Krasnodar
— — a young city wearing an old name well.
Not only on a wall.
“A regional capital on the right bank of the Kuban, a few hours north of the Black Sea coast. Founded as Yekaterinodar in 1793 by Black Sea Cossacks and renamed in 1920, the city reads younger than its years. Krasnaya Street runs straight through the centre, lined with linden, and on a summer evening the whole of it walks. Out by the stadium, Galitsky Park has remade what a city park can be in this part of the country.
Krasnodar, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Krasnodar is the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, the southern Russian region that holds the Black Sea coast from Anapa down to Sochi. The city sits at about 25 metres above sea level on the right bank of the Kuban River, roughly 150 kilometres inland from the port of Novorossiysk. It was founded in 1793 as Yekaterinodar — Catherine's Gift — by Black Sea Cossacks resettled from the lower Dnieper, and renamed Krasnodar in 1920. The metropolitan population now sits above one million, making it one of the largest cities of the Russian South.
The civic face of the city is Krasnaya Street, a long pedestrian-priority axis lined with low pre-revolutionary façades, Soviet-era theatres, and newer infill. South of the centre, Krasnodar Stadium opened in 2016 to a design by GMP Architekten as the home ground of FC Krasnodar, and the adjacent Krasnodar Park — funded by Sergey Galitsky — was completed in stages from 2017. The park's amphitheatre, Japanese garden, and stone-cut water features have become the most-visited public space in the city and a reference point for park design across the Russian South.
Krasnodar's climate is humid continental shading toward humid subtropical, the warmest of any major Russian city outside the Caucasus coast. July daytime highs average around 30°C and the swimming season at nearby Black Sea resorts runs from June into September. Winters are short and damp rather than truly cold, with January means a few degrees below freezing and snow that rarely lingers. The surrounding Kuban plain is one of Russia's most productive agricultural regions, and the late-summer markets carry stone fruit, melons, and Krasnodar tea from plantations in the foothills above Sochi.