In the middle of the twentieth century, a researcher at the State Nikitsky Botanical Garden, Gennady Danilovich Yaroslavtsev, decided to conduct an extraordinary experiment – to check how the North American sequoia dendron would take root in the mountainous Crimea. To do this, he took planting material from the botanical garden and in 1964 planted it on the slope of Chatyr-Dag Mountain at an altitude of about 850 meters above sea level. The experiment was unique, because before that in the Soviet Union, no one had conducted such a thing.
Years later, we can safely say that the experiment was a success and the “mammoth tree” took root. By now, the trees have grown 20 meters high and 40 cm in diameter. Green giants have adapted to the Crimean climate and continue to live on, remaining unique in the mountain-forest part of the peninsula.
And in conclusion, an interesting fact: the first sequoias were brought to Crimea in 1840 from the Russian colony in American California and planted in front of the Massandra Palace. It is believed that all the other sequoias of the peninsula are the descendants of those two, which, by the way, are still alive.
How to get there?
The sequoia-dendron grove is located on the southern slope of the Chatyr-Dag mountain near the tourist camp “Kutuzov Lake”. If you start your journey from the Angarsk Pass, you need to climb to the power line, then turn south towards this camp. You can return by the same route to the Angarsk Pass or go further south through a couple of mountain lakes and get off in the Kutuzovka area, or even in Izobilnoye, but you can also climb Chatyr-Dag.
Coordinates: 44.738158, 34.334936
