Magnolia, palm, and cypress trees - all of these beautiful trees grow in Sochi. However, the main wealth is still collected in the resort city’s parks that are truly one-of-a-kind. They are unique, at least, because Sochi is the only place in Russia with a humid subtropical climate. Well, where else can you see oleanders, camellias, osmanthuses, glycines and tulip poplars? EcoTourism EXPERT’s correspondent in Sochi tells several stories about the most famous parks in Sochi, which, as they say, are must-visit places. Let’s start our journey!
My love, my Nadezhda (Hope)
Of course, the Arboretum is the most famous park in Sochi, and it’s the most romantic one. When the Caucasus was joined to Russia, the Russian emperor decided to create the Russian Riviera. But wealthy people were in no hurry to go to the region where they could fall ill with malaria. Then Alexander III offered the noble people to buy land plots in Sochi and build their summer villas (dachas). He also offered Sergey N. Khudekov, the publisher of the Petersburg Newspaper, to buy a land plot there. Sergey Khudekov had no desire to have a dacha in Sochi, but his wife Nadezhda joined the conversation “Sergey, do you remember that when we were young and poor you promised me as soon as you got rich, you would build a dacha and name it after me?”
Khudekov understood her hint. In 1889, he acquired a 50-acre land plot in Sochi. The Nadezhda (Hope in Russian) dacha was built on this place. The famous gardener expert Langau laid out their park. The seedlings were purchased from the Nikitsky Botanical Garden located near Yalta, as well as from the Prince Alexander of Oldenburg’s nursery garden in Gagra, and from the best gardens of Berlin, Dresden, and Leipzig. Soon, Khudekov left his Editor-in-Chief post in St. Petersburg and moved to Sochi.
The Arboretum Park was formed in an unusual way, combining the elements of an Italian terraced garden and an English landscape park. Large plant zones were created - the sections of Mediterranean, Chinese, Australian, and Caucasian plants, as well as the sections of Himalayan, Japanese, and Mexican plants. Nature itself could not carry out such a great ‘migration of plants’; the Arboretum Park became a monument to persistent human work. Later on, the botanists continued the work initiated by Sergey Khudekov. Even in the time of the war, they were in touch with the employees of the best nurseries in the world and received seeds from them.
Now, there are 1,700 plant species in the Arboretum Park. There is a unique collection of pine trees with 80 of the 120 species found in the world. In the lower part of the Park, you can see a unique ancient cypress, the Patriarch-tree; it is just 140 years old, but the circumference of its trunk exceeds six meters. More than 60 species of oaks, including cork-oaks, are represented in the Park, as well as over 20 species of cypress trees. There are a variety of palm trees, including the Washington palms, Canary dates, Erythea palms, remarkable syrup jubaeas, and even Сoquito palms, their trunks are 1-meter thick. Sequoias and eucalypti attain to a great height and are considered the highest trees in the world; they are in abundance in the Arboretum Park. There are areas of giant grass in the Park, 30-meter high bamboo canes.
Of course, the Arboretum Park is interesting not only for its botanical collection. It is a historical and cultural heritage site. In the Villa Nadezhda, survived from the late 19th century, there is a permanent exhibition today dedicated to the life of Sergey Khudekov and his work, as well as the history of the Russian ballet, since the Arboretum Park’s founder wrote a unique four-volume work, The History of Dance. The beauty of trees and plants is emphasized by gazebos, sculptures, and fountains. Small architectural forms are made using an unusual technique of hollow cast iron. They were made back in the 19th century by the French company founded by Antoine Durenne, and their plaster molds are still kept in the Orsay Museum (Musee d’ Orsay) in Paris. By the way, some of the cast iron flower vases were the copies of the Versailles ones. The Arboretum Park is open every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Chance
The Southern Cultures Park located on the federal territory Sirius Center can rightfully be called the most picturesque place in Sochi and the surrounding area. This is explained by magnolia Soulangeana trees that bloom every spring and look stunning. However, the Southern Cultures Park appeared more than a century ago, completely by accident, one can say.
Fans of social networks should thank Daniil V. Drachevsky, the founder of the Park, for the beautiful photos they can make. He was born into a noble family and received a military education. He took part in the Russian-Turkish War in an artillery brigade and was even awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th degree. He was also a full member of the Society for the Study of the Black Sea Coast of the Caucasus. In the late 19th century, Drachevsky’s wife Ekaterina and their daughters went to Sochi every summer for their vacations. During one of their visits, the family went to the Krasnaya Polyana area. Drachevsky’s wife told her husband to advise emperor Nicholas II of Russia to acquire a residence in the mountains. In 1898, a commission of senior government officials decided to rename the village and call it the city of Romanovsk, divide the land into plots, arrange gardens, dachas, health resorts, develop mineral water springs, use the mountains for imperial hunting, and build a tsar’s hunting lodge. Drachevsky supervised the construction of the tsar’s hunting lodge. After this project, his career improved and he was appointed the mayor of the city of Rostov and later on, he was appointed the Governor-General of St. Petersburg. He was a person who was against gambling. However, fighting the gamblers, Drachevsky became a gambler himself. Once he won 38 hectares of land near the Black Sea at cards, and rumor has it that he won the land plot from the Prince of Oldenburg. Drachevsky named his estate ‘Chance’ and ordered to lay out a park.
The General Drachevsky asked famous landscape architect Arnold E. Regel famous in St. Petersburg to develop a project to create a picturesque part of unprecedented size. Fir, cedar, pine, cypress trees appeared in the new park, as well as Japanese cedar trees, magnolias, rhododendrons, camphor trees and bay laurels, plane trees, and various types of bushes. Open green areas were planted with valuable rare single trees and bushes - Atlas cedars, Lawson’s cypress trees (Port-Orford-cedars), Italian cypresses, camellias, and other trees. Groups of bamboo canes, palm trees, and pampas grass created spectacular and exotic areas in the Park. Several alleys were planted with Himalayan cedars, firs, and tulip trees. The Park was decorated by beautiful ponds, and a system of ponds was created. In general, a lot of money was required to build this park. So, Drachevsky lived beyond his means. In 1914, he was accused of embezzling 150 thousand rubles allocated for the newspaper Vedomosti of the Petrograd City Administration. He was dismissed, expelled from the imperial retinue, and a criminal case was instituted. The investigation was not completed because the revolution started. And in 1918, Drachevsky died during the Red Terror. But the Park survived its owner, although there were some losses.
After the revolution, the estate was nationalized, and the Park’s land was given over to a state farm. Many unique plants were destroyed, and the Park turned into the country’s largest source of seeds of flowers, bushes, and other ornamental plants. The Park’s revival began in the 1930s, when the best collection of East Asian plants and trees in the country - azaleas, sakuras, maples - was created in the Park. Their seedlings were received as payment for the Manchurian part of the Chinese Eastern Railway ceded by Russia to the Chinese authorities. The amazingly beautiful trees and flowers were brought to the Park from China, Africa, the USA, the Oceanic islands and South America, including dove trees, Formosa sweet gum trees, Chinese tulip trees, magnolia delavayi trees, false indigo bushes, compressed michelia trees, and California laurel trees. The coniferous trees like sandarac trees, Podocarpus small trees, Formosan cypress trees, and Taiwan cryptomeria trees appeared in Russia for the first time. From the 1960s to 1970s, the Park turned into the largest green open-air laboratory in the USSR where a great number of woody plants were presented and tested. It was a real paradise of the Soviet subtropics with Araucarias, and giant Victoria regia water lilies capable of supporting the weight of a person, as well as bamboo thickets and banana trees. During ‘perestroika’, the Southern Cultures Park sank into decay like many parks and objects in the country. It took on a new lease of life during the huge construction campaign for the Olympic Games 2014. The heart of the Southern Cultures Park is still General Drachevsky’s estate and the Park’s alleys and ponds laid out by the famous landscape architect Regel. Every spring, all social networks are filled with photos of graceful magnolias Soulangeana and lush sakura from the Southern Cultures Park.
In the summer, the Park is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., in the winter season from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Roses by the sea
Another must-visit attraction in Sochi is the Riviera Park. Moreover, the entry to the Park is free of charge.
The history of the Riviera Park began more than a hundred years ago with a simple girdle. Ivan, the grandfather of Vasily Khludov, the creator of this park, was born into a peasants’ family in the village of Akatov. As a young boy, he learned weaving skills and when he got to a fair in the capital, he sold his first girdle for 100 rubles. This was a lot of money at that time, and soon, Ivan Khludov bought himself and his family the right not to pay quitrent. His children later founded a paper-making factory in the city of Yegoryevsk. Of course, the grandchildren of the enterprising peasant became rich and were educated. Vasily A. Khludov studied at the Peter-and-Paul’s School in Moscow, then he graduated from the natural sciences and medical faculties of the Moscow State University. For two years, he attended lectures on chemistry at the University of Heidelberg. He knew music, played the piano and the organ, and spoke three foreign languages.
In 1892, Vasily Khludov invested his part of the heritage in the purchase and development of a land plot near the city of Sochi, and created the Razdolnoe estate. He invested heavily in purchasing interesting rare plants from all over the world and collected unique botanical collections. On the areas very close to the sea, Vasily laid out a park, and in 1896, according to the design of the famous Moscow architect Lev N. Kekushev, he built a two-storied dacha in the Art Nouveau style with elements of ancient Russian tower architecture. The construction of the park next to the dacha was completed on July 1, 1898, and it was called the Khludovsky Park. Vasily hoped to receive a huge harvest from his 120 acres of vineyards and orchards planted with Crimean apple trees, pomegranates, and also oil trees to produce olive oil. But his endeavors were not successful as the wine from local grapes was not as delicious as the Crimean ones. So, the huge estate was sold off. In the coastal zone, Moscow businessman Anton Tarnopolsky built the first resort center in Russia called the Caucasian Riviera. And the Khludovsky Park turned into a city park and was called the Riviera Park. During the Civil War, many valuable trees were cut down to be used as firewood. The restoration of the Riviera Park began in 1920, and now nothing reminds us that the Park was once destroyed. Today, exotic plants are collected in the Park again, and the visitors have been enjoying the beautiful trees, plants and flowers for many years walking in the palm alleys, in a cool shade of centuries-old cedars and fir trees, smelling exotic magnolias planted by the first Soviet cosmonauts back in the 1960s. The Riviera Park also has one of the oldest plants on the planet, the sago palms, that even ‘saw’ dinosaurs. In spring, the aroma of ‘expensive perfume’ hovers over the Riviera - it’s osmanthus blooming. The silverbells, rare for Russia, also grow in the Park. In total, over 10 thousand plants were collected on an area of 14 hectares.
Every summer season, the Riviera Park is visited by more than 1.5 million people. The Park is a good place for both children and adults with a lot of amusements and attractions, exhibitions, sports grounds fitted with exercise equipment, a reading place where you can also recharge your phone, a summer theater with numerous concerts, and much more. The real pearl of the Park is its rose garden. Its old historical part is more than a hundred years old. Several years ago, the beautiful area was reconstructed and became one of the largest in Russia in terms of the number of flowers. More than six thousand roses of 33 varieties were planted there. They differ not only in appearance, but also in aroma. Those who want to enjoy the air heavy with the ‘rich perfume’ of various flowers should look for a sign with the inscription ‘Beautiful Mayland’. This variety has received several awards for its odour. Colette roses provide rich spice and woody scents. Michka, Florentina, Grand Hotel, and Dortmund roses have a light fruit or fruit-and-flower fragrance. Scientists say that the scent of roses is very good for health. Visitors can stroll through the new rose garden every day from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. when the Riviera Park is open. By the way, on Wednesdays, there are free-of-charge excursions around the Park, which people can sign up for on the Riviera Park’s social networks.
Interesting facts
Did you know that Sochi’s rich green ‘outfit’ appeared thanks to the Russian army? After the signing of the Treaty of Adrianople in 1829, the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus became part of Russia. To suppress smuggling, piracy and trading in slaves, the Black Sea coastline was created with fortresses built at the river mouths. Military forts were built that became the basis for the cities of Tuapse, Sochi, Adler, Gagra, Pitsunda, and Sukhumi. In 1837, Lieutenant General Nikolay Raevsky (Junior) was appointed the Division Chief Officer, and then the Head of the entire Black Sea coastline with its frontier defenses.
In addition to his military service, Nikolay Raevsky was an expert in agriculture, cultivated rare plants in the gardens of all his estates, and was a member of several agronomic societies. Mainly hornbeam, beech, and oak trees grew in the forests of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus at that time. But Nikolay Raevsky was sure that the climate of the Caucasus was excellent for Mediterranean plants. He gave the order to set up nursery gardens in all forts on the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus.
It all started in Sukhumi where Nikolay Raevsky paid attention to the well-kept area of the garrison doctor, former disgraced student Vladislav Bagrinovsky. Some garrison land plots were assigned to a small garden, Vladislav Bagrinovsky became the director of the garden, and soldiers were brought in to work in the garden. Plants for the garden were obtained from the Nikitsky Botanical Garden and the Leipzig Nursery Garden. A few years later, the Sukhumi Nursery Garden started supplying seedlings of cypresses, palm trees, oleanders and magnolias to all the garrisons of the Black Sea coast. In 1894, Sochi set up its own nursery garden to grow subtropical trees.
