Friendship tree

The Tree of Friendship is an unusual museum in the city of Sochi, which is a vivid example of friendship among the peoples of the world. To date, representatives of 167 countries have been vaccinated in the tree, and the number of vaccinations has exceeded 630.

The history of the Friendship tree began in 1934, when scientist F. M. Zorin planted a wild lemon seedling to obtain new varieties of citrus fruits so that they could survive the frosts. During the experiment, tangerines, oranges, grapefruits, kinkans, and lemons were grafted onto the tree. In total, there are more than 45 different types of citrus fruits. In 1940, the famous professor and researcher of the North, O. Y. Schmidt, visited the garden. He planted a tree in memory of himself. Years have passed and there has been a tradition of grafting a tree by representatives of various countries, religions and professions. In 1957, 3 doctors from Vietnam recommended naming this tree the Friendship Tree. So slowly the tree reached such a scale that it was necessary to make a garden-museum of the Friendship Tree for it.

There were so many people who wanted to inoculate the tree that citizens of those countries who were not yet represented on the garden tree had to be allowed to inoculate the current tree. The rest were allowed to plant neighboring trees. Today, there are 69 trees in this Friendship Garden, and they have over 3,000 vaccinations.

In addition to vaccinations, visitors also left gifts as keepsakes, as a result, over 7,000 pieces accumulated and something had to be done with them. In 1981, a museum was opened where gifts for the Friendship Tree are presented. Nowadays, the collection of gifts has exceeded 20,000 pieces, including photographs, souvenirs, coins, musical instruments, boxes with earth from different places. Visitors also leave mementos about themselves, which there are 69 volumes in the garden.