All those visiting Kyiv for pleasure or business usually look for landmarks they know from books (like Khreshchatyk or Andriyivsky uzviz) or city symbols (its cathedrals or Dnipro slopes). They bring back home some souvenirs and the famed Kyiv cakes. Those visiting Kyiv these days add to this standard set the indescribable impression of chestnut trees in blossom. This is perhaps Kyiv’s most romantic, exotic, and, unfortunately, fleeting charm, which, incidentally, requires constant care. However, it seems that recently these magnificent and simultaneously tender trees have lost all love for Kyivans: they catch some bug and shed their leaves already in July. Kyivans have also lost their respect for the tree whose flower decorates Kyiv emblem: chestnuts, along with other trees, are mercilessly cut down. Paradoxically, we simply cannot duly appreciate the advantages of living in a city buried in verdure and chestnuts making Kyiv’s atmosphere truly special.
“Chestnut blossom for Kyiv is like sakura for Japan. It is one of manifestations of the eternal cycle of life, like a clock hand or sunrise. The popular song, “Chestnuts in Blossom Again,” is yet another confirmation of the florescence of life in this city,” says stage director Oleksiy Kuzhelny.
“I wish we had a Kyiv-wide ritual of watching chestnut blossom, which could become a constituent part of Kyivans’ nature. While Odesa is usually associated with humor, Kyiv is perhaps known in the world as not only the home city of Klychko brothers and Dynamo but also of blossoming chestnuts.
“Medical science has proved that all parts of chestnut trees, from blossoms to nuts, have a huge healing potential. Incidentally, all chestnut extracts have above all a purging effect. I believe the very sight of chestnuts in blossom has the same effect, since it represents the very essence of this tree. The fact that last summer chestnuts turned yellow by mid-July, especially in the downtown, is a sign of high levels of air pollution. It is as though chestnut trees were saying, ‘Hey, don’t you feel that the air you breathe is no good?’ In this case they act as our partners and advisers.
“The Kyiv in May Festival traditionally ends with mass observation of the Kyiv skyline. We don’t launch any fireworks, airplanes, etc. We simply want this to become a break in our rush, so that people could find time to see the beauty and fill themselves with the spirit of our city. Every year the festival draws people from many countries (seventeen this year). Introducing them to our city, we always show them the chestnuts. Believe me, these trees never fail to bewitch them, while we the locals often run past them without actually seeing their beauty. I think chestnut blossom brings us delightful moments, which we should notice and remember.”
They say that a huge chestnut tree near the ancient Kytayiv Monastery was planted by Petro Mohyla. It is easy to calculate that this old-timer is now over 350 years old. It was perhaps since then that chestnut trees began to symbolize Kyiv’s landscape. In general, chestnuts originate from the Balkans. In the nineteenth century these trees adorned mansions of wealthy Kyiv burghers, monastery and palace gardens. In the 1970s, a new Kyiv emblem appeared featuring a chestnut leaf and blossom. Many people mocked the new emblem, though everybody understood that preserving the old one, with Archangel Michael, was impossible at the time.
Chestnut trees have easily adjusted to their new homeland. However, in the last few years their behavior has become somewhat odd. For example, they break into blossom for a second time in late summer. Some experts explain this with the trees’ genetic code formed in the period when there were no such seasonal temperature drops. There are other changes that occurred of late in Kyiv’s chestnut trees. Several weeks after they turn green in spring, their leaves take on an unhealthy reddish shade, and in midsummer they begin to shed leaves. All this makes one anxious that soon we will be able to see chestnut leaves only on ubiquitous boxes with Kyiv cakes. Oleksandr Doroshenko, senior research fellow with the Mykola Hrechko National Botanical Gardens, sees the major problem in that city chestnuts do not receive enough nutrients through their roots systems, which affects the trees’ immunity to harmful bacteria and microorganisms. “They at least need soil rich in simple chemical fertilizers, while in the city we are unable to even water them,” explains Mr. Doroshenko. Another side of the problem is that the trees suffer from polluted environment. While average life span for city chestnuts is sixty years, they can hardly make it to forty. Besides, the most affected are chestnuts in the city center where they have reconstructions and sewer or communications repairs constantly going on. “They cut off roots without which we can hardly expect a thick crown, since there is a direct connection between these factors,” Mr. Doroshenko says. Chief dendrologist of the Kyivzelenbud [Kyiv Greenery and Construction] Company Petro Prykhodko adds to the list of reasons for chestnuts’ short life and chronic diseases ground salinization caused by the fact that in winter roads are sprinkled with salt [to melt the ice]. For example, ground samples in Khreshchatyk show an excessive content of salt. Most of chestnuts are surrounded with asphalt, which in summers creates an additional hothouse effect: the pavement becomes heated, melts, and damages roots. As for their life span, Mr. Prykhodko says all chestnuts older than sixty are rotten and dangerous for the passersby. In general, the dendrologist is certain that chestnut trees, as well as any other kind of greenery, are living organisms that eventually grow old and die. Thus it is no crime if sometimes we have to resort to mercy killing. Mr. Prykhodko stressed that no other European capital has as much verdure as Kyiv. In the West they prefer lawns and flowerbeds with a relatively small number of trees. In Kyiv, greenery accounts for 67% of the city’s area.
Architect Larysa Skoryk says that a major problem is that chestnuts are very sensitive and cannot grow in isolation from other plants. Thus it is a mistake to plant them near highways and on roadsides. “They could be protected from car exhaust by, say, poplars, which would mitigate the negative impact. These plants feel better in parks, but for some reasons they have been removed from Independence Square and other public gardens,” says Ms. Skoryk.
