Sochi is Russia's great Black Sea resort, a long subtropical city squeezed between the water and the western Caucasus. It is not a single neat beach town: Greater Sochi runs for more than 100 kilometres along the coast, with old spa districts, railway stations, beaches, sanatorium parks, Olympic venues, and mountain resorts all folded into the name.
The city has layers. The seafront and Marine Station show the Stalin-era resort ideal, all columns, promenades, and warm-weather confidence. Sochi Arboretum gives the city its subtropical garden identity. Stalin's Dacha is stranger and darker, a preserved holiday house from the Soviet power world.
Sochi can be tacky, traffic-heavy, and politically complicated, especially since the 2014 Winter Olympics reshaped the region. But it easily clears a day: the coast has real atmosphere, the Olympic Park at Adler is surreal in scale, and the mountains above Krasnaya Polyana are close enough to change the weather and mood in an hour.