlier, Pitsunda is a kind of Khrushchev's answer to the Stalinist Empire style, a kind of exposure of the "cult of personality." Unlike imperial Gagra, everything here was done for the people - but not simple, but golden, in the truest sense of the word: creative intelligentsia, the Komsomol elite, the metropolitan bohemia rested in local inaccessible hotels. The best Soviet architects, designers and planners were invited here. Everything had to be in a new way, as in America, which Khrushch liked with its creativity. Everything was so futuristic that even the ult movie "Guest from the Future" was filmed in Pitsunda.

Pitsunda is located away from the Sukhumi highway, it cannot be reached by train. The road is only car. On both sides of the highway stretch endless plantations of the Abkhazian Drink Company - the only industry in the unrecognized republic. The cleanliness and order of grapes, peaches and apples sets in a positive mood. There is a lot of something European here:

Why I like this city:

Eternally empty square, dedicated, of course, to the independence of Abkhazia:

Gate of the vastest Khrushchev's dachas :

Here the corn king was bathing in the pool when he was informed by telephone about the removal from his post of the head of the party and the country. The immensity of these possessions is reminiscent of feudalism, which was triumphantly overcome by the Soviet revolutionary rulers. By land, we walked around these lands for two hours!

boxwood forest , turned into a garbage dump and eaten by some kind of bug:

For comparison, this is what this forest looked like in 2013:

Boxwood has a unique wood: it does not burn in fire and sinks in water. It makes the best furniture. In Pitsunda, they do not stand on ceremony with boxwood: due to the lack of bushes under it, it is convenient to store garbage in this place.

Several high-rise buildings of varying degrees of destruction and restoration:

After the collapse of the USSR, Abkhazia - which was still part of Georgia - fell into a period of complete economic zeroing. Tourists stopped traveling - not to fat, if I were alive - and the local industry created for show was quickly blown away - for example, the same fish factory or a citrus state farm. But the recreational potential was too interesting for Georgia, which was not going to release Apsny from its composition. Indeed, from the Black Sea resorts in Georgia, only Batumi would remain; in Soviet times, income from Abkhazia was the main food for Tbilisi. This was one of the reasons for the Abkhazian separatism, which was carefully kept silent in the USSR. This also led to the Georgian-Abkhazian war of 1992-1993. The Abkhazians, armed only with standard police weapons and love for their homeland, then fought off the regular army of Georgia and quickly clung to the community of narcissistic unrecognized satellites of Russia - along with Transnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, etc. After the victory, the Abkhazians began to massively expel those who had taken root here in Soviet time Georgians, capturing their living space. Therefore, many local families got two or three apartments, which are now successfully rented out to Russians inexpensively. This is the reason for the economic attractiveness of the "Land of the Soul", their way of initial accumulation of capital, now realized in active construction and expensive cars.

To my surprise, the locals complain about the climate in which "nothing grows" (what a Sakhalinian must hear!). Vegetables have been grown here and are grown in greenhouses, and all the abundant fruits that attract tourists are now imported from China and Turkey. The gardens are running because Russian tourist traffic generates such an income that you can no longer dig in the ground, buying provisions in Sochi and reselling us at exorbitant prices.

Tourist attraction is a lifestyle of Abkhazians:

A few more objects of my love for Pitsunda:

Abandoned greenhouses (explained above):

We did not lag behind other Russian tourists with children and also made our children get sick with some intestinal nonsense. Either rotavirus, or sea water poisoning - we were forced to go to the local clinic. Our children were sick for almost two weeks - like the children of all Russian tourists without exception. Just a real epidemic! Darkness and darkness of Russians with children in the clinic, in pharmacies, coolies are buying up the same medicines. It's probably a culture shock. Or is it time for Abkhazians to stop draining sewers into the sea? Or is it time to join some bad occupying country so that it does it for the Abkhazians?
So, the Pitsunda clinic:

To my surprise, everything there is civilized, decent and even friendly, although in Soviet style. True, I had to pay 50 rubles at the reception, and 300 rubles for the doctor's appointment itself. I was surprised that the doctors did not even send me for tests and that everyone here is immediately prescribed droppers and injections. Injections, which in Russia are considered almost an anachronism, are prescribed here for almost any reason. Probably so that oral medicines do not prevent Russian tourists from devouring local wines and trout.
And we even saw a local ambulance - there are such, it turns out:

In Pitsunda before the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992-1993. about twenty thousand people lived, mostly tourists. Teer - about four thousand. There is little housing here, it is expensive:

They know what attracted the confused Russian tourist:

The true semantic center of Pitsunda:

Abkhazian writing was created by a Sukhumi writer David Gulia based on Cyrillic. Like all the initiators of such cases, he decided not to philosophize a lot, add a few squiggles to the Cyrillic letters, insert a few invented ugly pictograms - the language is ready! The fact that inscriptions of this kind do not exist in our Asian Asian languages ​​is one illustration of my racism.

On my last visit, I fell in love with UAZs...

A few local touches:

Administration of Pitsunda:

This is a historic building. After the attack of the Georgians on the administration, the authorities fled to the school located behind:

Classes were going on at that school. The shelling began, many died. They say that the school is not restored in principle - as a memory. In my opinion, there is simply no need.

In many places, the late Soviet chic of glass, steel and concrete has been preserved. In some places, time seems to have stood still or pretended to be modernity. Pitsunda is a stylish city, a lot of work has been done here on art-folk stylizations of folk motifs in the atmosphere of Soviet utilitarian culture. And in this art-folk I sense something hippie, Jimmorrisonian, sexually revolutionary and liberated:

famous Cypress Alley:

Cypress on a par with eucalyptus played an exceptional role in the history of Abkhazia. One hundred years ago, a Russian industrialist Nikolai Igumnov (1855-1924) dried up the worst malaria swamps with these trees. Not far from Pitsunda is his estate (now the village of Citrus State Farm). On the way to Pitsunda, you have to drive for a long time along a winding road, also lined with cypress trees - this is a giant letter "I", visible from an airplane and a satellite. One more stroke on the theme of the relationship between Russian and Gorsky, white and black...

One of the two main markets:

The real fire department:

Pay attention to the details:

Another drop of Pitsunda style:

A real police car (the police were created in Abkhazia just a few years ago):

The only inscription in Abkhazia that prohibits widespread smoking:

Some Russians smoke in public places with such rapture that you might think they came to Apsny for this.
Another highlight (read):

A real Soviet pharmacy, like from my childhood:

One of the most important places in Abkhazia. New Russians ask for the location of a pharmacy more often than an ATM.

The second marketplace is the road to the beach. Pitsunda Broadway (taking into account local specifics):

Pines of the Tertiary period, possibly witnessing and arriving Jason with the Argonauts, and Persian galleys, and Roman galleons. Perhaps, seagulls sat on their branches, frightened off the deck of the ship that brought John Chrysostom or the secret guardians of the head of John the Baptist here to death exile. Needles the length of a palm, the richest coniferous spirit. Feeling of greatness and eternity. It’s good to think here - especially after a wine tasting on Cypress Alley.

This wonderful forest adjoins the beach; between the pebble strip there is also a strip of coarse sand. The sea here is the cleanest in Abkhazia. So clean that a couple of times I took a sip of water, because of the transparency of the water, considering the bottom closer than it was.
An ideal place for a meditative rest, especially in the morning. There are places where you can hedonize right in the forest, periodically running to rinse in the sea. This is one of those places you don't want to leave...

The symbol of modern Russian reality is reinforcing bars, slightly covered with dried palm leaves:

From the wonderful forest there is a path to the places cultivated by Khrushchev near the famous high-rise hotels. After an anti-triumphant visit to the United States, Nikita Sergeevich zealously began to carry out several famous initiatives. A peasant boy from Hohland, who had seized upon the heights of power, dreamed that everything in his giant geopolitical concentration camp would be like that of people - that is, like the Americans. This is the “corn epic”, and Vladivostok as “our” San Francisco, and a vacuum cleaner in every home. And, of course, Pitsunda is a symbolic counterbalance to the greasy Stalinist-Baroque Gagra. Glass and concrete have risen in the Pitsunda Bay as a monument to the Soviet collective farm show off. This is where it all ended - the hotels have not even been properly renovated since then, they are shabby, the furniture inside is like in a retro science fiction movie.

A real relic beacon that protected from shallows:

The old lighthouse has been replaced by a modern one on the roof of the hotel. The analogue also does not work, since there is no navigation in Abkhazia (there is no need, tourists arrive by land).

Sculpture "Medea" . Reader, pay attention to the forms of this fatal woman who captivated the Argonaut Jason along with the Golden Fleece):

An outstanding example of stylization and landscape design is the officialPitsunda beach resort , which is crowned by seven 14-storey hotels. Although, they say, the furnishings of the hotels are hopelessly outdated, from the outside the whole complex strikes with the integrity of the composition, there is not a single superfluous element. It is difficult to understand the idea, it seems to be the idea of ​​man's conquest of nature, but not in a consumer way, but somehow elegantly, mockingly, superficially. This is a belief in a person as a direct descendant of Prometheus (they say he was chained in Abkhazia, and is still chained). He does not expect favors from nature, but he does not take them by force either - he calmly enjoys his peacekeeping significance from the pinnacle of civilization crowned by the Soviet Union. Yes, there is something of the socialist futurism of the Strugatskys here. Not only modern hotels towering over 3,000-year-old pines, but also various stones with mysterious pictograms and factory polishing, neatly scattered among the forest. And sculptures in the nude genre, looking out from a young spruce forest. And diligently cultivated forest plantations, including palms, creepers and bamboo. The landscape design of this place does not look outdated at all - this is a monument to the USSR at the very peak of its existence, when it was proclaimed that the greatest Soviet work is itselfsoviet man.

The last Russian emperor, Nicholas II, did not tolerate the heat well and usually rested for two months in the summer. Mostly in the Crimea: in Yalta, Sevastopol. The sovereign loved walking, sometimes leaving for 15 kilometers. In Yalta, the upper walking path is still called the Tsar's. Most often, for the summer, the tsar and his retinue went to his Livadia Palace. In the photo: Emperor Nicholas II (in the foreground) while swimming in the Finnish skerries. (In the background are the officers of His Imperial Majesty's Own convoy.) August, 1908

Emperor Nicholas II in the Crimea.

Tsar Nicholas II (fourth from left) and his uncle, President of the Academy of Arts Vladimir Romanov (far left) hunting.

Judging by the memoirs of contemporaries, it seems that the first leaders of the Soviet state almost did not rest, they only worked. But this is not entirely true ... The only exception is the "replacement" of the emperor at the helm of the state, Vladimir Lenin. There was such a time - revolutionary, then the Civil War: there was no time for rest. Truly, Vladimir Ilyich "relaxed" only in tsarist times - in exile, in Shushenskoye: he swam, fished, hunted ... In the photo: Vladimir Lenin and Nadezhda Krupskaya during a car ride. Gorki. Summer, 1923

Joseph Stalin was entitled to a month and a half vacation. But the Secretary General used a month at the most. Until 1932 - before the suicide of Nadezhda Alliluyeva's wife - they traveled to the Crimea, where she liked the climate. And after the death of his wife, the leader traveled only to the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea: Sochi, Gagra, Mussera. He often combined his vacation with trips around the country and combined it with work - he read documents, met with associates ... But to swim, fry on the beach - the leader did not like this.

Of all the games on vacation, Stalin preferred the fun then popular among the people - towns, he played them with personal security officers. Even at the dacha of the leader in Kuntsevo, which was called "Near", they equipped a goroshnaya site. There was a bench dug in and an empty litter bin that was given instead of a prize, sometimes to the winners, sometimes to the losers. But Stalin rarely lost: his partner was a candidate for master of sports in towns, the head of physical training of the security service, Vladimir Pomeransky.

Back in 1925, while relaxing in the town of Mukhalatka (this is in the Crimea, between Yalta and Sevastopol), Iosif Vissarionovich learned to play skittles and billiards. And, judging by the fact that on the "Middle", where Stalin spent a lot of time and where he died, there is still a billiard table, he retained his love for this game until his last days. In the photo: A boat trip along the Black Sea coast. From right to left, sitting: Joseph Stalin, his daughter Svetlana, Lavrenty Beria, Mikhail Kalinin, Anastas Mikoyan, son of General Secretary Vasily. Sochi. September 1933

Stalin never finished his vacation. The leader did not like to relax on the beach. After the death of his wife, he rested only in the Caucasus. Joseph Stalin was entitled to a month and a half vacation

Nikita Khrushchev fell in love with the Crimea from the time when he served as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Therefore, later, having become the "master" of the USSR, he "attached" his beloved peninsula to his beloved republic. Khrushchev had another state dacha - in Pitsunda, in the Caucasus. Nikita Sergeevich spent time there in spring, summer and autumn. The fact is that in 1962 Khrushchev's health deteriorated - he began to gain a lot of weight. Doctors prescribed him a six-hour working day, the Central Committee extended his vacation to two months by a special decision ... Pitsunda eventually - in 1964 - became a trap for Khrushchev: while he was basking under the gentle October sun, a plenum of the Central Committee was held in Moscow, at which Nikita Sergeevich was overthrown with "throne". In the photo: From right to left: Nikita Khrushchev, Anastas Mikoyan and Kliment Voroshilov. Pitsunda. End of August, 1963

Since 1979, Leonid Brezhnev also - for health reasons - by a special decision of the Central Committee, his vacation was increased to two months. Usually Leonid Ilyich went on vacation in early July. And a favorite place in the Crimea was a residence in Nizhnyaya Oreanda, not far from Yalta. The dacha itself was without any frills (it was built for Khrushchev) - there was a place to work, relax, receive guests. And most importantly, even in the 30-degree heat it was cool and fragrant here: around the pine, cedar, fir, roses, evergreen shrubs. The Secretary General's days on vacation were similar to each other: he got up at 7.00, swam until 9 o'clock. Breakfast. After 70 years, I almost didn’t do exercises - I just warmed up a little. In the photo: Leonid Brezhnev (in the water on the right) in the pool of the Nizhnyaya Oreanda state dacha. Next to the Secretary General are his personal guards. Yalta. August, 1981

Leonid Brezhnev got up at 7.00, swam until 9.00. Breakfast. After 70 years, I almost didn’t do exercises - I just warmed up a little. Brezhnev with Chernenko.

Yuri Andropov did not go to the sea - both when he was the chairman of the KGB of the USSR, and when he became general secretary: poor health did not allow. I visited only in Kislovodsk, Mineralnye Vody. And no bathing - medical procedures and light walks. Yuri Vladimirovich did not spend more than a month and a half on vacation. And even more so, he did not practice long hunting or tourist sorties ... In the photo: From left to right: Yuri Andropov (at that time the chairman of the KGB of the USSR), his son Igor, Yury Vladimirovich's wife Tatyana Filippovna and daughter Tatyana. Kislovodsk. August, 1974

(or Bichvintaბიჭვინთა) is a seaside resort town of about 4,000 people, famous for its beaches, pine trees, skyscrapers of boarding houses and a glamorous Soviet past. One of the iconic resorts of Abkhazia, although it is inferior to Gagra in many respects. Once it was an island of pseudo-European civilization, although now the situation has changed to the opposite.

A couple of common words

Pitsunda is Gagra's closest competitor. The difference is that Gagra is a classic Black Sea coast with a highway and a railway along the sea, while Pitsunda is a rare case of a beach that is far from the highway. There is a little less city and a little more nature. It is easier to spend money in Gagra, and it is easier to save money in Pitsunda. And of course, Pitsunda loses a lot in comparison with its brilliant past.

Story

The Pitsunda Cape was formed in late geological epochs - apparently, from the sediments of the Bzyb River. In late antiquity, a settlement was formed here: in the 2nd century, the Romans built a square fort, which has partially survived to this day. In the 4th century, another perimeter of walls was added to the fort from the east, inside which families of legionnaires were supposed to live. A lot of stone was built inside the walls, but only the foundations have survived to this day. In particular, it was there, near the wall, that the very first church in Pitiunte was built. Its foundation is now forgotten, abandoned and overgrown with burdock.

In 542, Byzantium started a war with Iran, so the inhabitants of Pitiunt, in order to avoid genocide, destroyed the city and left for the metropolis. In the same century, Roman power gradually withdrew from Abkhazia, and a big gap began in the history of Pitiunt. In the VIII century, the Abazgian diocese was transformed into the Abkhazian Catholicosate, the center of which was precisely Pitiunt.

Events begin here in the 10th century, when the Abkhazian kingdom was inherited by the Georgian kings: at the end of the century, the Church of St. Andrew the First-Called was built, which later became a symbol of Pitsunda architecture. It was the cathedral of that same Abkhazian catholicosate.

In the 11th century, the toponym "Bichvinta" appeared, and much later Petsonda appeared on the Genoese maps. So the modern name of this city entered the history.

In the 16th century, a stone wall was formed around the cathedral, during the construction of which fragments of other ancient architecture were used. A hundred years later, the Catholicos moved to Gelati, the cathedral was abandoned, and the settlement itself too. In the 19th century, the temple stood as a lonely ruin among the bushes, and the city itself did not stand out except for the temple.

Pitsunda Cathedral in the 19th century

In Soviet times, Pitsunda began to change rapidly. At first, due to the low population, it was decided to build a government dacha here, and even as many as three: No. 8, No. 9 and No. 10. Dachas appeared around 1957-1958, and for their safety, an anti-aircraft missile base was deployed nearby. But then a strange overlay occurred: another authority decided to create a resort in Pitsunda, and over time crowds of tourists began to walk around the secret dacha. Even foreign ones. The tourists did not even suspect how they irritated the local KGB.

This is how Pitsunda turned from a rural province first into a resort, and then, in the 60s and 70s, into an elite resort. Unique skyscrapers were built on Cape Pitsunda, which became famous throughout the USSR. The skyscrapers were managed by Intourist. The territory of the cape was fenced off, beyond which only "clean people" were allowed to enter. It was supposed that only foreign tourists could visit it, but some Soviet tourists also managed to get there. On the territory of the complex there were restaurants with trained waiters and elite dishes. There were concert halls on the upper floors of skyscrapers. Nudists were not driven to the neighboring beach so that foreigners could see that in the Soviet Union there are elements of freedom of sex.

The beaches to the east of Intourist belonged to officials, while the locals went to the western beaches. Caucasians tried not to approach the nudists, but only watched them from afar.

In addition to officials and foreign tourists, Pitsunda was popular with the "enlightened" intelligentsia. The eliteness of the resort scared away the mass tourist, so those "who are in the know" came here. Yogis, Buddhists, sun-eaters and other fans of underground esoteric literature meditated on the beaches. Esotericists were attracted by the Abkhazian dolmens in the adjacent mountains, which were considered a source of cosmic energy - naked meditations on these dolmens were in vogue, which especially pissed off archaeologists.

From 1960 to 1972, the Pitsunda Cathedral was a museum, then the museum was moved to a neighboring building, and a concert hall was made from the temple, where the organ was played and liqueurs were poured.

When the war began in 1992, Pitsunda found itself almost on the border of the "Gudauta enclave": the front passed somewhere very close, a little to the east. Local Russian grandmothers recall that the Abkhazians used Russian detachments to storm the Georgian positions, and then they went on their own. The dead were left like that, and then the grandmothers themselves picked up the corpses of Russian volunteers and buried them as best they could on the outskirts of Pitsunda.

A few years after the war, esotericists and yogis again reached out to Pitsunda. People of the older generation, who remembered how in their youth they looked from afar at the inaccessible skyscrapers of Intourist, now they could live in the dream of their youth for 1000 rubles per person.

Modernity

Modern Pitsunda is divided into two very different parts: an inhabited city and a resort coast. They are separated by a strip of forest 700 meters wide. Pitsunda is sometimes referred to as a strip of coastline built up with boarding houses - this is everything that stretches west from the Pitsunda cape. The village of Ldzaa is also referred to Pitsunda - this is everything to the east of the State Dacha of the FSO. Exactly half of the resort coast and a third of the entire Pitsunda is occupied by the former dacha of Khrushchev, now the dacha of the Russian FSO. She grabbed 2 kilometers of beach for herself, surrounded it with a concrete fence and poked the perimeter with video cameras. This closed sector has been spoiling the logistics of Pitsunda for many decades.

The inhabited part of Pitsunda is a grayish Soviet town, the center of which is the Square in front of the cathedral. All minibuses stop here, so if you came to Pitsunda by this type of transport, then your journey will begin from it. 800 meters of souvenir and entertainment rows stretch from the square to the sea. To the north - 500 meters to the market. To the south goes Gochua Street, on which stands the restaurant "Pitsunda" - once a cult restaurant, now abandoned and forgotten. The Gagra highway goes to the west; there, after 300 meters, ancient ruins begin. That, in fact, is all that is in Pitsunda except for the resort. The complex of the Pitsunda Cathedral and the ancient ruins deserve special attention here.

Complex of the Pitsunda Cathedral

The cathedral complex is the perimeter of the walls, approximately 140 by 120 meters, inside which is the Pitsunda Cathedral, the Museum of Local Lore, a chapel and the ruins of a temple. All this is called "The Great Pitiunt Historical and Architectural Reserve", which is somewhat strange, because the ancient Pitiunt was not here, but to the east. The perimeter of the walls appeared in the 17th century, but the cathedral and something else existed earlier.

Everything beyond the walls is allowed to be visited only for money: right at the gate on the right there is a ticket office that charges either 150 or 200 rubles.

Inside is the most important thing - the Patriarchal Cathedral, in which the concert hall and the German organ have not yet been dismantled. On the south side of the cathedral there is a long gray building with two floors - this is the Museum of Local Lore. Inside, in fact, there is nothing particularly valuable: one floor, where some stone fragments are stacked, pots are hung and the walls are painted. Museums are generally a weak point in Georgia, but in "non-Abkhazian" Georgia, provincial museums are at least free, but this one is paid.

In addition to the cathedral and the museum, some historical ruins are scattered around the complex. For example, right behind the main gate there are stone columns of an incomprehensible ruin, which is a bit like an ancient temple.

Opening hours: 10:00 - 16:00

Antique part

The ancient part of Pitsunda is now located a little east of the cathedral complex, but is heavily overgrown with forest. The Gagra highway in the section from the square to the exit goes around this zone from the south, and the low wall of the ancient part is clearly visible directly from the bus. This is primarily a Roman square of walls about 130 by 130 meters. Inside, a lot of things were excavated, but now nothing is almost distinguishable. A little to the east is a later wall with what appears to be polygonal towers. It seems that it is here that the foundation of the very first ancient basilica is located - at the very wall, from its inner side. Surely there is something else, but in the thicket it is impossible to distinguish anything.

Boulevard

The word "Boulevard" I conditionally call the alley that goes from the central square to the sea. Usually the very first thing that visitors do in Pitsunda is to walk along this street to the embankment. In Soviet times, people went to the sea between two bars - on the left was the state dacha, and on the right - Intourist. Now the state dacha has remained, and Intourist has disbanded and its pine groves have become available to everyone. The alley became the main trading line in Pitsunda. Closer to the square are cafes, vaguely reminiscent of Moscow catering near metro stations and train stations. Next come the collapse of souvenirs - magnets, home-made wine in plastic bottles, inflatable circles and all sorts of beach stuff. Further there is some strange checkpoint, which charges money for no reason, and then a long alley stretches, which rests on a cafe. On the left side of the alley is the building of the boarding house "Apsny", and in front of it is the famous square with a fountain in the form of a diving naked couple.

Resort area

The resort area is the territory of the former "Intourist" and the adjacent beaches. This is what Pitsunda is famous for. Indeed, there are many crescent-shaped beaches in the world, but very few cape-shaped beaches. In addition, skyscrapers are very well built here. Two kilometers of a potential resort were eaten up by a government dacha. To the west of the dacha stretch 1.5 kilometers of the dacha of the former "Intourist" - the most valuable site. Behind this section there are another 2 kilometers of the beach, where everyone was allowed before - in Soviet times it was almost the only accessible beach. It ends with a strip of pines. Behind it begins the famous Pitsunda nudist beach, and after it - another 4 kilometers of a distant beach, where no one from Pitsunda goes, because it is far away.

Cape Pitsunda is worth a visit if only for the sake of its former glory. As a social experiment, I recommend renting a room in the high-rise "Amra" or "Bzyb", which costs 1600 rubles per person with a triple meal (that is, the usual Abkhazian 1000 rubles per night) and feel like a conscientious foreign tourist.

In Abkhazia under Stalin, 5 government dachas were built, but Khrushchev did not like them. In addition to ideological hostility, there was also a practical one: Stalin's dachas were inconvenient for swimming, tennis and other entertainment. Khrushchev ordered the construction of new ones, and the first one appeared in Pitsunda. This place was chosen because there was a government communication line to the dacha in Myusser and because there were almost no people in Pitsunda in the 1950s. It was easy for the Chekists to control the surroundings. And of course, the Pitsunda pines conveniently masked both the construction and the dacha itself.

In the spring of 1958, 145 hectares of Pitsunda pines were surrounded by a concrete fence. Since in those years the intelligence services of the whole world began to use not so much spies as aviation, a complex of anti-aircraft missiles "Dvina" was located near the dacha. Its ruins are now visible across the fields 600 meters from the ancient ruins of Pitiunt. Three dachas were built behind the concrete fence: No. 9 personally for Khrushchev and No. 8 and No. 10 for members of the Politburo and other persons of the highest echelon of power. The famous pink tuff was brought from Armenia for facing buildings. In April 1960, the building was officially accepted by the commission.

A little to the side of dacha No. 9, a highly secret protected Underground Command Post (ZPKP) was built in case of an atomic strike, air raid, and so on. Little is known about him. It was dug deep enough underground, planted with pines from above, and only ventilation shafts give out its location.

In the 1990s, the dacha lost its government status and for some time had none. At that moment, several shots of the film "Grey Wolves" were filmed on its territory. In 1992, a Georgian air bomb accidentally fell here. In 1995, the government of the Russian Federation took over the dacha and renovated it. However, only minor officials came here. The presidents of the Russian Federation did not appear here, since Pitsunda formally belonged to Georgia and no one wanted any extra questions. Now the dacha is registered with the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation and all sorts of officials come here: small ones in the off-season, middle-level in June-July and top-level officials in August-September. Whether the president comes is a close matter.

Lozovoe (Ldzaa)

Ldzaa(Lidzava, ლიძავა) is actually the eastern part of Pitsunda. In Soviet times, it was a village attached to a fish factory. Now he earns on tourists and hotels, cafes and some tourist services have bred here. Lidzava differs from Cape Pitsunda in its level: everything is cheaper, simpler, everything is designed for a cheap tourist. The Lidzava beach stretches for 2.5 kilometers, and in the east it passes into the wild beaches of Myussera. If you set out to wander around Musser, then it is quite logical to stop in Lidzawa.

Emotional ratings

Pitsunda currently loses a lot in comparison with everything - with Gagra, with Georgia and with itself in the 80s. It is a cheap resort with cheap services and cheap goods. A poor tourist comes here, for whose sake it is unprofitable to establish Wi-Fi, clean the beach and try to make good coffee. You can snap at him in canteens. And despite the fact that Pitsunda has really clean water, good air and pretty pine trees, with all this, a dull atmosphere of depression and hopeless pessimism hangs in the air here and spoils the mood. Judging by the reviews on various sites, the level of service in Pitsunda has been gradually decreasing in all previous years and there are less and less positive reviews, and they are all exclusively about water.

One Abkhazian newspaper described the current situation in Pitsunda tourism with frightening frankness: " Take a closer look, this is a special category of the younger generation. They cannot be frightened either by mobile phones taken away in broad daylight, or by the lack of water in rooms and apartments ... Inquisitive people come to us, able to distinguish the real from the vain, and therefore even see the positive in shortcomings. But they are also watching, so you can’t calm down. For all other categories of vacationers - alas, not yet ours!"

The village of Myussera is located 57 km south of the Russian-Abkhazian border. From the boarding house "Pitsunda" directly by sea you can get here on the fragile ship "Hero of Abkhazia" that fell on its side, about which the team members will definitely say that he took part in the hostilities of 1992-1993 (in what capacity, they will keep silent).

There are five dachas of Stalin in Abkhazia. The most famous is the green building above the sea on the Cold River. The dacha in Myusser, the first of the Abkhaz, looks much more modest. Once upon a time, a luxurious panoramic staircase leads to it, immersed in the greenery of plane trees and palm trees. Now there are no even wooden seats on the benches.

Photo: Defend Russia

The building itself is a two-story asymmetrical building with a terrace. The Abkhaz did not conjure over historical preservation for a long time, so they installed air conditioners directly into the walls.

The marble panels had fallen off in many places, exposing the wood paneling. The paint on the doors is cracked. On the facade of the building itself there is a decent ... not even a crack, but a crevice. The construction of the dacha in Myusser was personally supervised by Stalin's favorite and the leader of Soviet Abkhazia, Nestor Lakoba (Abkhazians still remember how Lakoba died after dinner at the Mingrelian Lavrenty Beria). The dacha was built on the foundations of the former luxurious house of the oilman Lianozov.

In addition to the walls in the country house, almost nothing original remains. The building itself was built in the first half of the 1930s. Stalin ruled the project personally, paying special attention to secret passages under the object (now access to them is concreted).

Stalin visited this dacha eight times. In 1942, along with other important government facilities, it was mined and, according to the order of Lavrenty Beria, was subject to destruction in case of danger of capture by the Wehrmacht. The guides themselves doubt the originality of the furniture. The lamps are exactly the same.

If the general devastation can be explained by the fact that Abkhazia, which fought several times in the post-Soviet years, had no time for preserving Stalin's dachas, then nothing can justify the vandalism of an air conditioner on a historical wall.

The beds in the bedrooms are not original. The table is preserved Stalinist. On it lies a book from the complete works of Lenin.

Volumes are stacked in a closet. Tourists earnestly take pictures with the book, joyfully saying that "Stalin himself held it." Nobody looks at the year of publication. 1959.

The meeting room is the best preserved and is a fine example of interior decoration with natural woods, tastefully matched in color.

After the death of the leader, Nikita Khrushchev removed the Myusser dacha from the balance sheet of the Central Committee manager, leaving it under the jurisdiction of the famous "nine" - the department of the KGB of the USSR, which was responsible for protecting top officials. According to an unconfirmed version, Khrushchev thus took revenge on Vyacheslav Molotov, who considered Musser one of the best places to relax (there were guest houses next to Stalin's dacha, and later a sanatorium for the nomenclature grew up). The dacha was guarded until 1988, when the construction of a new important facility began nearby - "Chaika-M" for Mikhail Gorbachev.

Tour guides call the large five-story house "Gorbachev's dacha", it looks like a palace, but in reality it serves as the residence of the President of Abkhazia. Taking into account the plight of the republic, the authorities decided to rent rooms to vacationers in the absence of the head of state. Prices, of course, are not Abkhazian. The minimum stay in 2015 cost from 1575 rubles (an extra bed for a child in a standard room during the low season) to 16020 (single adult accommodation in a suite during the high season). The building has five floors. Due to the difference in relief at the entrance, only two are visible. Tours are conducted in such a way as not to disturb the guests. The tour group is followed by two employees of either security, or the army, or local counterintelligence. Given some features of the security regime at the facility, if desired, you can go anywhere, including the kitchen, elevator shafts, switchboards and living quarters.

Tourists are entertained with legends about how “Raisa Maksimovna constantly forced the builders to redo the facade”, “sand was imported from Bulgaria”, “the Yugoslavs built it”, and “the famous 24-meter chandelier could not be taken away”. The guide is very upset: “When the USSR collapsed, 40 trucks took everything out of here. Chandeliers, furniture, special equipment… nothing was left for us.” The question “And should they have left ?!” becomes rhetorical. The chandelier is the main attraction of the house, "penetrating" through all five floors. There is a spiral staircase around it.

Officially show a banquet hall, an elevator hall and a balcony from which a beautiful view of the bay opens. Both the Gorbachevs' palace and, moreover, Stalin's dacha are hidden by a massive, forested cape - from Pitsunda, to which the sea is 6 km away, these objects are not visible. At the close of construction, Metrostroy engineers made a tunnel in the rock - from the house to the beach. It has never been used and is now mothballed. At 200 m from the building there is an artificial bay into which the submarine was supposed to enter. Why evacuate the President of the USSR under water, no one knows. The cinema hall looks boring if you look at it the way the guide suggests.

Outside, the mansion, lined with sand-colored travertine, looks quite presentable in most places. But in some places covered with black patina. This is especially noticeable above the pool. Its design assumes that the glazing is completely shifted, and floating vacationers can enjoy the sea breeze - the beach is less than 100 meters from here. Both the compressor station and the power board are also available for inspection upon special request. About the protection of the presidential residence, I want to say: “Stalin is not on you!” - giving something to him on the hill nearby.