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Anniversary of the first Russian resort “Marcial Waters”
20 (31) March, 1719 Peter I signed a decree "On the healing waters found in Olonets," which initiated the first Russian resort "Marcial Waters."
In early 1714, Ivan Ryaboev, worker at the Konchezersky iron factory, found a source spouting out of the snowy ground on the Rav-marsh. Drinking for a short time water from the spring, he felt completely healthy. About his discovery he reported to the chief of Olonetsky plants V. I. Gennin, who in his turn reported about it to St. Petersburg General Admiral F. M. Apraksin so that he informed Peter I about the discovered healing spring.
In the end of 1717, the tsar's personal physician L. L. Blumentrost, who later became the first president of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and doctor R. Areskin went to the waters to explore their therapeutic properties. Studies have confirmed that drinking the discovered water was useful for the treatment of many diseases: anemia, scurvy, heart disease, rheumatism, dropsy, etc. Healing occurred within 2-3 weeks. Discovered ferruginous waters were named "Marcial" in honor of Mars, the god of war and iron.
20 (31) March, 1719 Peter I signed a decree "On the healing waters found in Olonets" and special rules for undergoing of new at the time methods of treatment and use of water "Doctor’s rules to use the waters." During this period there were built three wooden palaces, a four-room house for the doctor, apartment buildings for patients, a room for riding. Above the source from which the water was taken for the royal family and his entourage, a wooden carved tent was erected. A smaller tent for the common folk stood nearby. The resort was designed only for the royal family and close friends of the tsar.
In Peter's Russia the resort gained wide popularity. Peter I himself visited Marcial waters four times - in 1719, 1720, 1722 and 1724. After the death of the Emperor, the resort gradually fell into neglect, the erected buildings collapsed.
In the mid 18th century Empress Elizabeth wished to revive the resort. But these attempts were unsuccessful. Court physicians led by G. Boerhaave made conclusions about the futility Marcial waters. And in 1872, the royal palace, already dilapidated, was demolished. Almost all spa buildings of Peter's time dilapidated and collapsed. They were replaced by the village of Palaces.
Today, in Marcial Waters remained only a wooden church of the Apostles Peter and Paul, built in 1721 according to the plan of Peter I.
Interest in the sources resumed only in 1930. Marcial Waters and muds from the lake Gabozero, which is 1.5 km away from the sources, started to be used again in medical practice. In those years, the activities of the resort were restored thanks to the support of the People's Commissar of Health of the Karelian ASSR A. N. Lebedev; doctors S. A. Vishnevsky and V. T. Yarashevich; Professor M. D. Tushinsky, Moscow and Leningrad Institutes of Balneology.
In 1940, the CPC of the Karelo-Finnish SSR resolved to construct new buildings of the resort. In 1946, in the village of Marcial Waters, Kondopozhsky District, the museum "Marcial Waters" (today - a branch of the National Museum of the Republic of Karelia) was created. It displays an exhibition on the history of the first Russian resort in Russia.
The day of February 7, 1964 can be called the date of the revival of the first Russian resort. That day, the all-Union health resort "Marcial Waters" was inaugurated.
Today, spa and mud resort "Marcial Waters" is a famous health-resort complex, a monument of Russian historical and cultural heritage. Favorable climatic conditions, rich nature, healing springs and curative Gabozero muds - all this makes up a wonderful health resort sanatorium.
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Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
The article is provided by The National Library of Republic of Karelia