Nikitsky Botanical Garden
Nikitsky Botanical Garden is a unique park, which is a creation of human hands and nature. For more than two centuries it exists in the Crimea on the Black Sea coast and causes admiration for every visitor. Over 6000 species of herbaceous and woody plants grow on the territory of a thousand hectares. Thanks to the mild Mediterranean climate representatives of flora from different parts of the world have found their home here, which is safely protected by rocky mountains from the cold northern breath. Picturesque terraces of the garden surrounded by a belt of mighty oaks, fluffy Crimean pines and fragrant juniper down the steep slopes from the village of Nikita to the seashore, located six kilometers from Yalta.
Video: Nikita Botanical Garden
” title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” allowfullscreen> Contents- History of the botanical garden
- Structure of the Nikitsky Botanical Garden
Upper Park - Lower Park
- Seaside Park
- Park “Montedor”
- Practical information
- How to get there
History of the botanical garden
Just over two centuries ago, Emperor Alexander I issued a decree prescribing the creation of an arboretum in the Crimea. Its founder and first director was Christian Steeven, who made a huge contribution to the development of the botanical garden.
.
Over time, the territory of the park was expanded and landscaped. In the scientific laboratory, research was carried out to study the acclimatization of imported specimens, as well as work on the development of new plant varieties.
Nowadays, the Nikitsky Botanical Garden is very popular among tourists. Here you can see both lovers of botany and connoisseurs of flora, and those who want to spend time pleasantly and admire exotic species of plants.
.
Structure of Nikitsky Botanical Garden
The territory of the Nikita Botanical Garden is divided into four parts, the oldest of which is the Lower Park. It is best to start your journey from the Upper Park, as in this case, tourists will find a leisurely descent along picturesque paths in the shade of trees and surrounded by shrubs. Fresh and intoxicating air, amazing and diverse world of plants, stunning views of the surrounding area from the observation decks – all this will make the walk unforgettable!
.Upper Park
The main entrance to the Upper Park is near the Church of the Transfiguration (Transfiguration Church), built in 1884. Just outside the entrance near the art gallery building, all tour groups gather. If you want to learn and see more in a short period of time, a guide is the best option for this.
.
Parterre
Bypassing the gallery and passing the bust of Christian Stevens, tourists get to a spacious square – parterre, in the central part of which is a swimming pool. Opposite the gallery building is the scientific library. Here on the square there is a statue of Flora installed in honor of the 200th anniversary of the garden. Right behind it there is a huge Italian pine – pinia, which has big cones with nuts inside. By the way, from their seeds Italians produce tasty vegetable oil. The name of the pine tree is connected with the name of a literary hero – Pinocchio, made by Papa Carlo from the wood of this tree.
.
On the sides of the parterre you can see pyramidal cypresses and mighty downy oak. Noteworthy is the sprawling Himalayan cedar, whose wood is unaffected by termites. That is why it was widely used in India for building temples. Another giant of the Nikitskiy Botanical Garden amazes visitors with its power – a two-hundred-year-old Turkish oak, the birthplace of which is Asia Minor.
.
Mighty long-lived
From the administration building, an alley of evergreen stone oaks leads visitors to a bamboo grove formed by the leafy spurge of sizo-green, whose natural range is in northern China. In this part of the park you can also meet the aboriginal of the Crimean forests – berry yew. Some of the trees have celebrated their five hundredth anniversary. Then you can see another magnificent alley, flanked by North American black walnut trees and pyramids of cypresses. You won’t pass the giant sequoiyadendron, a conifer native to California. Some of its living “relatives” on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada are about 3,500 years old, reaching 80-90 meters in height.
.
Garden Flowers
The Upper Park’s rose garden is a place that has earned the special love of visitors. They spend long hours wandering among the lawns, marveling at the extraordinary beauty of Maiden’s Blush, Crimean Night, Golden Jubilee, Clementina and other rose varieties. Their colorful collection is the pride of Nikitsky Botanical Garden. Tourists are always interested in flower expositions: in mid-spring there is a “parade of tulips”, in May they organize an exhibition of tangles, the first month of summer – the time of lilies, from June to July you can admire the presented roses and cannas, and in October and November at the site arranged “ball of chrysanthemums.”
.Traveling along the picturesque alleys of the park, you will be amazed not only by the species diversity of plants available here and their splendor, but also can admire from the heights of the amazing view of the azure sea and the panorama of Yalta opening from one of the observation platforms.
.
Lower Park
The area where the walk through the Lower Park begins is occupied by fruiting subtropical plants: the Central Asian wild pomegranate with rich orange or red flowers and the ziziphus, better known as the Chinese date or chaparral. In the olive grove, among the European olive trees that form it, you will see two ancient crops – figs, which have smooth and almost white bark, and Japanese medlar with yellowish colored fruits gathered in brushes.
.
Rest area
After walking for a while, tourists enter the possession of bushes of Korolkov’s exochorda (stringleaf), which is more winter-hardy than other representatives of the species. In late April its snow-white inflorescences delight the eyes of park visitors. Above the shrubbery rise the crowns of the common bean and Judas tree. A little further away, under the spreading branches of the small-fruited strawberry tree, there is a platform where tired tourists can have a rest. However, you can see the strawberry-like fruits of this local resident only from December to January.
.Park path
Near one of the flowerbeds, an evergreen California oak stands majestically. A path leads from it, bounded on one side by a stone wall, from which the branches of jasmine hang picturesquely, passing above into a thicket of twig panicles. Both shrubs are an ornament to any south coast park, especially during the period when their leafless branches blossom fragrant yellow flowers, unusually beautiful looking in their overall mass.
.
One of the attractions of the Lower Park in the Nikitsky Botanical Garden is a grove of Lebanese cedars laid in 1844, which in ancient times were used to build ships of Phoenician navigators. Another representative of conifers, the Spanish fir, which is the most heat-loving among the firs of the Mediterranean coast, neighbors nearby.
.
Cypress Family
The park’s paths lead past picturesque thickets of phylloriums and photiniae, which seem dwarfed by the dark green pyramid of the Himalayan cypress. It will be possible to compare how the Guadeloupe cypress or large-fruited cypress growing here differ from their relative.
.
Tourists have a chance to breathe the purest air, saturated with phytoncides of crimson and Virginia junipers, also belonging to the Cypress family. The Montezuma pine, named in honor of one of the prominent Aztec emperors, came here from the Mexican mountains. It is distinguished from other pines by its wide cone-shaped crown, whose powerful branches end in soft hanging sultans.
.Metasequoia glyptostroboides
Nestled next to the marble fountain are river cedars and a fancifully shaped stone oak, and a little farther away is a metasequoia, which is a fairly common park crop these days. There was a time when it was thought to be extinct, having originally been found as fossils. It wasn’t until the middle of the last century that miraculously preserved trees were discovered in China.
.
Seaside Park
Seaside Park was laid out on the centennial anniversary of two significant events – the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812 and the founding of the Nikitsky Botanical Garden, during the existence of which the collection of plants increased so much that it required its expansion.
>The park is located in the warmest southeastern part of the garden, which Cape Martyan closes from the winds. Seedlings of trees such as eucalyptus, araucaria, some of the species of palm trees, bamboo, dracaena, were brought from Batumi, Sukhum and the botanical garden of St. Petersburg. Some of these plant species already existed on the territory of the Upper and Lower Parks: they were grown in tubs and moved to the greenhouse for the winter. Now the trees were planted in the open ground to follow their growth in natural conditions. The first winter was disastrous for most of them, and in the future, the selection of plants took into account the geography of their growth, so here found a shelter mainly representatives of the flora of China and Japan.
.
Start of the route
At the entrance to the park you can see an interesting creation of nature – Adjer-kaya, which means “Dragon Rock” in Turkic. It has another name – “Rock of Rest”, because the murmuring of the stream flowing from its seemingly split base, causes an irresistible desire to sit down and rest at the foot in the shade of trees. One of them as a friendly host of the park meets its visitors at the entrance, greeting them with its curved branches. This is the small-fruited strawberry, which has been growing here since before the park was founded.
A picturesque alley of Chinese palms, which was planted on the occasion of the opening of the Seaside Park, will lead to a fairy-tale sculpture – the head of a mountain troll peeking out of the ground. Strands of silver cortaderia “hair” crown the balding top of the creature’s head.
.
The heart of the park
Here there is a pool with an installed fountain, and nearby there is a large-flowered magnolia Hartwiss, named after Nicholas von Hartwiss, the second director of the botanical garden, who selected this form. This specimen is now over a hundred years old.
.In the central part you can admire living sculptures, and not just borders and balls, but works of topiary art, like those that decorated the estates of ancient Roman patricians. You will see intricate “hairstyles” of small-leaved Japanese turquoises and original spiral cuts of cypresses, you will be photographed against the background of arches covered with Chinese jasmine. From the amazingly beautiful recreation area located here offers a stunning view of the sea and descending to it precipitous spurs of the Crimean Mountains.
.
Bamboo grove
Once upon a time bamboo was planted here, which grew into a whole grove, actually originated from a single rhizome. For the Chinese and Japanese, this plant is a symbol of a warrior, as well as a wise and flexible, yet resilient person. Among the bamboo thickets you will notice sculptures that resemble warriors of the terracotta army, another symbol of China. Through the grove passes a bridge made of planks yatsuhashi, its curves symbolizing the thorny path of learning the truth. It is believed that a person who walks across such a bridge among the bamboo performs a ritual of purification.
.
Japanese Corner
In the part of the park dedicated to Japanese culture, tourists will admire niwaki – miniature (larger than bonsai) and harmoniously “intertwined” in the landscape trees, which is a kind of topiary art. Pine, berry yew and Chinese juniper are used to create niwaki on the territory of the botanical garden. You will be able to see stone sculptures of seven Japanese gods of happiness, among which Hotei, the potbellied god of prosperity, luck and happiness, is easily recognizable. According to beliefs, if you rub his belly and make a wish, it will come true.
.Parque Montedor
This is the youngest part of the Nikita Botanical Garden, laid out in the middle of the XX century. Its landscape, in addition to the indigenous “inhabitants” of the Crimea (oak, juniper, cotoneaster), is made up of species brought from different areas – walnut, cedar, ash, fir, pine, cypress. A grove of short coniferous cedar is planted here, which is the only one in Russia. Even without taking into account the bamboo plantations on the territory of this park with the area of nine hectares there are more than ten thousand representatives of flora. Here you can find species that have not taken root in any region of the Crimean peninsula: juniper “Kaizuka”, needleleaf, Lebanese oak, Mexican sycamore, Maksimovich lime and a number of other plants.
.’
For twenty-five years the park was not available to visitors, coming gradually to a state of ruin. Adjacent areas, including the rose garden, fell under the development of residential high-rise buildings. Thanks to the efforts of the Nikitsky Botanical Garden staff, the park itself managed to defend, but it remained in disrepair for a long time. Over the past three years, a tremendous amount of work has been done to restore it: cleaned the ponds, which launched ornamental fish and turtles, planted a grove of olives, created a new rose garden and repaired the paths. An old gazebo decorated with a Mexican slide was reconstructed. Next to it is an American agave, which has already survived three winters. In addition, another gazebo was built, occupying part of the observation deck, from where you can admire Cape Martyan and the stunning panorama of Yalta. The swimming pool in the center of the park has been completely restored, and now there are about a hundred lilies floating in it. You can cross the reservoirs on the restored bridges.
.
The grand opening of Montedor Park, held on November 8, 2017, was a real gift for visitors to the arboretum, made on the eve of its 205th anniversary.
.Practical information
How to get there
There are several options on how to get to Nikitsky Botanical Garden, so it all depends on your location. From Yalta from the stop “Pionerskaya” here is a shuttle bus number 29, and from the clothing market you can get here by trolleybus number 2 or shuttle bus number 34 (the starting points of departure are indicated). From Alushta or Simferopol, using a trolleybus or one of the buses, you should go to Nikitsky Botanical Garden, and then – by one of the shuttle buses (№ 29 or 34) or walk. From Sevastopol, you will first have to take a bus to Yalta bus station, from where shuttle buses No. 29, 34 or trolleybus No. 2 will take you to your destination.
.
