GEOGRAPHY

Mild continental climate.

Average temperature (January) −5 °С (in highlands down to −10 °C).

In July +22 -- +25 °C (in highlands up to +14 °C).

Annual fallout – 300-500 mm in the plain; over 600 mm – in the highlands.

Vegetation period – 180-185 days per year.

SOIL

Stavropol Krai is mostly located in steppe and semi-desert areas. The soils mostly include black earth (southern and ordinary) and brown (light-brown, brown, and dark-brown). Dominant are miscellaneous wild and gramineous grasses and gramineous steppes, while in the East and North-West the flora includes wormwood and gramineous grasses with salt marsh and saline soils. The steppes are mostly plowed fields.

RESORT AREAS & TOURISM

The region of the Caucasian Mineral Waters is a specially protected area, which includes the following towns – Pyatigorsk, Kislovodsk, Essentuki, Zheleznovodsk. The total of the mineral water available in the region is 12,450 m³/day, with only 11% being used currently and 32 mineral water fields explored. All in all there are over 100 mineral water wells being exploited in the Caucasian Mineral Waters region, which produce thirty types of water. The springs of Pyatigorsk and Kislovodsk offer waters similar (in their chemical properties and therapeutic effect) to Springs № 1, 2 and 3 in Truskavets (Ukraine), Druskininkai (Lithuania), and Wiesbaden (Germany).