Why go
Understanding this period changes how you read familiar place names and monuments. The first fort at the Sochi River mouth was part of a wider Russian coastal line, while the war ended near today's Krasnaya Polyana. The history of the Ubykh and other Circassian peoples cannot be reduced to the founding date of a Russian town.
The full story
After the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, Russia built a chain of forts along the Black Sea coast. Fortifications appeared at Adler, Lazarevskoye and other points. In 1838, a fort was begun at the mouth of the Sochi River, where central Sochi later developed. Its names changed as the military and settlement history changed. These posts stood in a region already inhabited by local peoples who resisted Russian expansion. The Caucasian War continued until 1864. Its end was proclaimed at Kbaade, near modern Krasnaya Polyana. Russian victory brought the expulsion and forced migration of many Circassians, including Ubykh people from the Sochi area, across the Black Sea to the Ottoman Empire. The crossing and resettlement caused severe suffering and loss of life. New settlements and Cossack stations followed the war. The coastal settlement was named Sochi in 1896 and gained town status in 1917. Its later resort identity grew over a landscape whose earlier communities and names had not simply disappeared.