Uchkeken

The village of Uchkeken is located on the right bank of the Podkumok River and on both banks of the Eshkakon River, not far from the confluence of the second into the first, mainly on the left bank of Eshkakon, thus - between the rivers Eshkakon and Podkumka. The village is located 45-46 km southeast of the city of Cherkessk and 14 km west of Kislovodsk (in a straight line).

Eshkakona valleys and Podkumka are densely built up here. On the left bank of the Podkumka opposite Uchkeken, in the north from the village is the village of Rimgorskoye (only the river separates the settlements); west of Uchkeken, on both banks of Podkumka, the village of Pervomaiskoe is located (settlements do not have a pronounced border, in fact merged into one settlement); further west, beyond Pervomaisky, also on both banks of the river - the village of Terese (also does not have a clearly defined border with Pervomaisky, actually merged with it); east of Uchkeken, on the southern banks of Eshkakon and Podkumka, to the south of the estuary of Eshkakon is the village of Jaga (the Eshkakon River is the border near its mouth).

Vodovod village, which is part of the Uchkeken rural settlement, does not have a permanent population, is located southwest of the village on the Eshkakon River, near the reservoir.

River valleys are densely surrounded by low mountains. In the interfluve of Eshkakon and Podkumka, to the west of Uchkeken (and, therefore, south of the village of Pervomaisky), peaks of 1116.5 m and 1076.5 m have already been marked. The shores of Eshkakon above the village are already becoming quite steep. On the right bank of this river, east of Uchkeken (and, therefore, southwest of the village of Jaga), Rim Gora rises - a large separate peak with a height of 1094.3 m, stretching from the northwest to the southeast and having on southeast is a lower satellite peak with a height of 1069 m. The main peak and on the southeastern slopes of Rome Mountain have several grottoes .

Several small tributaries flowing into the mountains from Ashkakon, flowing into the river within the village. The most significant of them is the right tributary Teplushka, whose mouth is located on the southern outskirts of Uchkeken. The southeast of the village the relief rises, and beyond the area of ​​the sources of Teplushka, the area of ​​the sources of the Jumps, the small right tributary of the Podkumka (this area is called the “Thieves Balki tract”), there is already the Alikonovka valley with Honey Falls . To the north of the Podkumka valley rises the Borgustan ridge ^{[8] [9]} .

The climate in the vicinity of Uchkeken is moderately cold with significant rainfall (Dfb according to the Köppen classification ). The average air temperature in winter ranges from −1.2 ° C to −3.5 ° C, in summer from + 15.9 ° C to + 18.6 ° C. The coldest month is January, the hottest is July. The average annual temperature, therefore, is + 7.6 ° C. The average annual rainfall is 697 mm. The driest month is February (21 mm of precipitation), the most abundant in terms of precipitation is June (117 mm) ^[10] .

The village was founded in 1922 by settlers from the mountains (in particular, from the village of Kart-Dzhurt and other settlements). In 1924, an elementary school was opened and a club was built, in 1925 a telephone appeared in the village, in 1928 a medical center with a maternity hospital was organized. According to the 1926 census ^[11] , 3109 people lived in the Uchkeken village, the administrative center of the Uchkeken village council of the Malo-Karachayevsky district of the Karachay Autonomous Region (3085 of them were Karachais , 99.2%) in 574 households.

In 1925, the Karachay cooperative partnership was created in the district, and in 1926 it was divided into the Karachay consumer society and the Kyzyl Malchy (Red Cattle Breeder) agricultural credit-mixed partnership. The last year, in the same year, managed to launch 2 creameries - “Malchy” (“Cattle breeder”) and “Koshchu” (“Koshevik”, from “ kosh ”). In 1926, the factories produced 630 centners of dairy products.

In the 1930s, the Bereket collective farm (later the Kirov collective farm) was organized in Uchkeken. In 1932, a machine-mowing station was organized in the village for technical maintenance of the collective farm. By the end of 1938, there were already 4 collective farms in the district (except for the Kirov collective farm, collective farms named after Beria , Chkalov and the name of the XVIII Party Congress also arose).

During the Great Patriotic War , according to some sources, more than 600 residents of Uchkeken went to the front. The workers of the village raised funds for the construction of the registered air squadron "Karachai collective farmer." In 1943, the village population was deported .

After the Karachais returned from deportation in 1957, the industrial development of the village gradually began: in the second half of the 1960s, an electronic industry enterprise was built (the number of employees, according to some sources, is up to 3 thousand people), industrial complex (more than 500 workers), in the village there were a construction and assembly department, a mobile mechanized column, a road repair construction department, a repair and construction site. A communications house was built in Uchkeken in the mid-1970s, and a district hospital and a polyclinic, a feldsher point, appeared in the village. The Uchkekensky state farm, being one of the leading farms in the region and the entire Karachay-Cherkess Autonomous Okrug , was awarded the passing Red Banners of the Central Committee of the CPSU , the Council of Ministers of the USSR , the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions and the Central Committee of the Komsomol ^[12] .

National composition

National Census 2002 ^[18] :

• Karachais - 13,792 people (91.6%),
• Russians - 594 people (3.9%),
• Abazins - 137 people (0.9%),
• Ukrainians - 42 people. (0.3%),
• Nogai - 27 people. (0.2%)
• other nationalities - 460 people. (3.1%).

2010 National Census ^[19] :

• Karachais - 15,484 people. (93.77%),
• Russians - 483 people (2.93%),
• Abaza - 119 people. (0.72%),
• Laks - 50 people. (0.30%),
• Kabardins - 32 people (0.19%),
• Balkarians - 30 people. (0.18%),
• Chechens - 30 people. (0.18%),
• not indicated - 109 people. (0.66%),
• other nationalities - 175 people. (1.06%).

Uchkeken - the second largest rural type settlement in the republic after the village of Zelenchukskaya , is one of the largest rural settlements in Russia. The largest rural community of compact residence of Karachais .

Preschool education

• Kindergarten "Ilyachin"
• Kindergarten "Cholpan" ^[20]

Secondary education

• Secondary school number 1 named after A. M. Izhaev
• Secondary school No. 2
• Secondary school number 7 named after B.D. Uzdenov
• Basic secondary school No. 11 ^[21]

Higher education

• Karachay-Cherkess branch of the Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University
• Branch of Southern Federal University ^[22]

Religious education

• Republican madrasah- boarding school (the only such educational institution in the KCR) ^[23]

Near the village of Uchkeken in the territory of the Malokarachaevsky district there are a number of natural and historical-cultural monuments that attract tourists:

• Honey Falls ;
• Rome Mountain . At the top there is a whole complex of archeological monuments protected by the state of the end of I - beginning of II millennium BC: fortification, settlement, necropolis . They have the status of protected objects of state significance since 1974 ^[24] .

There are 2 monuments in the village of Uchkeken:

• Memorial to those who died during the Great Patriotic War ^[25] ;
• Monument to the victims of deportation of the Karachai people ^[26] .

It is planned to open a monument to the Karachai hundred “ Wild Division ” ^[27] .

• Weather forecast for Uchkeken