Location: Kurortny park Dendrary
Tel. 8622 975 117
Open: 8am- dusk, cable car 8am- 1pm and 2- 7pm daily
Entrance Fee: Adults R200, children R100, cable car: adults R250, children R125
Dendrarium or Arboretum is a beautiful park with a large collection of over 1800 species of tropical plants, trees and shrubs. An extensive botanical collection of Sochi Arboretum includes species from 106 families, 310 genera of plants. Among most noticeable are giant eucalyptus trees, palm trees, Japanese cherry tree, yuccas, giant agave and many others. Mild Mediterranean climate of Sochi allowed exotic plats to flourish in the park and around the city. Most of these plants were brought to Sochi by famous Russian scientists Sergey Nikolayevich Khudyakov. Many plants were planted along Sochi streets. You can take a cable car to the top of the mountain and walk down the stairs. Beautiful Sochi park is dispersed by beautiful architectural buildings, terraces, stairs, fountains and others. The territory of the park is divided into two parts, the Upper Park and Lower Park dissected by Kurortny Avenue.
In 1889, the publisher of Petersburg Newspaper, collector, playwright
S. N. Khudekov acquired 50 acres of land in Sochi on the slope of Bald
Mountain. There, in 1899, his villa Nadezhda was built, named after his
wife Nadezhda Alekseevna. A park has been laid out on 15 hectares, and a
plum and peach garden is nearby. Plants for the park were purchased in
the botanical gardens of the Crimea, Germany and the Caucasus (some of
them, for example, were brought from the nursery of Prince Oldenburgsky
in Gagra). A great connoisseur of exotic plants, S. N. Khudekov, planted
about 400 species of trees and shrubs in the park, and by 1892 he had
planned the park, together with his friend, gardener K. A. Langau. The
park was built according to the type of Franco-Italian terraced parks of
the late 19th century and was constantly replenished with new plants. By
1917, more than 550 species of them were already growing in it. The park
was decorated with sculptures and vases ordered in France and cast from
iron by the masters of the Franco-Italian company A. Duren and P.
Capellaro.
In 1922 the park was nationalized. In 1944, the
arboretum was transferred to the Sochi Research Forest Experimental
Station (later transformed into the Gorlesekol Research Institute). On
June 7, 1977, a cable car 897 meters long was launched from Kurortny
Prospekt to the highest point of the park. The architect of the
structure is G.S. Sechinashvili, the chief engineer of ropeway projects
at the Gruzgiproshakht Institute is V.M. Lezhava.
Based on the
order of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian
Federation No. 27 dated February 9, 2012, in order to optimize the
structure, composition and placement of federal budgetary units, the
Sochi Arboretum became part of the Sochi National Park as a structural
unit.
In 2012, a model of a tiled dolmen was opened in the Upper
Park.
Currently, the area of the park is 46.4 hectares. More than 1800
species, forms and varieties of trees and shrubs grow in it. It has a
large collection of pines - 74 species in the amount of 1890 specimens,
the largest collections of oaks in Russia - 66 species and palm trees -
54 species, cypresses, many rare subtropical plants.
The park
consists of two parts: upper and lower. An aquarium was built in the
lower part, in which the inhabitants of the Red Sea are represented,
there is also a pond.
Separate corners have been created in the
park, where collections of plants from the Caucasus, Japan, China,
Australia, the Mediterranean, North and South America grow compactly.
The park is an important experimental base for the institute.
Exotics, rare in silvicultural and decorative terms, were tested in it,
which now make up the collections of the botanical gardens of the
Carpathian region, Central Asia, Romania, the Czech Republic and many
other countries. More than 1000 seed samples of rare plants are sent
from the Arboretum annually to various institutions around the world.
From nurseries, exotics are also transferred for landscaping Sochi.
The Villa Nadezhda, renovated in 2014, has a permanent exhibition
dedicated to the life and work of Sergei Khudekov, as well as the
history of Russian ballet.