Elbrus

It is located in the mountains, 35 km (on the road) ^[5] south-east of Karachayevsk , on both banks of the Kuban River , the main part of the village is on the left bank.

Before the advent of the village

There is evidence that in the vicinity of the modern village and on the slopes of the Dautsky ridge rising above the left bank of the Kuban (by the name of the Daut River, the valley of which is located on the other side of the ridge), metal smelting has long been carried out: archaeologists discovered ancient adits , smelters, stone hammers and ingots copper ^[6] . In particular, at the end of the 19th century, on the ridge (between the gorge of the Daut River and the Kart-Jurt aul in the Kuban gorge, upstream of the present village of Elbrus), 2 places were discovered where melting horns were located earlier. In the Bagyr-kulak beam ( Karach.- balk. Bagyr kulak - “copper beam”) ^[7] 3 copper veins , adits from 3 to 10 arshins in length and traces of copper melting were found ^[8] .

Mine Foundation

The beginning of the industrial development of that section of the Uchkulan Gorge (named after the aul Uchkulan located upstream of the Kuban), where the village of Elbrus now stands, begins at the turn of the 1880s and 1890s. The alleged metal ore deposits of the so-called Kuban-Khudesk ore site (the Kuban valley and its right tributary of the Khudes river, whose mouth is located below the Elbrus stream) were located on the territory of the Karachai aul societies. In 1887, 9 aul societies of Karachai were assigned 2 delegates each, authorized to sign a land lease agreement for the subsequent geological development of deposits, which in the summer of 1888 was signed with retired lieutenant V.V. Tomashevsky. In 1889, he was invited by Anatoly Dmitrievich Kondratyev, a mining engineer, full member of the Imperial St. Petersburg Mineralogical Society, to conduct exploration work . His efforts just discovered traces of ancient metallurgy in the surrounding mountains ^[11] .

Investigations of A. D. Kondratiev in the Tokhtaul-Chalgyan area and in the Jalan-Kol tract (the Jalonkol river and the Jalonkol mountain with a height of 2036.2 m on the right bank of the Kuban, below the mouth of Khudes) revealed 17 veins of silver - lead ore with a volume of 95 thousand cubic fathoms . One cubic fathom contained 200 pounds of lead and about 6.5 silver spools (i.e., 0.17%). Kondratyev published the results of his research in 1891–1892 in the Mining Journal ^[12] .

At the same time, the adits of the future mine were also laid. In August 1891, preparatory work was carried out and the necessary outbuildings were erected. In particular, a plant was built at the mine, designed for smelting up to 2 thousand pounds of metal per year. In 1892, the plant started operating (on the first day, according to some reports, 130 pounds of lead were smelted) ^[13] . True, in the autumn of 1892, the Elbrus mine temporarily ceased operation ^[14] . In 1893, Emperor Alexander III approved the formation of the Elbrus joint stock company on the basis of the Elbrus mine ^[13] . In the spring of 1895, the mine started working again ^[14] . Mine production, according to some reports, was exported to France and the UK ^[6] .

In 1891–1892, the Ossetian poet Kosta Khetagurov ^[6] , who was in exile in Karachai ^[15], worked as a bookkeeper at the mine. At the same time, the mine’s clerk was the outstanding enlightener of the Karachai people, Islam Krymshamkhalov ^[14] , who at that time lived in his parents ’house in the village of Kart-Dzhurt ^[16] . By the end of the 1880s, apparently, Krymshamkhalov’s acquaintance with Kondratyev ^{[12] was} related, Khetshamkhalov was familiar with Khetagurov, probably, even during his studies at the Stavropol classical men's gymnasium (Krymshamkhalov studied in it in 1877-1879 ^[17] Khetagurov - from 1871 to 1881 ^[15] ). During the period of work at the Elbrus mine, a creative circle is being formed around Krymshamkhalov, Khetagurov and Kondratiev, the flowering of which, most likely, falls already on the period after the resettlement of Krymshamkhalov in 1892 or 1893 in the future Teberda , where Kondratiev already had a cottage ^{[13] [18 ] ] [19]} . The period of Khetagurov’s work at the Elbrus mine includes drawings depicting the work of miners, as well as poems ^[10] .

XX century

At the beginning of the 20th century, a trade union organization was created at the mine, sympathy for the revolutionary movement intensified, and workers escaped from the mine. According to some reports, Mos Shovgenov were associated with the working leaders of the Elbrus mine ^{[comm. 3]} , Karachai revolutionaries Said Khalilov , Immolat Khubiev and Nana Tokov ^[13] .

In the Soviet period, the village at the mine was named Polyana ^{[6] [13]} , an enrichment factory was built on the basis of the developed deposit, in the village itself - a hospital for 25 children, a seven-year school, a kindergarten (1954), a club, and a bathhouse. Most residential buildings are built in the 1950s. In 1943-1955, the village was part of the Georgian SSR and was called Magaro . Since 1957, after the return of Karachais after deportation , it has been called Elbrus ^[13] . The status of an urban-type settlement has been since 1953 ^[20] .

For a long time, since 1977, the educational base of the Moscow Mining Institute (now the university) was located where students underwent internships. Trainees studied mine surveying and geology at Elbrus. For the purposes of field practice, the mine "Student" functioned. In 1985, the preparatory department of the Moscow State Institute was opened in the village, applicants lived in Elbrus and passed entrance exams here. During the existence of the base of educational practices, the village club was reconstructed into the House of Culture. In 1995, due to financial difficulties, the base closed. Since 1979, the Verkhne-Kuban hydrogeodeformation landfill GINGEO (All-Russian Research Institute of Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology) has been operating in the village ^[13] .

National composition

According to the All-Russian Population Censuses of 2002 ^[34] and 2010 ^[35] :

In the vicinity of the village of Elbrus there are a number of natural, cultural and historical sights:

• Verkhnekhuda mineral springs - located at a distance of more than 20 km southeast of Elbrus, in the upper tributaries of the Khudes River (the main source is located on the right bank of the Tohana River), in the subalpine zone , they belong to the category of hydrocarbonate - sulfate calcium - sodium sources ^[36] .
• The Dautsky Nature Reserve - the Elbrus village, located on the western coast of the Kuban, is actually located within the boundaries of the Dautsky State Nature Reserve of federal significance formed by the biological and zoological profile on the Lateral Ridge and the northern slopes of the Main Caucasus Range (the eastern border of the reserve runs along the Kuban) ^[37] .
• Indysha mineral spring - located 2 km upstream from the confluence of the Indysh River into the Kuban (near the mouth, in the Kuban valley, there is a highway from the village of Elbrus to Karachaevsk, previously there was a small village of Indysh in this place), in fact, it is 2 carbonic source, sodium chloride-hydrocarbonate and iodine - bromine -sodium-hydrogen chloride ^[38] .
• Karchi Stone is the national shrine of the Karachais located on the left bank of the Kuban, not far from the confluence of the right tributary of the Khudes River, to the north of the village, on the highway between Elbrus and Karachaevsk.
• The site of the Khasaukinsky battle of 1828, the key event in the annexation of Karachai to the Russian Empire, is north-east and east of Elbrus, on the Maly Khasuko pass on the right bank of the Khudes River, in the Khudes Valley and on the mountain range between Khudes and Kuban.
• Hurla-Kel Lake (Khorlakel) - is located 8 km east of Kart-Jurt aul and 9 km southeast of Elbrus, on the slopes of the Elbashi ridge, descending towards the Khudes river gorge, on an extensive ramp , surrounded by subalpine meadows ^[39] .

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  View of the Kuban gorge from the slopes of Mount Shtimbashi (2103.4 m), northwest of the village

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  Mountains of the right bank of the Kuban

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  Kuban at the village

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  View from the town of Elbrus up the gorge

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  View from the village to the mountains above the village of Cart Jurt

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  Mountains surrounding Elbrus

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  Mountain Steam locomotive over the village of Elbrus

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  In the vicinity of the village

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  In Dautsky reserve. Mouth of the Daut River

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  The bridge across the Kuban at the mouth of the Daut River

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  Indian mineral spring

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  Indian mineral spring

• Khatuev R. T. Islam-Biy : Notes on the life and work of I. Kh. Krymshamkhalov: [ Russian ] . - Karachaevsky Research Institute. - Cherkessk : IKO Alansky Hermitage, 2009. - 142 p. - ISBN 5-86494-022-4 .