capacity of 35 beds. A number of writers, painters and artists had moved to the area by then and helped establish the educational system of the city. In particular, the Soviet writer Nikolai Ostrovsky lived in Sochi between 1928 and 1936 and has a monument and a museum devoted to him. As a result of the October Revolution in 1917, all the infrastructure of Sochi was nationalized by the Bolsheviks in the spring of 1918. Georgian intervention resulted in a Russian-Georgian military conflict which lasted from July 1918 to February 1919. Actions of the Volunteer Army and local population resulted in the defeat of Georgian forces. In February 1918, the city was occupied by the Volunteer Army which restored the pre-revolution government system and forced local population to join the army. These measures were met with resistance and in April–October 1919, the local peasants had formed 30 partisan units (named the "Green Army") with the total force of 3,000 people. In parallel, in March 1919, a local section of the Red Army was formed and later merged with the main body. On 29 April 1920, the Volunteer Army was defeated in the Sochi area and its capitulation was signed on 2 May. In 1920, the management system was set up for developing the health resort infrastructure in Sochi. The first priority was eradicating malaria. In the swampy area of Sochi, this disease was so rampant that the very existence of a health resort here was seriously questioned. The first anti-malaria station was established in 1921. Many swamps were dried and Eucalyptus trees were planted to accelerate the process, as they consume much water. A crucial step was introduction in 1925 of the fish Gambusia affinis (mosquitofish), which feeds on the aquatic larval and pupal stages of mosquitoes. As a result, the number of malaria cases reduced 6 times by the mid-1930s; however, the disease wasn't completely eradicated until 1956. A monument to the fish was raised in Adler in 2010. In 1924, the Caucasian State Nature Biosphere Reserve was established about east from central Sochi. It occupies about and preserves some 85 m-high specimens of the Nordmann Fir (Abies nordmanniana), thought to be the tallest trees in Europe, and a unique forest formed by English Yew (Taxus baccata) and European Box (Buxus sempervirens). About a third of its high mountain species of plants are recognized as endemic. The area also