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The world-famous Nikitsky Botanical Garden is the main botanical attraction of Crimea. Its history goes back more than two hundred years. Now there is still scientific work, and tourists can simply walk around its vast territory, enjoying the variety of plants.

History of the garden

Emperor Alexander I in 1811 issued a decree on the organisation of a "state" (i.e. state) botanical garden in the south of the Crimea, and already in the autumn of 1812 the first works were started. The garden was conceived, first of all, as a nursery, from which fruit and ornamental plants will be distributed throughout the Crimea. The main task was acclimatisation of plants from Southern Europe for the harsher climate of the Northern Black Sea coast.

The first director was Christian Steven, a botanist and medic. He travelled extensively: he explored the flora of southern Russia, the Caucasian mineral waters, silkworms. He communicated with the famous Pallas, who settled in Sudak in the early 19th century. Steven co-operated a lot with botanical gardens of Europe, German and Italian. He remained director until 1825, then concentrated on the development of silkworm breeding. And in his old age he returned to the Crimea, and lived out his life in Simferopol, conducting scientific work. In his honour are named several species of insects and many species of plants, for example, decorative hawthorn Steven and many others.

The next director was Nikolai Vasilyevich Gartvis - it is to him that the Nikitsky Botanical Garden owes its fame. He gave the garden 36 years of his life, of which 33 years was its director. Under him the arboretum was laid - now it occupies more than forty hectares. Gartvis began to import conifers here for adaptation and distribution in the Crimea. Caucasian fir was brought from the Caucasus and giant sequoias from America. Vineyards were planted in Magarach, scientific research and breeding works were started. An institution of "viticulture and winemaking" was founded. Then the beginning of collections of spicy and fruit plants was also laid. To him Crimea owes its other parks. Hartwis closely co-operates with the chief Crimean gardener Karl Kebach. He supplied rare plants for Vorontsov Park, parks in Massandra and Koreiz.

During the 19th century, the garden continued to develop. In 1869, a school of horticulture and winemaking was opened with five-year education. There were not many students - just over a hundred people were trained in total, but they were highly qualified specialists. A special building was built for them. It has been preserved. Now it houses a tasting room.

All this time the staff was mainly engaged in practical work: breeding and supplying plants, and training specialists. But at the beginning of the 20th century, scientific work begins again, a botanical office is opened. The main work on collecting herbariums was conducted by Eugene Vladimirovich Wolf, who for many years studied the Crimean flora and the peculiarities of plant geography.

In Soviet times

By the 125th anniversary the garden was renewed. A new administrative building was built and a park ensemble was laid out in front of it - now it is the central part of the upper park.

During the war years, almost all employees of the botanical garden left to volunteer at the front, and the main collections were taken to the Caucasus. Only 30 employees died during the war - now their names are on the memorial dedicated to them in the Upper Park. The Germans took away the herbarium collected by Wolf - then it was miraculously found somewhere near Berlin and returned to the USSR. Some of the plants, which required special care, died. But still the garden was not ruined completely and was quickly restored.

Twenty-first century

The park is divided into the Lower and Upper. The Upper Park is an arboretum. It preserves old plantings of huge cedars, sequoias, and cypresses. One of the oaks, the Turkish oak, is more than two hundred years old; it was one of the first trees to appear here. Here grows brought from America yuccas, desert opuntia and dracenas, boxwoods and laurels. For Nikitsky Botanical Garden since the XIX century was adapted wisteria - it was from here that this plant spread throughout southern Russia. There are whole alleys of rare stone oak and pyramidal cypresses. Here you can see sequoiyadendron giant. These are young plants of sequoiadendron - they are only a hundred years old, but they can live up to several thousand years and reach a hundred metres in height and twelve in circumference. And the oldest plants in this part of the garden are five hundred years old: they are thickets of berry yew, which have been growing here since Byzantine times.

The Upper Park hosts annual exhibitions of tulips, irises and cannas. The garden's most famous event is the autumn chrysanthemum ball.

In the Lower Park, there are expositions devoted to fruit trees of the subtropics and a grove of Lebanese cedar, laid out as early as 1844. Another species of sequoia can be seen, this time the Chinese metasequoia glyptostroboides. The lower park is more regular than the upper one and is decorated with cascading pools and fountains.

Memorial Seaside Park was laid out by the centenary of the garden - in 1912. It is a ceremonial ceremonial garden with palm alleys and fountains, plants trimmed in the form of designer figures or whirling a variety of frameworks. There is a Japanese garden with sculptures of deities that give happiness. Not so long ago there appeared Dinosaur Park - fifteen "living" figures that breathe, growl and trumpet, and a children's sandbox, where children can do "excavations" and discover some fossils.

Three interesting objects are usually included in the tour programme of the garden:

  • Cactus greenhouse, where you can see more than a thousand species of succulents.
  • Park "Montedor", with a collection of unique plants that grow in the Crimea only here: Lebanese oak, Cypriot short coniferous cedar, Chinese juniper and others. The park was conceived in the post-war years - before that there were vineyards and vegetable gardens. But for a long time the territory was almost abandoned - the reconstruction was done already in 2017.
  • And the third park - "Paradise" - is dedicated to flowering plants. It is a garden of continuous flowering. The basis is not annual flowers, but shrubs: veigelas, buddleias, oleanders, honeysuckles, barberries, calaniums. A separate exposition is devoted to clematis.

Also under the jurisdiction of the botanical garden is the smallest reserve in Russia - Cape Martyan. The territory of the reserve is not only land, but also the sea coastal strip. Many endangered and Red Book animals and plants live here, and also on the cape there are ruins of the medieval fortress Ruxophile-kale.

Rosarium

In the Upper Park there is the pearl of the garden - rosarium. The current management plans to make it the largest in Russia, but it still amazes the imagination. The very first Russian roses were bred as early as Hartwis. For example, his variety Countess Vorontsova, named in honour of the wife of the New Russian governor M. Vorontsov, appeared in 1828 and still adorns many collections.

There are also old Soviet varieties that do not lose relevance, for example, "Bakhchisarai Fountain" or "Star Sister". Over them worked such breeders as Vera Klimenko and her daughter Zinaida Klemenko, Nicholas Kostetsky and others. In total, more than 200 varieties of roses were bred in Soviet times. Not all of them have survived, but more than thirty domestic roses can be seen in this rose garden. The most famous of them is "Klimentina" 1955. Now she has already a lot of subspecies and many of them can grow not only in the south, but also in the middle belt of Russia.

Here there are novelties of our and foreign selection, but the most interesting is the old varieties, which were the ancestors of many current ones. For example, the French variety La Reine, 1849 - from it came almost all the roses that bloom not once a season, and continuously. Or the most famous rose of the 20th century, Gloria Dei, bred in France just before the occupation and preserved by the Americans. It is better known as "Peace." This rose became one of the symbols of victory over fascism for the whole world.

Total now in the rose garden of the Nikita Botanical Garden almost 500 varieties of roses - and in the planned new rose garden should be more than two thousand. The rose garden blooms continuously from April to December: there are roses that bloom only in one wave, and those that bloom continuously.

Garden Museum

Since 2014, the garden has had its own museum. It traces its origins back to the Botanical Cabinet, which was created by Steeven and renovated at the end of the 19th century. In the mid-nineteenth century, visual aids for the horticultural school were stored here.

After the revolution, in 1918, a scientific museum was established. Its present building was already built in 1975. The museum was a closed museum. It was accessed by special request and mostly by specialists or officials. Since 2014, it has been open to all visitors. Most of the modern exposition is interactive: exhibits can be taken in hand, conducted experiments with them, assembled and disassembled.

Interesting facts

  • Three varieties of Nikita roses were dedicated to the female cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova: Star Sister, Seagull and Valentina Tereshkova.
  • The garden produces its own cosmetics and a series of phyto teas, it has a small health centre. Tastings of local jam made of rose petals and figs are held.

On a side note

  • Location: Yalta, Nikita settlement, Nikitsky Descent, 52.

  • How to get there: From Yalta: route taxi number 34 and trolleybus number 2 from the stop "clothing market" to the stop "Nikitsky Botanical Garden."

  • Official website: http://nikitasad.ru

  • Entrance fee: adults 150-300 rubles, children 100-150 rubles.

  • Opening hours: in summer from 8:00 to 20:00, in winter from 9:00 to 16:00.