A.V. Fomin Botanical Garden

Klimatron Conservatory in Alexander Fomin Botanical Gardens, Kiev.

The A.V. Fomin Botanical Garden is one of the oldest botanical gardens in Ukraine, located in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.^[1] In 1839 the Kiev Taras Shevchenko University 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. Garden is famous for its exotic plants: here is the biggest collection of drought-resistant plants – succulents among the countries of the former Soviet Union. Building of greenhouse, which was built for the largest and the oldest palm trees in Northern Eurasia, long time had been considered one of the highest in the world. In 1935, the garden was named after the academician A.V. Fomin, who directed the garden for years. The vestibule of the Kiev Metro 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 Kieb 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 (Kiev) 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 Kiev school district administration gave permission for a temporary Botanical Garden start under the direction of Head of the Botany department of Kiev University Ernst Trautvetter, who then managed the Botanical Garden in the position of Director.
The official date of the Kiev 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.

Directors

1852 - 1879 - University professor Afanasiy Rogovich
1879 - 1894 - a prominent botanist, the Botany professor Schmalhausen headed the Botanical Garden
1894 - 1914 - Sergey Navashin. He is associated with remarkable discoveries in the field of cyto-embriology of the plants, that made the Garden and the Kiev University famous worldwide.
1914 - 1935 - Alexander Fomin (1867 - 1935).