Why go
This chapter explains the scale of Sochi's sanatorium landscape. Buildings associated with rest and treatment also served wounded soldiers during the war, then returned to a growing resort system. Later expansion toward Adler and Lazarevskoye produced the long urban area travelers navigate today.
The full story
Sochi's hospitals and sanatoriums took on a different role during World War II. The city became a major place of treatment and recovery for wounded soldiers from the Eastern Front. Its health infrastructure, climate and distance from much of the fighting made it suitable for that work, although the war also damaged part of the resort system. After the war, sanatoriums were rebuilt and the city again became a prominent Soviet destination for medical rest and holidays. The scale of travel grew sharply in the following decades. In 1961, the administrative city expanded to include the Adler and Lazarevskoye districts, helping create the long coastal Sochi familiar today. The economic upheaval after the Soviet Union dissolved brought a steep decline in resort travel. The next major physical transformation came with preparation for the 2014 Winter Olympics and Paralympics. New infrastructure around Adler and the mountain venues added a different era of buildings and transport to the older sanatorium coast. Reading those layers together is more useful than treating the city as a resort of just one period.