Teberda

Town in Karachay-Cherkessia, subordinated to Karachay municipal administration, 105 km south of Cherkessk, a mountain climate resort. Located on the northern slopes of the Greater Caucasus, at the height of 1,280-1,420 m, in the valley of the Teberda River (tributary of the Kuban), in the Teberda Reserve. Surrounded with mountains (of up to 3,300 m high) of Kelbashi, Kashkaya (in the east), Lysaya, Ullu-Khatipara and Gitche-Khatipara (in the west). The valley of the Teberda River and the slopes of the mountains are covered with coniferous and deciduous forests (pine, fir, spruce, yew, maple, hornbeam, beech), the tree-line graduates into bushes of rhododendron, giving place to subalpine and alpine meadows; the Teberda River and its inflows spring from mountain lakes and numerous glaciers. The climate is characterised by relative coolness, as well as dryness, freshness, highly-ionised air, and abundance of ultra-violet radiation. A lot of sunny days. Winter is mild; the temperature in January averages to about 3?С; steady snow cover from mid-December to the end of February. Summer is moderately warm; the temperature in August averages to 15-16?C. Precipitations about 700 mm a year, maximum in May. Teberda lies in the Sokhumi Military Highway 90 km south of the Dzheguta terminal in the branch from the Armavir - Baku line. Population (1992 est.) 8.9 thousand, (1979) 6.6 thousand.

Favourable natural conditions of Teberda have long been attracting attention of medical scientists. In 1910, a Congress of Russian doctors made a decision about the necessity of detailed meteorological and physiographic study of the Teberda valley for a mountain climate resort to be founded here. In 1925, the former private summer residences were turned into the first sanatorium for pulmonary tuberculosis patients. Later, numerous pavilions were built, and the territory adjacent to the resort landscaped. In the 1970s, the sanatoriums of Gornoye Ushchelye, Klukhori, etc., the Teberda Tourist Hotel, the Azgek tourist centre, were erected. In 1971, the settlement of Teberda was incorporated. In 1990, the resort of Teberda operated 7 sanatoriums (the number of guests totalling to about 1.5 thousand), where various forms of pulmonary tuberculosis were treated.

There is a Museum of the Teberda Reserve.

Teberda is crossed by several tourist routes, including the one to high-mountainous Dombay Glade, located on the slopes of the Greater Caucasus, at the confluence of the Amanauz and the Dombay-Ulgen Rivers; includes a tourist complex with the hotels of Dombay (1972), Crocus, Solnechnaya Dolina.

Teberda has a monument to soldiers defending the Klukhor Pass in 1942.