Die Kaukasischen Mineralbäder: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Entwicklung einer Tourismusregion

Abstract

The Caucasian spa region (German abbrev.: KMB) whose recreational function developed at the end of the 18th century is one of Russia's oldest health resort regions. With respect to its qualitative and quantitative properties, the KMB region possesses a unique character in Russia. Principal centres are the four spa resorts of Kislovodsk, Essentuki, Pyatigorsk, Shelesnovodsk, the industrial town of Lermontov as well as the city of Mineralnye Vody as a traffic centre. The existing KMB capacity of rest and recuperation homes now amounts to 45 000 places in sanatoriums, boarding-houses and resort hotels. The favourable natural recreation conditions, their concentration on a relatively limited territory, the considerable potential of health resorts and the recognized high efficiency of the therapeutic treatment provide good perspectives for the further development of the health resort complex among the Caucasian spa towns. But this region also faces numerous problems which will affect the development perspective of the KMB region: air-polluting industrial establishments, a critical ecological situation, oversized resort hotels without international standards as well as an uncertain geopolitical situation. The Caucasian spa region is nowadays a polyfunctional agglomeration with an overall population of about 600 000 inhabitants. The population density along the Mineralnye Vody-Kislovodsk city axis is about 950 inhabitants/km2. During the last 25 years the population of this region has grown intensely; this was especially due to the location of industries that are not linked to recreation. At present, the KMB region with its unique natural conditions and resources is a zone with a relatively unplanned settlement structure where industrial establishments, public enterprises and warehouses, facilities for transport and agriculture extend directly into the residential areas and even into the health resort zone. Due to the unsatisfactory ecological conditions, it is not possible to make use of the entire range of mineral waters for therapeutic purposes. As marketing of the health resort potential is needed, development plans were conceived with special orientation towards the dislocation of industrial, transportation and agricultural activities (these are the main air-polluters), towards the delineation of a natural resource region committed to restrictive resource use as well as towards the organisation of complex environmental control. For the present, the implementation of the new health resort concept will only be possible with financial assistance from abroad due to Russia's financial problems.