Southern Russian city where one in every three hundred people is Vietnamese

The city is located in southern Russia, north of the Caucasus Mountains.

Photo: Sputnik

Pyatigorsk, which means “five mountains,” was founded 200 years ago next to a mountain range with five peaks. Another mountain over 1,000 meters high is located right in the heart of the city, a rare occurrence in Russia.

Pyatigorsk was one of the first cities in Russia to establish a Vietnamese Association, after Moscow and St Petersburg. At that time, there were about 800 Vietnamese here, but this number has since decreased. Today, for every 300 residents of the city, there is 1 Vietnamese. The attitude of the local people towards them is very friendly. The Vietnamese veterans here not only have children, but also grandchildren. The younger generation of Vietnamese speak Russian better than their mother tongue, and many have university degrees.

The Vietnamese in Pyatigorsk and the local authorities have nothing to complain about. The authorities help them in obtaining the necessary documents, create favorable conditions for them to find work. Pyatigorsk is one of the largest shopping centers in the North Caucasus. There are 12 markets in the city, providing local residents with consumer goods. The majority of Vietnamese work in the trade sector under the company "Lira".

The Chairman of the Board of Directors of this company, Mr. Nguyen Khac Thanh, has only one concern: the cultural life of Vietnamese people in Pyatigorsk is quite poor: they rarely have the opportunity to regularly gather together, except on Tet and national holidays, and news about their homeland is mainly learned from the Internet.

The editorial board of "Sputnik Vietnam" hopes that now, after our acquaintance with Mr. Nguyen Khac Thanh, the Vietnamese community in Pyatigorsk will use our website as a rich source of information.

According to Sputnik