A major reconstruction was undertaken at the resort park of Zheleznovodsk in 1930. Apart from the gallery of the Smirnov spring, there was built the Cascade stairs designed to solve the issue of swamping of the mountain slope by the water of numerous springs.
As is known, on the eastern slope of the Zheleznaya mountain, where the city of Zheleznovodsk was founded, there are a lot of springs of warm mineral water. The main of them are the Smirnov spring and Slavyanovskiy spring. The water of all these springs flowed down the mountain slope noticeably swamping the resort park.
In the 30th of the past century, when the architect Yeskov built the gallery of the Smirnov spring, there was also implemented the project of the architect N. Papkov, who offered to build on the slope of the Zheleznaya mountain the Cascade stairs, starting at the Smirnov spring, with water drainage system in the middle of the stairs.
So in Zheleznovodsk there appeared the famous Cascade Alley. On the stair landings there were installed the fountains with the characters of the Russian fairy tales including the Frog Princess, Gold Fish, Mistress of the Copper Hill, etc. At the bottom of the Cascade stair is the sculpture of eagle and the pump-room of the Nezlobinskiy spring.
