CRIME – From the very beginning of its existence the Gardens was meant to have a beneficial effect on accelerated development of an agricultural industry in the South of Russia on the basis of breeding, acclimatization, introduction and a widespread acceptance of southern fruit, flower, decorative plants, new plants used in industry, medicinal and other useful plants, on study and an active use of local plant resources.
For a quick enrichment of a domestic agricultural industry by new plants the founders of the Gardens strongly related with leading botanical institutions of Europe, Asia and America. This equated to gather the unique collections of species, cultivars and forms of different cultures.
The Nikitsky Botanical Gardens is a founder of such new branches of national economy as southern decorative horticulture, southern and tropical pomiculture, viniculture, essential oil planting and tobacco cultivation.
In the estimation of leading botany specialists the NBG is one of the most famous in the world botanical institutions and the largest collections of genome fund of the valuable plants for the time being.
The NBG is the one and only vault in Republic of Crimea, Russia of specific and varietal diversity of southern fruit cultivars, which includes more than 11,000 cultivars of peach, apricot, alycha, fig, pomegranate, olive, India jujube, sweet cherry, persimmon.
The unique collections of decorative woody and herbaceous plants, which contain more than 6,000 species, and the richest varietal and formal collections of more than 250 botanical species of essential oil, medicinal and aromatic plants have been collected there. More than 400 new plants’ species have been brought under cultivation, 800 cultivars have been developed and passed over national economy for the first time.
The Gardens got a world fame from its unique Arboretum (tree nursery), which is a landmark of Russian botanical science for many millions of domestic and foreign tourists, specialists and plant breeders. The collections of world flora woody plants are concentrated on the area of 40 hectares there. The Nikitsky Botanical Gardens Arboretum always was and still is the object of high priority preservation.
There are 1,150 awards in the safe of the Nikitsky Botanical Gardens, among them 70 ones were picked up on international exhibitions, including pre-revolutionary ones (376 medals of miscellaneous value, among them 63 foreign ones).
