Delicate white-pink candles of chestnuts now adorn not only the Summer and Mikhailovsky Gardens, and the Maple Alley, but the whole city. The scientific name of horse chestnut is Aesculus hippocastanum L. The birthplace of this tree is the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula. Chestnuts came to Europe from Turkey. There is a legend that the seeds were brought by the Turks to Central Europe, as a cure for horse cough. Another version says that he was named horse because of the color of fruits resembling the bay color of horses.

Horse chestnut is a tree with an open crown and large leaves, under which a dense natural shadow is created. This quality of chestnut was widely used in Germany, where it was planted next to the pubs – it was easier for owners to crack ice to cool the drink, and visitors to enjoy the shady coolness provided by the chestnut crown.

In St. Petersburg, horse chestnuts appear during the time of Peter I. By order of the monarch, they are brought from Holland by ships. So, for example, in 1715, the gardener Jan Roosen planted 156 horse chestnuts. However, the next year only 60 trees took root. This does not mean that the gardener was inept, but that the planting material was not local, and it took him too long to St. Petersburg. After the establishment in 1716 of nurseries for the cultivation of planting material in the vicinity of the city, things in terms of landscaping of St. Petersburg began to develop better. When horse chestnuts were planted from local nurseries on the Klenovaya Alley in 1898, they survived the entire difficult XX century and to this day please Petersburgers and visitors alike.

Chestnuts are good in the fall, when their prickly fruits begin to fall. Admit it, who did not collect shiny horse chestnut seeds and did not put them in a vase on a sideboard?

This year, the flowering of horse chestnuts in the gardens of the Russian Museum can be admired only on the “remote”. But there will be next year and next spring, when you can enjoy a flowering chestnut. In the meantime, be healthy.

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