Russia To Celebrate North Caucasian Spa Bicentennial In Grand Scale: Premier

Russia will celebrate a 200th establishment anniversary of the Caucasian Mineral Waters, in April of 2003, in a federal scale, Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov says in a decree signed today. Yuri Shevchenko, Health Minister, will lead an organising committee, reports the government information board. The administrative unit Kavkazskie Mineralnye Vody in the Stavropol Territory, where the flatland in European Russia's south adjoins the North Caucasus, unites four spas--Yessentuki, Zheleznovodsk, Kislovodsk and Pyatigorsk--famous for mud-baths and close on 130 mineral springs with great curative power.