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Imperiia: a spatial history of the Russian Empire

The Tasting Board

Return to "Gardens of Crimea"

Pomology - the science of growing fruit - was all the rage in the nineteenth century.

Herbal dictionaries (like the one pictured at right, by the incomparable Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau), botanical collections, and pomological publications supported the work of horticulturalists across North American and Europe. Agricultural journals addressed the topic. Societies formed. Local knowledge flowed through an increasingly robust global network of correspondents.

In Russia, the apex of this activity arrived in the form of the Atlas of Fruits, edited by Adam Stanislavovich Grebnitskii on behalf of the Imperial Russian Society of Fruit Cultivators. The society was established in 1857; Grebnitskii, who would become a leading botanist and horticulturalist, was born the same year. In 1900 he published an edition of Andrei Bolotov's classic "Illustration and description of all sorts of apples" and this work led into the production of the Atlas.

The Atlas - think of it as a pomological encyclopedia - focuses on fruits grown for market (primarily apples and pears). It extends across 675 pages organized into four sections. It contains an index of fruits and an index of the individuals who contributed articles and commentaries.

This gallery contains the 32 entries associated explicitly with Crimea.

In some cases, Crimea is mentioned in the opening paragraph as a primary cultivation site. In other cases it is mentioned in the commentaries submitted by society members throughout the empire. Correspondents from Simferopol, Odessa, and Moscow (where the biggest fruit markets were located) tend to be the best sources of information regarding Crimean fruits.

The entries contain detailed descriptions of the features of each fruit (size, shape, flavor, details about skin, flesh, and pit) as well as information about the trees that bear them. The notes attached to each illustration in this project focus mainly on taste and market presence.

Best of all? Keep an eye out for whether a particular fruit is "table-worthy" (sweet and eye-catching) or... well... best suited for candy or jam production. The commercial canning industry was taking off, doing its best to keep up with the sweet-tooths in Moscow and St. Petersburg!

Wait, who invented pomology?

Option 1: Scroll through a timeline of fruit cultivation in Crimea

The Atlas contains notes on when varieties were identified or introduced. The dates are often approximate, and we have adapted them as well as possible to give a rough sense of when fruits were identified as market-worthy. Remember, Crimea was (and is) full of local varieties that were less suitable for large-scale production - they are not represented in the Atlas (or on the timeline).

Option 2: Page through a flip-book

Page through a collection of pear varieties or apple varieties.

Option 3: Sample from the full tasting board

Click on an image to learn more. Close the image to return to this page.

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Botanical lithograph of a variety that likely originated in the southern coast of the Black Sea (at Sinop) and thrived in Crimea. With the Saint Germaine pear the "alpha and omega" of Crimean orchardry. The Sary Sinop is considered a first-class market fruit, appealing for eating and cooking. Candied fruit factories use it exclusively. Yield is high, which explains why it plays a crucial role in the Crimean economy despite fetching 1 ruble 50 kopeks per pood (half the price of many reinette varieties). This is the calling-card apple of Karasubazar.
A tree identified in Belgium in the second half of the 18th century. In the right circumstances (warm and sheltered locations), this pear is delicious; but less than ideal conditions yield pears for cooking. Crimean gardeners complain that the Winter Master requires too much moisture and protection. The fruit fall easily in the wind - a problem in Crimea. The editor writes that whenever one sees gorgeous Winter Masters on the table you can be sure they are from France. Russian-grown Winter Masters are few in number. Yet a correspondent writes from St. Petersburg to point out that in general, Crimean pears increasingly compete with French pears and their progress is such that the latter "might soon be a memory."
The Saint Germaine (Сен Жермен) originated near Paris and enjoys renown throughout Europe. The Sary Sinap and Saint Germaine "are the alpha and omega of Crimean orchardry" and there isn't a garden in Crimean where the Saint Germaine does not grow. It fetches anywhere from 2 rubles 50 kopeks to 4 rubles per pood. Moscow fruit sellers reported that the highest quality fruit came from Alushta and Kuru Uzen, Karasubazar and Bahcesaray.
An English pear identified in 1800. At an 1894 international exposition there were 33 Golden Winter Pearmain entries, including from the western provinces, the Baltics, Crimea, Kherson, Yekaterinoslav, Poltava, Tersk and Kuban. The fruit ripens in October. This is a case of beauty over longevity though, thus the Golden Winter is best dried or made into cider. Atlas correspondents wrote in to add that the Golden Winter Pearmain stood up well to rain but could fall victim to moths and geese.
Atlas notes: In Russia the apple comes from the gardens of the sugar merchant and gardener Platon Fyodorovich Simirenko, who brought it in from Belgium. It has received increased attention among cultivators since 1887 and can be found in the provinces of Kiev, Poltava, Kharkov, Kherson, Podolsk, Chernigov, and in Crimea. Despite its many charms, explain the editors, it has not taken the market by storm because it is largely unknown and because there is another, well-established, green apple in Crimea.
The Reinette d'Orleans ripened in November (earlier in Crimea) and lasted several months after harvest. A first-class table apple - the most flavorful and aromatic of all renets - that fetched good prices. The Moscow markets relied on fruit from Bahcesaray, Karasubazar, and Simferopol, with the best fruit coming, as it so often did, from the Kacha River orchards. Kapustin describes it as "a dessert apple of highest quality that will never go out of fashion."
The Ardanpon (Hardenpott) was identified in 1750. In the late 19th century it was well-established in Crimea and the most profitable (and tasty) of all winter pears. In Crimea it was known as the Ferdinand, and was often sent to the Moscow markets from the Kacha valley and from Alushta and Kuru Uzen. (St. Petersburg markets sold French pears.) This chromolithograph is based on a pear sent for the purposes of the Atlas in 1896 from Alushta. It weighed 422 grams.