Sochi is the most popular Russian resort, situated in the Krasnodar Krai, near the Russian border with Abkhazia, Georgia. It is located in a spectacular natural setting with the snow-capped peaks of the Caucasus Mountains overlooking the gentle shores of the Black Sea. At 147 km, Greater Sochi is the second longest city in the world.
From the 6th to the 15th centuries, the area belonged to kings of Abkhazia, who built a dozen churches in Adler, Loo, and other districts of Greater Sochi. Ruins of an 11th century Byzantine basilica still survive in Loo. From the 15th century, the coast was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. It was ceded to Russia in 1829, as a result of the Russo-Turkish War.Sochi was founded in 1838 as Alexandria settlement (Navaginskoye fortification, 1864 - Dakhovskiy Outpost, 1874 - 
Dakhovskiy Posad). It had been incorporated as a city and got its present name in 1896. Sochi was established as a fashionable resort area in the years of the Soviet regime, when Joseph Stalin had his favourite dacha built nearby which was tightly protected.The resort has a temperate climate and boasts many sanatoria and mineral baths. There are also tea plantations, the most northerly in Europe. The permanent population is about 315,400 (2004) but millions more arrive each summer, when the city is home to the annual Film Festival "Kinotavr" and the vacation place of Russian leaders. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Caucasian Biosphere Reserve, sprawls just north from the city. 
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