A Russian academician Christian Christianovich Steven is the founder and first director of the Nikita Botanic Gardens. The garden was created in 1812 near the village of Nikita – hence the name.
According to the idea of the founder of the Nikita Garden “Taurian official garden will have a threefold aim:

1) if possible, a complete collection of all plants without exception in this climate, and which might be in any kind useful for the household, or those to decorate the Garden – trees, shrubs and grasses, to learn all different types of external symptoms and the appearance;

2) extraction of seeds and, according to the importance, farming of larger or smaller schools of such plants, which may grow in other Russian territories;

3) cultivation of large plantations of such plants, which grow in a warm climate and thus bring valuable income, and encourage the residents of Tauris and other potential sites for such plantations.”

There are about 30,000 species, varieties and hybrids of plants in the collection of the Nikita Botanic Garden. On its amazing, beautiful, rich and interesting green decorated alleys walk more than 700,000 tourists from all corners of the world annually. The Nikita Garden provides extensive research with 550 institutions from 80 countries worldwide.

Nikita is a big village or a small town, which is situated not far from Yalta. There is a big research center of the Crimean peninsula in Nikita. In 1984 there was created a Research Complex, which is called to deal with the problems of geological environment of Crimea.

Its creation was timed to the XXVII International Geological Congress, since exactly in Crimea there were conducted its research trips. Home for the Center became a beautiful building, which attracts by its uniqueness.

One of the forest areas that make up the Yalta mountain-forest reserve is the Nikita’s mountain pasture. Many of the rivers belonging to the landscapes of Gurzuf originate on its slopes. Here is an amazing air bearing medicinal scents of pine forest.

To the left from the highway there was built a 16-storey building of sanatorium “Ai-Danil” In 1974. There is a national nature reserve “Cape Martyan” from the eastern side, which is directly adjacent to the park resort of the sanatorium.

Nikita’s cleft is situated on the opposite edge of the building of the environmental protection complex. Here nature in all its glory has demonstrated how a big power of the earth can affect the landscape. A gorge impresses by its coldness and gloom. It looks like a trace from a giant sword, which cut the rocks.

If you dare to take a walk here, you will see hanging over your head steep walls, which are of about 25-30 meters of height. You can see the forest growing along the upper edge of the gorge.

Landscape of a 20-meter kingdom, which is ruled by the gloomy rocks, also includes the rocks and chaos, deep cracks in the thickness of limestone, slipped on the hillside.

Here, even in the hottest day of summer, one can feel the breath of cold. The key is somewhat more straightforward than it might seem at first glance. The fact is that due to natural features of these rocks have become kind of battery and capacitor of moisture.

Nikita’s cleft has three exits. All of them are encumbered with the majestic cliffs of pyramidal shape. Here, in the picturesque romantic of cliffs derive their inspiration moviemakers and artists, and climbers test their strength on the steep walls of the gorge.

Upper Park of Nikita Botanical Gardens.

The Central Ensemble of the stall is created together with the administrative building of the Garden to its 125-year anniversary. The centre of the Garden is surrounded by pyramidal cypresses, the Lebanese, Himalayan and Atlas cedars, palms and other eye-catching exotic trees. The buildings are twined with roses, ivy, and wisteria. Not far away there are the buildings of scientific departments and laboratories of the park. In the center of a landscaped lawn there is a bust of the founder of Nikita’s garden C.C. Steven.

Along the carefully decorated walkway of the park there can be found planting plants brought in from all continents of the Earth: a high grove of bamboo, which home is China, next to it there is growing a stone oak – one of the evergreen species, coming from the Mediterranean. This oak is well acclimatized on the south coast of Crimea; it is widely used for landscaping streets of Yalta and other settlements. Here, in the Upper Park, there are huge fir trees, plane trees, and a giant Sequoia (Mammoth tree) from the North America. A garden was planted on the side of the natural forest. That is why very often there can be found some old trees of the local flora – pistachio, fluffy oak, strawberry tree and other trees that are older than the parklands.

Taxus baccata, for example, growing in this part of the garden, can reach the age of up to 500 years, recalling the old local forests. This beautiful conifer is now preserved only in the most remote forest tracts of the Crimean Mountains, where can be found even 1000-year-old specimen.
Upper Park has a beautiful rose garden, where can be found blooming during all the year roses, many of which are created by the breeders of the Garden: Klimentina, Red Poppy, Star’s sister (sort dedicated to Valentina Tereshkova) Bakhchisarai Fountain, and others. Walking down the the alleys of the garden not only the rich collection of plants draw attention, but also to the beautiful landscapes of the Yalta amphitheater, which is visible from the observation deck.

Нижний парк.
This is the oldest part of the Nikita garden, created in the first half of the XIX century. Here you can observe the largest specimens of oaks and cypresses, pines and sycamore. A special attention draws the olive grove, planted more than 170 years ago. This evergreen Mediterranean culture has taken root in the southern Crimea. Olive is drought resistant, low-maintenance and is of great practical interest. There are other heat-loving plants in the Garden: fig tree, medlar, and persimmon. The Montezuma pine is of huge interest here. It was named after the leader of the American Indians – the Aztecs. Particular attention is drawn to the old trees of strawberry (arbutus red), which is registered in the International Red Book. This is the only local representative of deciduous evergreen dendroflora in the European part of the CIS. Its emerald green leaves with purple crust are superb parklands. Strawberry is a long-living plant. There are known its 1000 years old specimens in the forests of the South Coast.

You can see other interesting species in the Lower Park: cork imported from Portugal, macranthon magnolias and banana tree from Japan, the bay tree from the Mediterranean, ginkgo bilobate – “living fossil” from China. There are beautiful flowering shrubs along the walkway: oleander, Bougainville, Judas-tree. Evergreen local shrubs are distinctive here: Crimean ladanik, Pontus butcher, the Crimean ivy. They give the slopes of the park an attractive, elegant look.
The slope is protected by surrounding ridges here in the best way, also the climate is milder here, and therefore there are presented the most heat-loving evergreen plant forms in this part of the Nikita garden.

Seaside Park

They give the slopes of the park an attractive, elegant look.
The slope is protected by surrounding ridges here in the best way, also the climate is milder here, and therefore there are presented the most heat-loving evergreen plant forms in this part of the Nikita garden.

A big variety of palm trees, as well as Cryptomeria, osmanthus, pistachio mastic and hanging Schinus draw attention of the tourists here. Seafront of the park is beautifully framed with Lenkoran acacia plantations and numerous brightly blooming subtropical shrubs.

Park Montedoro.

To the west of the seaside of the Park, closer to Yalta, the park is located on Cape Montedoro, where along with the local species like fluffy oak, tall juniper grows a number of relict exotic conifers: many species of trees here come from all over the world, like Metasequoia with tender, falling pine needles.

Metasequoia used to be considered an extinct species, but was found “in good form” by scientists in China only in 1941. Here you can admire the Pitsunda pine, and also natural plantings which have survived only in the Crimea on the southern coast on Cape Aya (on the west) and on Cape Ai-Fock, as well as in the New World – in the East. Old grove of mammoth trees, planting cypress Mexican, rubber tree and other exotics also surprise their visitors.

Park Montedoro is the youngest in the Nikita Garden. It was created a little bit more than half a century ago, and therefore it is less visited than the other parks of the Nikita Garden.