“Voyage Around the Caucasus” is a work in six volumes written by a scientist, archaeologist and naturalist of the first half of the 19th century — Frédéric DuBois de Montperreux. The books are of great interest as they can paint a picture of the history of Sochi.

Frédéric DuBois de Montperreux (1798–1850) — a Frenchman from Switzerland — made many trips during his life. A trip to the Crimea and the Caucasus was perhaps the most interesting and original of them all, at least from the Western European scientist’s point of view. In the spring of 1833, DuBois arrived in Russia. His route initially ran through the lands of the Crimea, then he traveled along the entire Caucasian Riviera on a Russian military ship. After that he visited the North Caucasus, traveled through Western Transcaucasia to Tiflis. As a result of this trip to the Crimea and the Caucasus, DuBois amassed a lot of material, which he presented in his extensive work “Voyage Around the Caucasus”, published in French in 1839–1843 in Paris.

The Museum of the History of the Resort City of Sochi presents the lifetime original edition of “Voyage Around the Caucasus”, which can be rightfully considered the highlight of the exhibition. Local historians studying the history of Sochi take special interest in the first volume of the book, with a special atlas and sketches. In this book, DuBois described the Caucasian Riviera from the “Circassian coast” to Abkhazia and provided valuable information about the life of the Abkhaz-Adyghe tribes that inhabited the area. Along with the book, there is a specially compiled atlas, which contains several series of maps and sketches, among other things.

This is what DuBois de Montperreux wrote about Sochi,