The A.V. Fomin Botanical Garden (sometimes translitterated as O.V. Fomin Botanical Garden) is one of the oldest botanical gardens in Ukraine, located in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

, the capital of

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

.http://www.botanic.kiev.ua/#eng/ , (Ukrainian) In 1839 the Saint Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev opened its own botanical garden. The botanical garden is 22.5 hectares (0.225 km²), with 8,000 plant species, including 143 recorded in the Ukraine's Red Book of Rare Species. The Garden is famous for its exotic plants: it has the biggest collection of

succulents In botany, succulent plants, also known as succulents, are plants with parts that are thickened, fleshy, and engorged, usually to retain water in arid climates or soil conditions. The word ''succulent'' comes from the Latin word ''sucus'', meani ...

among the countries of the former Soviet Union. The greenhouse, which was built for the largest and the oldest palm trees in Northern Eurasia, is among the highest in the world. In 1935 the garden was named after the

academician An academician is a full member of an artistic, literary, engineering, or scientific academy. In many countries, it is an honorific title used to denote a full member of an academy that has a strong influence on national scientific life. In syst ...

and botanist

Aleksandr Vasiljevich Fomin Aleksandr Vasiljevich Fomin was a Russian botanist that lived during the reign of the Soviet Union. He studied ferns and seed plants. He was also a director of the Kiev University Botanical Garden; which was renamed after him, when he died. Biogr ...

, who directed the garden for years. The vestibule of the

Kyiv Metro The Kyiv Metro ( uk, Ки́ївський метрополіте́н, Kyivskyi metropoliten, ) is a rapid transit system in Kyiv that is owned by the Kyiv City Council and operated by the city-owned company Kyivsky Metropoliten''.'' It was initi ...

station Universytet, is located on the northern edge of the garden, which was opened in 1960
Google Maps link
.

History

Architect V.I. Beretti who as well known by his project of Kyiv University, was the first who raised issue of botanical garden establishment in 1834. He proposed to place the garden on the waste territory near the university buildings. For this purpose, from Kremenets Lyceum (Kyiv) 513 plants were brought, that were temporarily placed in the Tsar (now City) garden. However, due to lack of funds the garden establishment was postponed for 5 years. Only in 1839 the Kyiv school district administration gave permission for a temporary Botanical Garden start under the direction of Head of the botany department of Kyiv University Ernst Trautvetter, who then managed the Botanical Garden in the position of director.
The official date of the Kyiv Botanical Garden establishment is 22 May 1839, when E. Trautfetter started the first plantings. In 1841 the garden received its permanent status. In 1850 design and layout of the garden were completed. By 1852 there were 25,416 trees and 419 species of shrubs, as well as more than 4,000 species of other plants in the garden. 1941 - 1943 - during the

Nazi occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 ...

, many precious plants from the collection were lost. Some plants were transported to Germany. In the spring of 1944 the garden was reopened to the public, the restoration of greenhouses and plant collections started. In 1960 the garden was declared an artifact of landscape art of the national importance.
In 1977 a greenhouse-

climatron The Climatron is a greenhouse enclosed in a geodesic dome that is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. Initiated by then Garden director Frits W. Went, the dome is the world's first completely air-conditioned greenhouse and the f ...

was built at the Garden, that was one of the largest in the world at that time.

Directors

* 1852 - 1879 - University professor Afanasiy Rogovich * 1879 - 1894 - a prominent botanist, the Botany professor Johannes Theodor Schmalhausen headed the Botanical Garden * 1894 - 1914 -

Sergei Navashin Sergei Gavrilovich Navashin (russian: Серге́й Гаврилович Навашин); (14 December 1857 – 10 December 1930) was a Russian and Soviet biologist. He discovered double fertilization in plants in 1898. Biography 1874 — ...

. He is associated with remarkable discoveries in the field of cyto-embryology of the plants, that made the Garden and the Kyiv University famous worldwide. * 1914 - 1935 - Alexander Fomin (1867 - 1935). Fomin and his colleagues shared the ordeals of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and the

Civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. However, they not only managed to preserve the fragile tropical plants in times of economic chaos, but also to build three new greenhouses, and repaired the tropical house. In 1922 Aleksander Fomin founded the botany department at Botanical Garden, that was reorganized in 1927 into Scientific-Research Botany Institute (now the Institute of Botany named after Kholodny, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine). When Fomin died in 1935, the Garden received his name.

Gallery

File:WLE - 2018 - Цвітіння магнолій у ботанічному саду ім. академіка О.В. Фоміна - 1.jpg, Magnolias in the garden File:Central botanical garden Kiev 2.jpg, Greenhouse File:Kyiv Botsad Fomina 06 (YDS 3334).JPG,

Interesting facts

* In 1874,

Kobzar A ''kobzar'' ( ua, кобзар, pl. kobzari ua, кобзарі) was an itinerant Ukrainian bard who sang to his own accompaniment, played on a multistringed bandura or kobza. Tradition Kobzars were often blind and became predominantly so b ...

Ostap Veresai Ostap Mykytovych Veresai ( uk, Остап Микитович Вересай) (1803–April 1890) was a renowned minstrel and kobzar from the Poltava Governorate (now Chernihiv oblast) of the Russian Empire (now Ukraine). He helped to popularize k ...

performed his songs for the participants of the Archaeological Congress held at the Botanical Garden * In 1908 - 1913 the Botanical Garden housed a zoo

References

External links

A.V. Fomin Botanical Garden
{{coord, 50.4441, 30.5057, type:landmark_source:enwiki-googlemaplink, display=title Tourist attractions in Kyiv Botanical gardens in Ukraine Institutions with the title of National in Ukraine