Gelendzhik

a city in Krasnodar Krai of the RSFSR. Situated on Gelendzhik Bay of the Black Sea, 38 km southeast of Novorossiisk, with which it is connected by roads and sea routes. Population, 29,000 (1970). Gelendzhik’s major industry is food, and orchards and vineyards grow near it. It has a museum of local lore. Settled in 1864, it became a city in 1915.

Gelendzhik is the center of a health resort region, including the climatic seacoast resorts and health resorts of Divnomorskoe, Dzhankhot, Kabardinka, and Arkhipo-Osipovka. The climate is mediterranean: the summers are very warm (average August temperature, 24° C) and the winters mild (average February temperature, -4° C); precipitation averages about 750 mm per year. Treatments include aerotherapy, sun cure, sea bathing (from May through October), mud cures (mud is brought from Solenoe Lake near Taman’), and grape cure (September through October). Its treatments are for patients with respiratory, circulatory, or nervous ailments. Gelendzhik has sanatoriums, workers’ resorts, and boarding houses.