Lisavenko Mikhail Afanasyevich - Director of the Altai Experimental Horticulture Station of the Ministry Agriculture RSFSR, academician of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences named after V.I. Lenin (VASKhNIL).
Born on October 3, 1897 in the village of Bogotol, now a city in the Bogotol region of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the family of a forest worker.
After graduating from the gymnasium in Krasnoyarsk in 1917, he entered the Faculty of Law of Tomsk University and at the same time as a volunteer student at the Faculty of History and Philosophy.
In 1919 family circumstances(in 1918 his son was born) stopped his studies and went to the city of Achinsk (now the Krasnoyarsk Territory), where in 1919-1932 he worked as an instructor, head of the Achinsk department of the fur and raw materials office of Sibtorg of the Yenisei Provincial Union of Cooperatives, manager and technical director of an experimental demonstration rabbit breeding state farm. At the same time, he begins amateur plant breeding experiments on his own plot. In 1929-1931 he studied at the correspondence department of the Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K.A. Timiryazev. In 1932 he participated in the first All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers-Shock Workers in Moscow. Here he was offered to head the stronghold of the Michurinsky Research Institute of Horticulture in the city of Oirot-Tura (since 1948 - Gorno-Altaisk).
Since July 1933, he has been an experienced gardener, and since the fall of the same year, he has been the head of the NIIS stronghold in the city of Oirot-Tura. By 1943, the strong point was transformed into a fruit and berry station, and in 1950 it moved to the city of Barnaul and received the status of the Altai Experimental Horticulture Station, which by the mid-1960s, under his leadership, had several strong points, four nurseries and an arboretum. The planting area exceeded 600 hectares, and up to 2.5 million seedlings were grown per year. In 1959 he joined the CPSU (after the rehabilitation of his father, who was unreasonably repressed in 1938).
He headed research work on the selection and study of fruit and berry crops. Based on hybridization, he created new improved varieties with high yields, adapted to Siberian conditions. A total of 128 varieties were bred, including 4 apple varieties, 4 cherry varieties, 48 black currant varieties, 2 red currant varieties, 20 gooseberry varieties, 7 raspberry varieties, 1 strawberry variety. He was the initiator of the introduction of chokeberry and sea buckthorn into cultivation. Author of more than 300 published scientific works, including “Gardening”, “Siberian Garden”, “Fruit Growing of Siberia”. On his initiative, in 1950, the Department of Fruit and Vegetable Growing was created at the Altai Agricultural Institute, which he headed until 1952.
By Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated April 30, 1966, for the successes achieved in increasing the production and procurement of potatoes, vegetables, fruits and grapes, Lisavenko Mikhail Afanasyevich awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor with the Order of Lenin and the Hammer and Sickle gold medal.
Laureate of the Stalin (1946) and State USSR (1981, posthumous) prizes.
Academician of VASKhNIL (1956).
Doctor of Agricultural Sciences (1949). Professor (1951).
Delegate to the XXIII Congress of the CPSU (1966). He was repeatedly elected as a deputy of the Altai Regional and Barnaul City Councils. He was a member of the All-Union and Chairman of the Altai Regional Committee for the Defense of Peace (since 1952).
Awarded 2 Orders of Lenin (11.11.1957; 30.04.1966), Order of the Red Banner of Labor (10.09.1945), 2 Orders of the Badge of Honor (14.06.1947; 11.01.1957), medals, as well as 11 medals of the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition - VDNKh of the USSR , Gold medal named after I.V. Michurina.
A bust of the scientist was installed in front of the building of the Altai State Agrarian University in Barnaul. Name M.A. Lisavenko was assigned to the Altai Horticulture Experimental Station in 1967, and in 1973 to the Siberian Horticulture Research Institute, created on its basis.
03 October 1897 - 27 August 1967
Soviet scientist-horticulturist, breeder, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, academician of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Biography
Mikhail Lisavenko was born in 1897 into the family of a forest worker. After graduating from the gymnasium in Krasnoyarsk in 1917, he entered the Faculty of Law of Tomsk University and at the same time as a volunteer student at the Faculty of History and Philosophy.
In 1919, for family reasons, Lisavenko went to Achinsk. There he works in the local branch of the cooperative union and at the same time begins amateur experiments in plant breeding on his plot.
In 1932, Mikhail Lisavenko participated in the first All-Union Congress of Collective Farmers-Shock Workers in Moscow. Here he was offered to head the stronghold of the Michurin Research Institute in Oirot-Tur (Gorno-Altaisk).
By 1943, the stronghold was transformed into a fruit and berry station, and in 1950 it moved to Barnaul and received the status of the Altai Experimental Horticulture Station.
By 1967, under the leadership of Mikhail Lisavenko, the Altai Scientific Research Institute of Horticulture had several strongholds, four nurseries and an arboretum. The planting area exceeded 600 hectares, and up to 2.5 million seedlings were grown per year.
Mikhail Afanasyevich headed the research work on the selection and study of fruit and berry crops. Based on hybridization, he created new improved varieties with high yields, adapted to Siberian conditions. A total of 128 varieties were bred, including 4 varieties of apple, 4 of cherry, 48 of black currant, 2 of red currant, 20 of gooseberry, 7 of raspberry, 1 of strawberry. Lisavenko was the initiator of the introduction of chokeberry and sea buckthorn into cultivation.
The scientist was elected as a deputy of the Altai Regional and Barnaul Councils for 30 years; was a member of the All-Union and chairman of the regional peace committee.
Mikhail Lisavenko died in 1967.
Awards
- Hero of Socialist Labor (1966)
- Order of Lenin (1957, 1966)
- Order of the Red Banner of Labor (1945)
- Order of the Badge of Honor (1947, 1950)
- Stalin Prize (1946)
- USSR State Prize (1981 - posthumously)
Academician of VASKhNIL Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko is the founder of the only Scientific Research Institute for Horticulture in Siberia. In 1933, he organized the VNIIS stronghold in Gorny Altai, which was transformed in 1943 into the Altai fruit and berry experimental station, which he successfully headed for 34 years (from 1933 to 1967). In 1973, on the basis of the experimental station, it was created Research Institute of Horticulture of Siberia named after M. A. Lisavenko.
The father dreamed of bringing his son into the public eye and providing him with the opportunity to receive a legal education. In 1903, he acquired 20 acres of land (30 km from the city of Achinsk), dairy cattle, and hired two workers. He had a small small shop, which played a tragic role in his life and that of his entire family. Soon after the outbreak of the first imperialist war, he eliminated trade.
Mikhail Afanasyevich was born on October 3, 1897 in the village of Bogotol, Krasnoyarsk Territory. Russian, from peasants. His great-grandfather was from among the displaced serfs of the Voronezh province. Father Afanasy Mikhailovich (born in 1870) taught himself to read and write. After serving in the army, he worked as a timber harvester at the Bogotolsky forestry, as a freight forwarder at a distillery, and as a foreman logging for the construction of the Achinsk-Minusinsk railway. Mother Anastasia Alekseevna (born in 1871) from a poor family, a housewife.
After the October Revolution, the family moved to Achinsk. In the early 20s, Afanasy Mikhailovich was arrested and briefly deprived of voting rights; in 1938 he was again repressed as a former merchant. In 1958 he was posthumously rehabilitated for lack of evidence of a crime.
Mikhail Afanasyevich graduated from the 3rd grade of the Bogotol rural school in 1908, and from the Krasnoyarsk gymnasium in 1917. In 1917, he entered Tomsk University at the Faculty of Law and at the same time as a volunteer student at the Faculty of History and Philology, seeking to receive broad general education training, but due to family circumstances (in 1918 his son was born) he was forced to stop studying in 1919. In 1919-1932 worked in Achinsk as an instructor, head. Achinsk branch of the fur and raw materials office of Sibtorg of the Yenisei Provincial Union of Cooperatives, manager and technical director of an experimental rabbit breeding state farm, and in his free time he was engaged in gardening.
From early childhood, together with his mother, a passionate gardener, he sowed, planted, and grew various plants. In the spring of 1920, he planted his first garden on his personal plot. He received seedlings from V.M. Krutovsky and A.I. Olonichenko. They helped him with advice. Since 1926, for 10 years he corresponded with N.N. Tikhonov, a student and employee of I.V. Michurin, received seeds and seedlings from him.
The chairman of the Achinsk regional executive committee, Averianov, became interested in the experimental work of Mikhail Afanasyevich. At his suggestion, the City Council in 1926 gave M. A. Lisavenko 0.5 hectares of land; in 1930, the land area of the experimental plot was already more than 1 hectare. At this site, he conducted research on the variety study of fruit and berry crops, and began breeding work on berry plants. Feeling lacking special knowledge in horticulture, in 1929-1931. studied at the correspondence department of the Moscow Agricultural Academy named after K. A. Timiryazev.
Working on a personal plot no longer satisfied him. He dreamed of the massive development of gardening in the collective farms that were being created at that time. He was inspired by the article “Fruit growing is the order of the day” in the Izvestia newspaper. I realized that the government is paying attention to the development of gardening, and he is doing the right thing. Together with the correspondent of the Izvestia newspaper E. Registan, he holds a meeting of agricultural activists in Achinsk and makes a report on the possibilities for the development of horticulture in Siberia, after which two collective farms laid out gardens. Mikhail Afanasyevich's garden is visited by townspeople and people from villages. This was the best form of propaganda for Siberian gardening. In 1930, the first article by M. A. Lisavenko, “On the problems of Siberian gardening,” was published in the magazine “Garden and Vegetable Garden.” He wrote and spoke everywhere, trying to awaken interest in Siberian gardening.
Over 13 years of experimental work in Achinsk, Mikhail Afanasyevich gained experience as a researcher, organizer, and propagandist, and became an active correspondent for the Peasant Newspaper, the Garden and Vegetable Garden magazine, and newspapers of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
A radical turning point in the life of M. A. Lisavenko occurred in December 1932 after his speech on the prospects of Siberian gardening at the All-Union Meeting of Collective Farm Experiencers in Moscow, which was held on the initiative of the editors of the Peasant Newspaper. The emotional speech of Mikhail Afanasyevich, his conviction in the need to develop gardening in Siberia, produced great impression on the meeting participants. The editor of the Peasant Newspaper suggested that he go to Oirotia (Altai Republic) to work on gardening. He agreed without hesitation, and immediately from Moscow went to Michurinsk to the Research Institute of Fruit Growing, and in February 1933 to the city of Oirot-Tura (Gorno-Altaisk) with a letter from the editor of the Peasant Newspaper to the secretary of the Oirot Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks with a request to support M. A. Lisavenko. Having received consent to organize a stronghold of the Research Institute of Fruit Growing (VNIIS) in the city of Oirot-Tura (Gorno-Altaisk), in the summer of 1933 he came to Altai and actively became involved in the work. In July 1933 he was enrolled as an experimental gardener at the Oirot region, and in the fall he was appointed head of the stronghold. Having received 4 thousand rubles. from the regional budget, bought a horse and went on an expedition to the Altai Mountains to collect source material for the selection of berry crops. He achieved the allocation of 4 hectares of land to the stronghold in the Tatanakovsky Log and in the fall of 1933 he purchased 1000 apple tree seedlings, several thousand apple tree rootstocks and raspberry seedlings in the city of Biysk from the Flora artel. I also purchased seedlings for landscaping the city.
In October 1933, together with M. O. Pantyukhov, who headed the visiting editorial office of the Peasant Newspaper, and the secretary of the district party committee Tulin in the regional center of the village. Topki (Kuzbass) organized the initiative of Topkinsky collective farmers to plant gardens on collective farms and on personal plots. Secretary of the West Siberian Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) R.I. Eikhe approved this initiative and pointed out the need to pay serious attention to the development of Siberian fruit growing. Since 1933, gardens have been established on collective farms throughout the West Siberian Territory, and the area under gardens has increased from 300 hectares in 1933 to 5,000 hectares in 1936.
At the end of December 1933, the first meeting of Mikhail Afanasyevich with I.V. Michurin took place. Ivan Vladimirovich warmly received him, asked him about his work, about the plant resources of Altai, and approved of his active work. On January 2, 1934, their second meeting took place. When parting, I.V. Michurin gave Mikhail Afanasyevich his portrait with a dedicatory inscription and presented the preface to his first book, “Fruits and Berries to the North.” Saying goodbye, Ivan Vladimirovich admonished M.A. Lisavenko: “Go ahead! Know how to stand up for your cause. If things get tough, contact Yakovlev, People’s Commissar for Agriculture, on my behalf.”
In the spring of 1934, apple and currant trees were planted for the first time in Tatanakovsky Log. In the summer, the All-Union Pioneer Expedition to Altai took place. Together with the guys, M.A. Lisavenko collected many valuable plants and seeds. In September 1934 in Michurinsk, at a conference of Michurinsk experimentalists, he reported on his work for the first year.
In 1933, with the arrival of I.A. Kukharsky, the first specialist with a higher agronomic education, scientific research at the stronghold expanded and deepened. Unfortunately, in 1938 Innokenty Arsentievich was arrested and executed. In 1958 he was posthumously rehabilitated.
M.A. Lisavenko (far left) came to see off S.I. Isaev (right) who was leaving the fruit and berry experimental station (Barnaul) for Moscow. In the center is I. S. Isaeva and daughter I. P. Kalinina. 1966
In 1935, head. the selection sector of the Research Institute of Fruit Growing, S.I. Isaev, having visited the stronghold, approved the work of Mikhail Afanasyevich, and the director of the institute, Odintsov, set his activities for the rapid deployment as an example scientific research and connection with the masses. In 1936, the stronghold already had 150 hectares of land, 25 hectares of new plantings (hundreds of thousands of seedlings and 800 varieties of fruit and berry crops). Together with I.A. Kukharsky, we carried out a large-scale hybridization of apple trees and berry crops, organized the cultivation of seedlings, and 42 thousand apple trees were budded. A team from the Research Institute of Fruit Growing, headed by Z. A. Metlitsky, having examined the work of the stronghold, came to the conclusion that the activities of the stronghold were of republican significance.
The stronghold is visited by party and Soviet leaders of the West Siberian Territory and the Oirot Autonomous Region, numerous excursions by townspeople, schoolchildren, and collective farmers, approving its work. In November 1936, at the regional horticulture exhibition in Novosibirsk, the stronghold was awarded the Kraizo Certificate of Honor and nominated as a candidate for the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition in 1937.
At the end of December 1936, an interregional meeting on northern gardening was held in Novosibirsk with the participation of People's Commissar of Agriculture Lisitsin and the country's leading scientists. This instilled confidence in the need to develop horticulture in Siberia and the prospects of the business to which M. A. Lisavenko devoted his life.
Mikhail Afanasyevich well understood the need to create winter-hardy varieties of fruit and berry crops - the basis for the development of Siberian gardening. He begins the formation of the assortment for the Altai Territory with the introduction, variety study and selection of fruit and berry crops. Involves winter-hardy native Siberian and Far Eastern species into selection, conducts interspecific and geographically distant hybridization.
Since 1938, under the leadership of M.A. Lisavenko, a team of scientific employees of the stronghold has been formed. Since 1938, N. N. Tikhonov, N. I. Kravtseva, M. A. Sizemova, Z. I. Luchnik, V. A. Sirotkina, A. N. Kameneva, A. S. Tolmacheva, in 1942 - N. M. Pavlova, and with the organization of the experimental station - L. Yu. Zhebrovskaya, Z. S. Zotova, A. M. Skibinskaya, I. V. Vereshchagina, P. N. Davydov, F. T. Shein, V. I. Kharlamov, A. K. Schastlivy, Ya. G. Temberg, V. S. Putov This was a team of enthusiasts, faithful associates of Mikhail Afanasyevich.
During the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945 the team of the strong point, like the whole country, worked under the motto: “everything for the front, everything for victory.” Considering the lack of food, under the leadership of M. A. Lisavenko, a variety study of early ripening varieties of corn and potatoes was carried out, and mass propagation was organized the best varieties to provide seed material for collective farms and the population. Technologies for growing Altai onions are being developed, medicinal plants. A large number of fruits, berries, and vegetables are grown for the population and hospitals.
M.A. Lisavenko speaks at an off-site meeting
VASKhNIL section on horticulture of Altai. G. Barnaul.
From left to right, Professor B.A. Kolesnikov and S.I. Isaev
In 1943, when the war was still raging, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, taking into account the active activity of the stronghold, transformed it into the Altai fruit and berry experimental station. Since that time, the area of activity of the experimental station has expanded, strongholds have been created in the middle mountains of Altai (in Chemal), in the steppe zone (in the Shipunovsky district), in the forest-steppe zone (in Barnaul), nurseries in the village. Souzga, in Novoaltaysk.
In 1950, the experimental station was relocated to Barnaul, and a stronghold and experimental base were retained in Gorno-Altaisk (now the Gorno-Altaiskoe industrial enterprise and the mountain horticulture department of the NIISS). The team of researchers is being replenished. Research topics are expanding. Selection work is carried out on a large scale. Under the leadership of Mikhail Afanasyevich, his students and followers at NIISS, more than 350 varieties of apple, pear, plum, cherry, currant, gooseberry, raspberry, strawberry, viburnum, honeysuckle, and sea buckthorn were created. M. A. Lisavenko is one of the authors of 128 varieties of 7 fruit and berry crops.
The great merit of Mikhail Afanasyevich is the theoretical justification and implementation in practice promising direction in the selection of fruit and berry crops in Siberia. Involvement in the selection of winter-hardy descendants of the Siberian and plum-leaved apple trees, Ussuri pear, Ussuri plum, steppe cherry, wild forms of the Siberian subspecies of black currant, Kamchatka, Altai and Turchaninov honeysuckle, Siberian ecotypes of sea buckthorn, descendants of the grouse currant, ensured the creation of winter-hardy varieties with high adaptation in harsh conditions of the Siberian climate. He treated the work of his predecessors with care, organized the identification, study and introduction into production of varieties of folk selection.
The introduction into the culture of sea buckthorn, honeysuckle, viburnum, chokeberry (chokeberry), carried out under the leadership of M. A. Lisavenko, enriched the species composition of gardens with multivitamin crops not only in Siberia, but also in many regions of Russia and countries Western Europe, Mongolia, China, Canada and other countries.
Scientists at the experimental station are developing and improving technologies for propagation and cultivation of fruit and berry crops, and protection systems garden plants from diseases and pests. Research is being conducted on ornamental gardening, and unique arboretums are being established in Gorno-Altaisk and Barnaul. The station maintains wide communication with collective and state farm gardeners, with amateur gardeners in Siberia and many regions of the USSR. Thousands of letters come to the station with requests to send seedlings and seeds, and station employees send thousands of parcels with seedlings to the population and scientific institutions.
OPH stations are becoming farms with a high culture of agriculture. The station is visited by numerous excursions. Mikhail Afanasyevich and his research staff warmly welcome schoolchildren and ministers, foreign guests and regional leaders, collective farmers and amateur gardeners, considering this the best propaganda for gardening and scientific developments stations.
In August 1966, in Barnaul, under the leadership of Academician M.A. Lisavenko, a scientific and methodological meeting on horticulture in Siberia and the northern regions of Kazakhstan was held with the participation of leading scientists of the USSR. Mikhail Afanasyevich’s report “The next tasks of research work in Siberian horticulture” has not yet lost its significance and remains programmatic for improving scientific research and the development of horticulture in modern conditions.
In 1967, the experimental station was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. The station staff was preparing for the 70th birthday of Mikhail Afanasyevich, but unexpectedly on the morning of August 27, 1967, he died. The station staff, science and Siberian gardening suffered a severe, irreparable loss.
At the request of the leadership of the Altai Territory, the name of Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko was given to the Altai Experimental Station in 1967, and in 1973 to the Scientific Research Institute of Horticulture of Siberia, organized on its basis.
Mikhail Afanasyevich devoted 47 years of his life to the development of Siberian gardening. He was the organizer and for 34 years an excellent leader of the stronghold and experimental station, laying the foundations for the creation of the Siberian Horticulture Research Institute. On his initiative, in 1950, the Department of Fruit and Vegetable Growing was organized at the Altai Agricultural Institute, and he headed it for 2 years. Since 1951, he directed postgraduate studies in fruit growing, trained 9 candidates of science, three of them later became doctors of science.
M. A. Lisavenko was awarded the highest academic degrees and academic titles. In 1943, he defended his candidate’s thesis “Breeding of berry crops in Altai”; in 1949, the Higher Attestation Commission awarded him the academic degree of Doctor of Agricultural Sciences without defending a dissertation; in 1951, he received the academic title of professor. In 1956 he was elected academician of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Mikhail Afanasyevich was a passionate promoter of Siberian gardening and a talented publicist. He published more than 300 works, including 3 monographs: “On the Michurin Path” (1950), “Issues of Siberian Gardening” (1958), “Michurin’s Teaching in Action” (1958). Monographs by prominent scientists on horticulture were published under his editorship: V.V. Pashkevich “Selected Works on Fruit Growing” (1959), N.F. Kashchenko “Siberian Gardening” (1963), V.V. Spirin “Northern Gardening "(1965). Mikhail Afanasyevich highly valued the activities of the pioneers of Siberian gardening, studied and generalized their experience. Dreamed of publishing Pomology Siberian varieties. This was accomplished by his students and followers in 2005.
Along with his main activities, M. A. Lisavenko performed a lot of public work. Since 1934, he was a member of the Oirot regional executive committee, and for 30 years a deputy of local Councils of People's Deputies. Since 1952, he headed the Altai Regional Peace Committee for 16 years, was a member of the Soviet Peace Committee, a member of the board of the regional knowledge society, and a member of the regional trade union committee. In 1959 he joined the CPSU (after his father’s rehabilitation in 1958), and was a delegate to the 23rd Congress of the CPSU. In VASKHNIL since 1951 he was a member of the section of horticulture and viticulture, then its chairman. Organized on-site meetings of the horticulture section in Crimea, Latvia, and Altai.
The active scientific, organizational and social activities of M. A. Lisavenko are highly appreciated by the government, the Presidium of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and the public. For his services to the development of horticulture in Siberia, he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (1966), laureate of the USSR State Prize (1946, 1981), awarded five orders (1945-1966) and two government medals, eleven medals from the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements , Gold medal named after I.V. Michurin.
Mikhail Afanasyevich was fond of art, fiction and poetry. Visited the Altai artist Charos Gurkin (six paintings given to him by the artist, donated to the Altai Museum of Local Lore in 1958). For many years he corresponded with writers Afanasy Koptelov, Leonid Leonov, Marietta Shaginyan, Sergei Zalygin. I talked with Nikolai Dvortsov and Mark Yudalevich. Constantly collaborated with journalists.
He was an excellent leader, a subtle psychologist, personal example educated his associates. He gave employees the opportunity to realize their abilities, was kind and demanding, and very tactful. He was easy to communicate with, knew the family problems of his employees, and showed concern for their health. I attended all the holidays with the team. He received guests at home and loved to give gifts. He was equally attentive to veterans and youth. He was highly respected in the team, in the region, in the country.
In his autobiography in 1936, Mikhail Afanasyevich wrote: “Involuntarily, when I started talking about myself, I moved on to the work of the Altai stronghold. This is because my life and work are closely connected with his life and growth, which is also my growth as an experienced Michurin. Gardening is a kind of creative calling for me.”
Without the attention and support of the government, the Ministry of Agriculture, party and Soviet bodies of Achinsk, the West Siberian and Altai Territories, and the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, it is unlikely that M. A. Lisavenko would have been able to work successfully, create a world-famous scientific institution in horticulture, and educate his like-minded people and successors.
The memory of Mikhail Afanasyevich is worthily immortalized - in Barnaul, monuments to him were erected near the buildings of the Altai State Agrarian University and the Siberian Horticulture Research Institute. NIISS is named after him. However, the best monuments to him are industrial and consumer gardens, hundreds of thousands of gardens of Siberian residents. The Scientific Research Institute of Horticulture of Siberia and its activities for the development of horticulture in Siberia are also a monument to him.
Ida Pavlovna Kalinina,
academician
HIS NAME IS FOREVER CONNECTED WITH THE GARDENS
Nadezhda Ivanovna Kravtseva
First meeting
Lisavenko...
I first heard this name at the Omsk Agricultural Institute named after S. M. Kirov at the end of winter 1937.
Students of the Faculty of Agronomy were assigned to places of future practice. The head of the department of fruit growing, Alexander Dmitrievich Kizyurin, said that 8-10 people are needed in the city of Oirot-Tura at the fruit and berry base of the Institute named after Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin. There were many people willing to go. We were attracted to Altai, of course, not only by the exotic. Kizyurin said that the head of the point is Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko. He organized this point, he keeps in touch with Michurin himself, he is an experienced gardener, you can get good practice from him.
...The capital of the Oirot Autonomous Region greeted us on a cloudy rainy day. The bus walked past the white stone modern buildings of the veterinary school and school.
We unloaded near the hotel, but it turned out to be unfinished. And no one knew exactly where the “point” of our practice was located, and we decided to send the guys on reconnaissance. Those who remained were cold, despondent and already complained that exoticism was still very far away.
The mood lifted when our scouts returned. They arrived on a nimble horse harnessed to a modest walker. An old coachman in a stiff canvas raincoat sat bravely on the box, despite the rain. Water flowed from the hood onto his wide beard and chest, but his narrowed eyes smiled slyly.
“Come on, girls, drag your dowry, I’ll take you to the Vatera!”
Half an hour later we warmed up with hot tea in the dormitory of the Soviet Party school, where two bright rooms were allocated for trainees. In the morning next day, rested, we went to work. Along the boardwalks, past the white stone building of the regional museum, we reached the outlying houses. Then the road made a sharp turn and went up. To the left stretched the mountainside; to the right, under the slope, a stream with muddy spring water ran. There was still snow all around. It was already dirty, swollen from melt water and from the rain that had not stopped pouring since yesterday. The mud crunched under our feet, and we could hardly pull our feet out of this mess, thick and grainy, like buckwheat porridge. Finally, on a hillock a small wooden house, and our yesterday’s scouts proclaimed in the tone of experienced guides:
Here's the office!
Here we first met Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko. He was somehow very intelligent, as if he had come out of a Chekhov story, short, squat, plump, with a bald head. Probably this bald head and pince-nez made him look a little older. A face with soft rounded features, gray slightly squinted eyes and a kind smile involuntarily endeared her to herself.
He greeted us warmly and asked how we got there and whether it was cold in the apartment. He said that as soon as the house on the farm’s territory was completed, we would move into it.
Mikhail Afanasyevich introduced us to his deputy, the immediate head of our practice, Innokenty Arsenyevich Kukharsky. He was over thirty. He was very slouched and thin. Kukharsky and his wife graduated from “our” Omsk Agricultural Institute.
So we joined the small team of the stronghold. I got raspberries - I dreamed of them back in college. Friends, Katya Lebedeva and Mura Sizemova, took strawberries and currants under their wing. Systematic observations and caring for berry gardens is not easy work, but interesting, and we were not afraid of labor.
Mikhail Afanasyevich kept his promise - we were soon moved to cozy house on the bank of a stream. Valya Galkina called him a “buzzer.” His incessant babbling at first prevented me from sleeping, but then lulled me to sleep like a lullaby.
In the morning we dispersed into teams, learned to trim trees and bushes, and at the same time cut our fingers.
Mikhail Afanasyevich often visited the sites and was interested in how we work, live, and eat. They bought us a large copper samovar and a huge frying pan. We prepared breakfasts and dinners ourselves, lunches were prepared by the foreman’s wife.
In late spring, when the bird cherry tree was blooming, Mikhail Afanasyevich caught a cold and lay in the attic of his house on the mountain, from where all the plots and the road to the city were visible. We broke an armful of bird cherry and timidly went to the patient. He was lying on the pillows. He accepted our bouquet, but, dipping his face into the foam of fragrant flowers and enjoying the aroma, he said reproachfully:
Oh, you young people, you have ruined such beauty...
He smiled, but we remembered forever: Mikhail Afanasyevich did not like cut flowers or flowering branches.
He dressed simply. When it's warm, wear a shirt with a belt and simple trousers. When it was cold, he wore a quilted padded jacket; our workers called them “kufaikas.” On the head there is usually an inexpensive cap or cap, and on the feet there are simple boots. He walked leisurely, swaying slightly and clasping his hands behind his back.
I don’t remember that he was fussing, nervous, or in a hurry at that time, as happens with some leaders. But the farm was quite large.
Over five months of practice, we learned how to hybridize, sow seeds, plant trees and shrubs, and keep track of the harvest of fruits and berries.
A great joy for us was the week-long trip to the mountains organized by Mikhail Afanasyevich and our new employee Nikolai Nikolaevich Tikhonov. I will remember for a long time the overnight stays around the fire, crossing mountain streams on small horses, and harvesting wild plants. Along the way, we collected cedar cones and beautiful stones.
The day of departure has arrived. Coachman Akentyich loaded our suitcases.
As on that first day in Altai, we were again showered with rain, but this time in autumn.
But the rain is fortunate,” said Mikhail Afanasyevich. - It’s a sure sign that you’ll be back here soon.
And we really are back...
Nakhodki
Upon arrival in Oirot-Tura, Lisavenko spent a lot of time getting acquainted with personal plots townspeople and various subsidiary farms of enterprises. The few employees of the point in those years were also involved in the search. Correspondence with gardeners and young people, personal conversations with visitors, appeals through the press, and expeditionary research also helped in this matter. Everyone was mobilized to search for interesting local varieties and forms of plants. Thanks to this, gooseberry samples appeared from the village of Shulgin Log, from Biysk, from Bobrikov’s kindergarten in Oirot-Tur. Bobrikovsky gooseberries interested Mikhail Afanasyevich more than others. According to the morphological description, it was similar to the variety of foreign selection Industriya, but upon careful examination, many differences were found in it. It was called the Altai Industry. The red, slightly oval berries, covered with long hairs, had a dense skin and juicy, aromatic pulp.
On the advice of Mikhail Afanasyevich, the Altai Industry variety was used in 1941 for crossing with many species and varieties that were distant from it in origin. Subsequently, the varieties Rozoviy, Kompaktny, and Mayak were isolated from the hybrid seedlings. The pink one has been zoned for the Altai Territory, the rest are in production testing.
Strawberries with sweet and sour ribbed berries and dark bluish-green leaves migrated from a local amateur garden to a collection plot. The find was named Aborigene Altai. The Altai Aborigine, included in the assortment, fed the inhabitants of Altai with its sweet and sour berries until it was replaced by new varieties of Moscow selection - Krasavitsa Zagorya, Pionerka and others.
Lisavenko found Vislukha raspberries on the Altai Flora collective farm, where A.D. Tyazhelnikov, one of the oldest scientific horticulturists in Siberia, was then working as an agronomist.
The Vistula was placed in queen cells and multiplied first by tens and then by hundreds of thousands. This variety was later included in the zoned assortments of almost all regions of Siberia and the Urals.
Just like Vislukha, it was discovered on subsidiary plot Biysk textile factory raspberries, similar in appearance to the foreign variety Krimson Mammut. But after many years of study, it turned out that Tekstilnaya is a seedling of a foreign variety or its improved form. Textile has stronger and higher shoots, higher yields and winter hardiness.
Mikhail Afanasyevich always recommended using the best varieties for breeding. Thus, from crossing the varieties Commerce and Textile, which were distant in origin, station researcher Fyodor Tarasovich Shein obtained a variety that was named Otbornaya Sheina. And what about the Oirot-Tura currant No. 1, or the Altai giant? Many gardeners have also heard about it. After all, this local form wild Siberian currant. In 1934, Mikhail Afanasyevich cut cuttings near the village of Kyzyl-Ozek. From these cuttings, seedlings were grown and the 5 best bushes were selected. I. A. Kukharsky and M. P. Pushkin propagated the bushes. When the harvest was first counted, they delighted us with large, cherry-like, tender berries. True, the plants turned out to be insufficiently productive. But the Altai giant later gave life to many varieties. With his participation, the Altai Dessert, Koksa, Excellent and a number of others were obtained.
Difficult years
On that memorable Sunday, many of us were on a country walk near the village of Aya - swimming in the lake, boating, sunbathing. It was joyful and good. And they returned - terrible... War...
In the morning, before work, we listened to a radio message about military operations. The enemy was advancing. How to live and work further? Grow flowers and berries? Isn't that enough? We expressed our doubts to Mikhail Afanasyevich. He got angry:
We will work as we have worked. No, not like that, but better - to each for two. Let’s think together about how to help the front.
We split up into teams.
The war immediately made itself felt in our small team. Photographer Zhenya Petrov, the “vacant groom,” as the girls called him, went to the front. I checked my suitcase into the warehouse and left. One day, Sasha Kropachev, a shy young carpenter, did not show up for work. Shura Karpova, the strawberry manager and our Komsomol secretary, left. Shura became a nurse. Older people were also leaving. The modest, hard-working Fyodor Tarasovich Shein said goodbye to the team...
Mikhail Afanasyevich, together with his deputy Nikolai Nikolaevich Tikhonov, often visited the city. Meetings and emergency party meetings were convened there. It was necessary to urgently resolve a lot of pressing issues caused by the war.
The Michurin Institute was evacuated to Gorno-Altaisk. And how much effort was made so that the greatest specialists in horticulture could stand behind the departments as usual, as in their native Michurinsk. The institute's graduate students continued to work on their topics at our site. In Kyzyl-Ozek, students and teachers defeated nice garden, where students did their internships.
At that difficult time, the team lived a united life. The great misfortune brought everyone together tightly, everyone thought about how to help the front.
Once Mikhail Afanasyevich came from the city and said that we needed to hand over two hundred pairs of woolen socks for the front within a very short period of time. Taking off his glasses, he leisurely wiped them with a handkerchief, looking around those present with his myopic eyes.
So how? Can we handle it?
It turned out to be three pairs for each. Not much, of course, but time is running short.
It’s good for those who have grandmothers or mothers to knit, but I’m the only one around, and I haven’t knitted since I was a child,” someone remarked.
Mikhail Afanasyevich rubbed his chin and smiled.
Here's Ganya Peresekina for you. She is a real professor in these matters. He will train everyone. There would be a desire. Right?
The pretty, grey-eyed cleaning lady from the office flushed with embarrassment.
They brought wool. During the long evenings and nights they knitted socks, washed them and hung them on ropes to dry.
Many girls quickly learned to knit - only the knitting needles flashed, but I kept cutting my hands. But still, under the leadership of Ghani, she tied her norm. And our white-toothed “professor” during the same time made 10 pairs of good soldier’s socks, but still sighed sadly:
Without these students, I would not have made it. Well, if Mikhail Afanasyevich asked to teach, would you really refuse him?
Our front-line soldiers wrote occasionally. But papers were already arriving, which people dubbed the terrible word “funeral.” Zhenya Petrov died, storekeeper Vasya Zotov was wounded...
In the city, as elsewhere, there was a bit of a shortage of food. On the initiative of Mikhail Afanasyevich, they began to sow more corn of different varieties sent to identify early ripening ones. At the same time, the tests yielded a lot of grain. And the Motherland needed bread so much!
As for potatoes, Mikhail Afanasyevich had firm confidence that a good variety would produce high yields in Gorno-Altaisk. The Berlichingen variety was identified. The red-skinned tubers of this variety, large and pot-bellied, like cast iron, were difficult to turn out of the ground when digging. From this variety, Mikhail Afanasyevich isolated a tuber clone of a very regular oval shape with a yellowish-white mesh skin and shallow pink eyes. The tuber was propagated, and Mikhail Afanasyevich named the new variety Altai. It was planted on many hectares and produced a yield of 40-50 tons. On the recommendation of regional organizations, Altaisky went widely to the collective farms of the region.
It was difficult with clothes. The girls wore khaki skirts and old ski jackets. Our respected Candidate of Biological Sciences Nina Mikhailovna Pavlova courageously put on huge canvas boots “on wooden walkway”, which were obtained from a special list for station employees. Looking at her “model” shoes,” Mikhail Afanasyevich even whistled.
For specialists, we allocated half a liter of kerosene for a month. They burned it in hollowed out potatoes, competing to invent lamp designs that would use kerosene most economically.
We worked almost without days off or vacations. When Sunday work was organized, for example, to dig potatoes, Mikhail Afanasyevich went with us. That’s how I remembered him in a padded jacket and boots, with a bucket and a spatula. He dug up potatoes no less than others and was angry when young people came to his aid, knowing that his heart was playing tricks.
Despite the difficult times, people have not forgotten how to laugh. Mikhail Afanasyevich often set an example in this regard. For a long time he recalled how he was suspected of stealing socks prepared for sending to the front.
He once walked into an empty fruit processing workshop, where socks were being dried after washing. He asked when they could be sent to the city. After his departure, member of the “sock” commission Antonina Nikolaevna Kameneva discovered that one pair was missing. Her heart sank and her legs felt strange. However, she found strength in herself, rushed after the director and returned him to the workshop. The head of a reputable organization, embarrassed, stood and waited for his fate. Finally, Antonina Nikolaevna found out that all two hundred pairs were in place.
Afterwards, Mikhail Afanasyevich laughed heartily and amusingly copied the zealous Antonina Nikolaevna. Making a frightened face, he raised his hands and quickly fingered imaginary socks on a rope with them, while in a high voice shouted:
One, two, three... ten... And here hung eleven. No pair!..
Oh, these women! Caught stealing! Shame, disgrace! - And again he laughed like a boy.
Mikhail Afanasyevich, expressing the thoughts and desires of the entire team, took care of padded jackets for the soldiers, made arrangements with someone over the phone to hire evacuees, signed requests for juice for the wounded, and did dozens of urgent matters large and small.
At the same time, he managed to visit experimental sites and helped everyone with advice and deeds. Thanks to this, scientific and production work did not stop, and the release of seedlings from the nursery even doubled.
People died in the war, but those who survived thought about blossoming apple trees and scarlet carnations, they dreamed of a glorious, peaceful life.
Sometimes Mikhail Afanasyevich was not in the office for a long time. We didn’t try to look for him because we knew he was writing a dissertation. Nina Mikhailovna Pavlova and I selected material for him. I made samples based on harvest records, she compiled lists of varieties and wild species, descriptions of elite seedlings of currants, gooseberries, and raspberries.
One morning, before work started, Ganya said that the director was inviting me. I decided that he needed some numbers, and took a notebook on weighing crops. Mikhail Afanasyevich was sitting at his desk with his back to the window and, bending over, quickly wrote.
When I appeared, he straightened up, leaned against the back of the chair and pushed his glasses onto his forehead.
Thank you, my dear, I don’t need anything today. The most important thing that I want to reflect in my writing is how we apply Michurin’s principle of distant hybridization in our own country. I'll finish soon. Tired.
So, we need to rest,” I noted.
But he had already shaken himself up again.
Do you receive letters from soldiers? What do they write?
I was embarrassed.
From which ones? I don't write to anyone.
He slammed his small hand on the table.
But this is in vain! - And he remarked feigningly grumpily. - It’s a disgrace... You’re the chairman of the workers’ committee, a Komsomol member. You must set an example for the youth. Here I wrote down several field mail numbers and the names of front-line soldiers on the radio. The guys lost relatives. They have no one to write to. Your news will be more valuable to them than their daily bread.
I took a list of addresses. Often later Mikhail Afanasyevich was interested in the fate of our correspondence, gently joking that after the war I would “grab” a general for myself. Lieutenant-artilleryman Georgy Volokhov and I corresponded almost throughout the war, but then there were no more letters from him. Perhaps he died...
In 1943, the stronghold was transformed into the Altai fruit and berry experimental station. It was important event, recognition of the merits of our team, great trust that had to be justified.
Collections of fruit and berry varieties were regularly observed, crosses were carried out to create new varieties, and hybrid seeds were sown. Tens of thousands of hybrid seedlings of apple, currant, raspberry, valuable shrubs and flowers were grown. New and new sites were laid out. During the war years, the nursery expanded its activities - in spring and autumn, trucks with seedlings went to all corners of the region.
At a breeding site in the far Northern Log, many valuable currant seedlings were isolated, those that combined the qualities of delicate European varieties and winter-hardy Siberian currant varieties.
Subsequently, many of them received varietal names. Nina Mikhailovna Pavlova named one of the Altai hybrids Exhibition for its high yield and large berries. We sent cuttings of this hybrid to her from Gorno-Altaisk in Leningrad. Back then it had only the modest number 7-38-3, and we did not imagine that it would be so valuable.
Mikhail Afanasyevich and I later also came up with different names hybrid seedlings. Thus, one sweet-fruited seedling was named Altai Dessert, and Mikhail Afanasyevich gave another, particularly productive hybrid pet name Dove. We didn’t know then that Golubka’s seedlings would be distributed throughout the country in a decade and a half.
In 1943, at the authoritative Academic Council of the Institute. I.V. Michurina, where there were venerable professors-teachers and our employees, Mikhail Afanasyevich defended his dissertation, in which he summarized all the research work on the selection and variety study of berry trees over ten years. It was a victory and joy for all of us. The dissertation, written simply and clearly on just fifty pages, seemed to put in order all the issues related to berry plants and defined the goals and objectives of breeding for each crop. Now, a quarter of a century later, this work for the station’s berry growers is a kind of reference book. Employees from other experimental stations who visit us on business trips ask for the dissertation.
During wartime, we had only two candidates of science: Nikolai Nikolaevich Tikhonov, a breeder of stone fruits, grapes, and pears, and Nina Mikhailovna Pavlova, a specialist in berries. Both of them provided the station with great assistance in selection and variety research during their work, but they came to us already as candidates, and Mikhail Afanasyevich was his own, and this was a special joy for all of us.
On May 9, when they learned that the end of the war, which had been awaited for such a painfully long time, no one hid their jubilation and tears.
And when the city reported that there would be a rally, Mikhail Afanasyevich allowed the flowering almond-bean tree to be trimmed to decorate the column, although before that he had taken care of every bush. The almonds seemed to bloom specially for Victory Day.
We went, proud and happy, carrying in our hands branches strewn with fragrant flowers, similar to large original snowflakes, pink in the sun. And the sun smiled at our victorious march.
And our director walked in front of the column with a pink branch in his hand. A standard-bearer walked next to him, and the red banner fell and then fluttered again from the gusts of the spring wind.
They worked with him
There are a lot of visitors at the station. These are employees of experimental institutions, production workers, graduate students... Some of them stay for a day or two, others live for a week, then leave, taking with them a piece of the experience of Altai gardeners.
These traditions began in Gorno-Altaisk.
A very valuable trait of Mikhail Afanasyevich was his ability to select people who were in love with gardening. He found an amateur gardener in Biysk, a gardener by profession, Mikhail Pavlovich Pushkin, and persuaded him to move to the Altai Mountains. From 1935 to 1939, Mikhail Pavlovich worked well as a technician-foreman for berry fields. I learned how to sow seeds and cuttings of currants, and plant dozens of hectares of various berry gardens. He was engaged in growing hybrid seedlings in nurseries, from which valuable specimens were later isolated in breeding plots, which laid the foundation for Altai berry varieties.
Now pensioner M.P. Pushkin lives with his wife in a quiet Sverdlovsky lane in Biysk. I visited their cozy backyard garden in the summer of 1968. They remembered Mikhail Afanasyevich and the people who worked in Gorno-Altaisk. Mikhail Pavlovich said that on the same day Innokenty Arsenievich Kukharsky began working with him. I remember him well - he supervised the students' practice. This was a man, like Mikhail Afanasyevich, who devoted himself entirely to Siberian gardening. A tireless collector of seeds, seedlings, and plants.
Mikhail Pavlovich told how Kukharsky valued his time, how he once complained to the foreman that he had lost a whole day off over the summer... That Sunday, his wife took him for a walk in the mountains. I imagined how he “rested”, thinking about unwatered nurseries.
M. A. Lisavenko and I. A. Kukharsky corresponded with Nina Mikhailovna Pavlova for a long time. An employee of the All-Union Institute of Plant Growing in Leningrad, she helped replenish the pure-varietal collections of berry gardens in the Altai Mountains, and gave advice and consultations on berry gardens.
She arrived in Gorno-Altaisk in the spring of 1942. And when the enemy ring around Leningrad was broken and life in the city began to improve, she returned home. Nina Mikhailovna provided the station with great assistance in selecting and describing elite currant seedlings, testing varietal plantings, and studying wild species. She taught Mikhail Afanasyevich and me a lot about gardening. When he defended his Ph.D. thesis in 1943, he expressed sincere gratitude to Nina Mikhailovna Pavlova for her help.
In the early forties, Fyodor Tarasovich Shein came to Mikhail Afanasyevich. Arborist with higher education, he had no experience in gardening and entered the berry department as an ordinary foreman. At the beginning of the war, he went to the front as a soldier, and after the victory he returned to his native team. He turned out to be an efficient, conscientious and careful researcher on raspberries and strawberries.
For many years, Nikolai Nikolaevich Tikhonov, a student of Michurin, worked together with Mikhail Afanasyevich in Gorno-Altaisk. He came to Altai from the Far East back in 1937. An experienced breeder, he created a number of varieties of grapes, plums, pears...
Anna Mikhailovna Skibinskaya, a prominent pomologist, devoted about two decades to the station and conducted a phylogenetic analysis of apple tree varieties.
Maria Alekseevna Sizemova, Vera Anatolyevna Sirotkina, Alexandra Semenovna Tolmacheva spent a number of years working in the Gorno-Altai team.
Zinaida Ivanovna Luchnik, a tireless enthusiast of ornamental gardening, has been working for over thirty years. The dendrological garden she founded in Barnaul is considered one of the best in Siberia.
Experienced specialists and hard workers Pavel Nikolaevich Davydov and Liliya Yurievna Zhebrovskaya worked at the station for many years.
Usually, the replenishment of specialists at the Altai station comes from former trainees. This happened to Vikenty Ivanovich Kharlamov and Ida Pavlovna Kalinina. Florist Irina Viktorovna Vereshchagina and Zoya Sergeevna Zotova, a wonderful berry breeder, have been successfully working for a quarter of a century.
Researchers Anatoly Aleksandrovich Semyonov, Grigory Vladimirovich Vasilchenko, manager Vasily Dmitrievich Yakhnovsky, foreman Maria Grigorievna Maksimova, librarian Galina Ivanovna Afanasyeva, and retired foreman Georgy Ivanovich Batalov gave twenty years to the station.
And how many scientific staff worked in Gorno-Altaisk at one time - Oleg Nikolaevich Myatkovsky, Arseniy Konstantinovich Schastlivy, Antonina Nikolaevna Kameneva and many others.
Arefiy Grigoryevich Dyukov, Sergey Pavlovich Zotov, Grigory Panfilovich Pryakhin, Sidor Arkhipovich Koshelev, Nadezhda Zakharovna Pralnikova showed themselves to be excellent foremen then.
Mikhail Osipovich Pantyukhov worked in Gorno-Altaisk for a number of years. A participant in the October Revolution, an old communist, and in the post of scientific secretary, he provided invaluable assistance to the station in communicating with a large network of gardening correspondents.
As in any human environment, the team as a whole and its individual members had their own joys and sorrows, successes and failures - everything was there.
But the most important thing is that the overwhelming majority of people working and working at the station are people who deeply love gardening, who translate this love into hectares of orchards, new varieties of apple trees and berry trees, and advanced agricultural techniques.
Tireless experimenter
Returning to the past, I would like to note that I went to Altai after college with a great desire to take up Slate apple trees. Mikhail Afanasyevich, however, somewhat tempered my ardor by offering to work with currants and gooseberries.
Afterwards I did not regret it, because the leader of the topic was Mikhail Afanasyevich. He found time to review my work plans, check an article for the newspaper, and visit the site. But in the first years of organizing the strong point, he was both the director, the researcher, and the foreman.
The great merit of Mikhail Afanasyevich is that he raised the Michurin method of hybridization, geographically and species-distant. The parental forms used in crossing must come from places that are spatially distant from each other, with different climates and soils. At the same time, they must belong to different types or subspecies. This method provided scope for obtaining hybrids with a rich hereditary basis, and raising seedlings in local conditions formed valuable qualities in them.
In articles and reports, Mikhail Afanasyevich repeatedly noted that the entire previous Western European selection of black currant “revolved” within one subspecies - the European black currant. Using only these currants, it was impossible to create something truly new. At the Altai station, various types of currants, varieties and varieties from many of their habitats were attracted. This ensured success in breeding new valuable varieties of blackcurrant.
In later years, when the station was transferred to Barnaul, Mikhail Afanasyevich strongly recommended even wider use of proven varieties and species attracted to Gorno-Altaisk, and created the Primorsky Champion variety, bred in the Far East. Experiment and experiment, although the climatic conditions here were worse.
Numerous crossings carried out in Barnaul made it possible to isolate productive hybrids with high self-fertility. The last quality is very important, since in the forest-steppe zone the flowering of currants often coincides with cool weather when bees are not flying. For industrial and amateur gardens, varieties are needed that set berries without the participation of pollinating insects.
Mikhail Afanasyevich has said more than once that we are far from exhausting all the possibilities that the flora of Siberia and the Far East conceals.
Everywhere he went, he tried to notice what could be applied at the station. If he hears about a new machine or device, he will definitely get it for the household and read it good article in a magazine - he will tell you or let you read it. I brought photographs from the Baltics original houses with watchtowers for brigades. Soon they appeared with us too.
Mikhail Afanasyevich did not impose his opinion, but usually gave the opportunity to show more of his initiative.
In the new working conditions in Barnaul, drawing up thematic plans gave me a lot of trouble. It would have been easier to go to Mikhail Afanasyevich and ask him to draw up a plan together, but I knew that he didn’t like it when you came to him with a blank sheet of paper. He will certainly say:
Think for yourself, my dear, and then we’ll see.
Sometimes you write a lot, but you don’t like everything, you feel that the main thing is not highlighted. While you’re sitting in Mikhail Afanasyevich’s office, he’s flipping through the plan, as if he’s just skimming it, crossing out some things, quickly adding some things in. Look - everything has fallen into place.
I remember he suggested taking Canadian currants for hybridization. He was fascinated by the bushes strewn with oblong matte berries. I didn’t attach much importance to them because of the bitter taste, but he had a different opinion.
The taste must change. Let's cross it with some of our varieties, which have the “blood” of spruce grouse and European black currant. You should get some very interesting hybrids.
The following spring, I pollinated Canadian currant flowers with pollen from the hybrid variety Black Lisavenko. (It was obtained in Gorno-Altaisk from European black currant and East Siberian spruce grouse). Mikhail Afanasyevich was interested in the development of seedlings and said that in order to raise them, it is necessary to select fertile soil. The seedlings were planted in the area from the old vegetable greenhouses, where the soil was enriched with humus. Three years later, the bushes bore fruit, and Mikhail Afanasyevich rejoiced at the good setting and taste of the berries.
He also liked the selected seedlings grown from seeds large-fruited varieties Zoya and the Black Bunch. The next year, with researcher Nina Vasilyevna Danilina, I looked at all the seedlings and said that they provide excellent material for further selection, and varieties can be selected from the best.
But with gooseberries in Barnaul it turned out worse. We planned to select about two dozen hybrid seedlings and called Mikhail Afanasyevich to evaluate them.
Fruit plantings at the Altai experimental plant
fruit and berry station. 1958
There were several of us: technicians, trainees, researchers. We walked around, looked at the bushes, and tried the berries. Mikhail Afanasyevich did not like most of the seedlings. Only eight bushes were left. When the comrades dispersed, Mikhail Afanasyevich, seeing that I was very upset, said:
Don't be upset. We must give gardeners varieties better than Ledenets and Michurinets, otherwise they are worthless to us. Muscovites, Sverdlovsk, and Chelyabinsk residents have already received excellent varieties. But here, in Barnaul, it is difficult to breed a good variety - it is dry, and the soil is poor. In Gorno-Altaisk it’s a different matter - there is plenty of moisture and nutrition.
Mikhail Afanasyevich attached great importance to the education of hybrid seedlings. In Gorno-Altaisk, we had problems with the selection of red currants; Western European varieties were affected by fungal diseases and sometimes froze severely. They tried to cross them with wild Siberian species of red currant, which the population calls sorrel. The crossings were successful, but the hybrid seedlings were similar to their wild relatives - with the same sour berries, so it was not possible to select valuable specimens.
Mikhail Afanasyevich proposed raising young seedlings not in Gorno-Altaisk, but in Barnaul, where it is drier and better conditions for red currant culture. And half of the seedlings of all families were planted for control in Gorno-Altaisk.
For three years in a row, Mikhail Afanasyevich and I looked at the seedlings during the ripening period of the berries, admiring the healthy tall bushes and the length of the brushes. Currently, selected hybrids from crossing the varieties Red Cross and Dutch white with dark purple sorrel are undergoing competitive testing. They are productive, winter-hardy, their berries hang on the bushes until winter without falling off. In late autumn, when they fly around last leaves and bare branches sway in the autumn wind, it’s nice to enjoy the cool ruby berries. They resemble popsicles.
At the end of July 1967, Mikhail Afanasyevich decided to put the entries in his workbook in order and check whether all the selected bushes had labels. He called me too. The day was hot in the morning, we had difficulty making our way through the fragrant thickets of currants. It was necessary to bend down often and look for last year’s darkened labels.
Even before lunch, I noticed that Mikhail Afanasyevich was very tired, and I convinced him to rest on a pile of dry branches and pine needles under young pine trees.
She began to continue working alone, and he sat not far away and... sang.
This is how I often remember him now: sitting under the pine trees with the collar of his white shirt unbuttoned. In his left hand he holds a handkerchief and wipes his head and neck, wet with sweat, with it. IN right hand- straw hat.
He was pleased that things were progressing, and, although he was very tired, he hummed a cheerful song without words for almost an hour.
Work on the currant plot was the last working together with Mikhail Afanasyevich.
My memories of him are also connected with books and meetings with people. He himself read a lot and insistently demanded that his employees keep abreast of domestic and foreign horticultural literature. He told me more than once that I don’t read enough.
Thanks to Mikhail Afanasyevich, a wonderful library has been collected at the station.
If employees had a desire to go somewhere to improve their knowledge, he always supported us. I had the opportunity to visit experimental plantings in Leningrad and Moscow.
Mikhail Afanasyevich wrote a lot on gardening - notes in newspapers, articles in special magazines, books. He wrote simply and interestingly.
Once on the way to Moscow, he decided to write in the carriage urgent article- It’s a shame to spend three days only on sleep and food. The work progressed, and the author, carried away by it, not noticing the rocking of the carriage, put aside the covered sheet after sheet.
Passengers were watching him and decided to ask what novel he was writing. They were convinced that their companion was a writer, and were very surprised when they heard a cheerful answer:
What are you talking about, I'm a gardener!
Of course, this was not entirely accurate - he was both a gardener and a writer.
A promoter of new things in gardening, he strove to make every valuable experience available to all Altai gardeners. Courses and seminars, brochures and leaflets - everything has been mobilized for this purpose. On the instructions of Mikhail Afanasyevich, we visited the gardens to highlight the experience of the best in print.
Gardeners, whether they are honored veterans like F. M. Grinko, I. V. Ukrainsky, V. S. Dubsky, D. D. Osintsev, N. Ya. Ovchinnikov, or young people who have just graduated from gardening school, will certainly were interested in the health of Mikhail Afanasyevich. It was felt that people were drawn to him with all their souls, they saw in him their teacher and friend.
Mikhail Afanasyevich recently left us, but, probably, many years later, when people talk about Altai gardens, they will remember him with deep gratitude, because Altai gardening and Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko are so closely connected that they cannot be separated.
Ordinary person
It was necessary to get to a specialist doctor, go to a resort, support a friend after an illness - they went to him. He will immediately call you on the phone and write a letter. If you need money, he won’t refuse, he’ll give you his own or offer to apply to the local committee to help from the enterprise’s fund.
I remember many cases about Mikhail Afanasyevich’s attentiveness to people. When he went on business trips or was treated in a sanatorium, he wrote letters to us, congratulated us on the holiday, and was interested in work and health. From his trips he brought back postcards and books as souvenirs, and always talked with enthusiasm about the places he visited - about nature, people, and always about the state of gardening. On the birthdays of his workmates, if he knew about it, he did not miss the opportunity to sincerely congratulate the person and give him a memorable gift.
But for all his warmth, he knew how to be demanding. I couldn't stand it when it was wasted work time, when employees were late for work or for meetings of the Academic Council, he did not tolerate dirt in the production premises and laboratories, on the farm territory and in the brigade areas.
He will see a wormwood bush or a quinoa bush by the road, will look reproachfully and will definitely pull it out by the roots.
Sometimes he will say:
Oh, if each of us pulled out at least one bush along the way, things would have been clear all around a long time ago.
It fell to the foremen for the heaps of garbage that grew in the outskirts. He loved, although not evil, but to suffer:
If you don’t leave for the meeting, I’ll deliberately bring guests to admire the achievements of the experimental demonstration farm.
If he sees a piece of newspaper or a dry branch dropped by a driver in the central walnut alley, he will definitely bend down, pick it up and throw it in the trash can.
Mikhail Afanasyevich loved it when people dressed well and tastefully. If a girl comes in the morning in a new dress, she will definitely notice and say:
How beautiful you are today.
He loved to joke. More than once in our berry cabinet he talentedly represented Chekhov’s heroes: a village tooth-bearer, a muttering grandmother, an interpreting sexton, who from his numerous relatives should be written down “for health” and who “for repose.”
...One day we were sitting with Zoya Sergeevna Zotova in Kharlamov’s office. Vikenty Ivanovich received an order from the Ministry of Agriculture to increase the production of currant and raspberry seedlings. So we were figuring out how to carry out this order. Vikenty Ivanovich is an experienced, knowledgeable worker, but business was not moving very quickly.
Suddenly Mikhail Afanasyevich entered the room, opening the door wide. Although he was on vacation, he often visited the laboratory. Cheerful and animated, he saw us poring over papers and joked:
Here it’s like at an opera rehearsal: Nadya and Zoya are like Olga and Tatyana sorting out the duet note by note.
“Okay,” I agreed. - Vikenty Ivanovich, then, Onegin, what role are you in then?
He threw back his head, closed his eyes and laughed:
Probably Lensky... Who else? - And he sang at the top of his voice: - Where, where, where have you gone, the golden days of my spring...
After talking a little more, he left.
“Mikhail Afanasyevich is in a very cheerful mood,” I noted cautiously.
Vikenty Ivanovich shrugged:
This is how it should be - after all, he is on vacation. Now he doesn’t really want to delve into these orders.
We continued our work.
It was Friday August 25, 1967, and on Sunday Mikhail Afanasyevich’s heart stopped.
Inexorable time passes, but it still seems that this dear person has not left us forever. It seems that he is on a business trip and is about to return, open the door to our office and ask:
Well, how are you doing here, my little berries?
Nadezhda Ivanovna Kravtseva,
Honored Agronomist of the RSFSR,
worked with Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko for almost 30 years
Photo from the family archive of I.S. Isaeva
Lisavenko Mikhail Afanasyevich: at the origins of Siberian scientific selection
(3.10.1897 - 27.08.1967)
Born in the village. Bogotol, Krasnoyarsk region. A famous scientist-gardener, one of the organizers of scientific gardening in Siberia. Hero of Socialist Labor, twice laureate of the State Prize (1946, 1981). Doctor of Agricultural Sciences (1949), professor (1951), academician of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences (1956). Graduated from the Faculty of Law of Tomsk University. Organizer and director of the Altai Fruit and Berry Experimental Station (now the Research Institute of Horticulture of Siberia named after M.A. Lisavenko), who worked as its director from the establishment of the institution (1933) until his death (1967). He made a great contribution to the formation of the team, equipping the station with equipment, personally participating in the laying of the first gardens and berry fields, in numerous expeditions, the purpose of which was to collect original source material for selection.
Leader and initiator of the development of breeding programs for apple and berry crops. For the first time in the world, under the leadership of M.A. Lisavenko and with his direct participation, a large-scale breeding program for black currants was carried out, involving genetically and geographically distant initial forms. One of the authors of 30 blackcurrant varieties, of which the most widely zoned Golubka, Altai dessert, Stakhanovka Altai and etc.; 18 varieties of gooseberries ( Lollipop, Michurinets etc.), 30 varieties of apple trees ( Altai dove, Altai dessert, Gornoaltaiskoe, Altai pepinka and etc.). In total, 105 varieties of 8 breeds were created with the participation of M. A. Lisavenko. He has published more than 300 scientific papers, including 6 books. Awarded 2 Orders of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner of Labor, 3 Orders of the Badge of Honor, 2 VDNKh medals, Gold Medal named after I.V. Michurin.
Op.: Siberian garden. M: Sedkhozgiz. 1939: Fruit growing in Siberia.- Novosibirsk 1941. Issues of Siberian gardening.- Novosibirsk 1958. Literature: Dvortsov N. A man of a big heart.- Barnaul: Alt. book publishing house 1971.
Source: Gardeners and scientists of Russia. VNIISPK. Eagle. 1997.
Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko
Curriculum Vitae
Mikhail Afanasyevich was born on October 3, 1897 in the Bogotol plant of the former Tomsk province. In 1917, Mikhail Afanasyevich entered Tomsk University at the Faculty of Law and as a student at the Faculty of History and Philology, wanting to receive broad general educational training. Having left his studies in 1919 due to financial and family circumstances, he lived in Achinsk with his parents, on whose estate he began his experiments in gardening, and from that time on, the idea of Siberian gardening took possession of him more and more.
First there were the first apples on wild Siberian apple trees, cherries and strawberries, press attention to his garden, the first excursions from the villages, appearances in the press. In 1932, at the first All-Union meeting of collective farmers-experiments, organized by the editors of the Peasant Newspaper in Moscow, a radical change occurred in the life and work of the self-taught breeder. M. A. Lisavenko’s report on the prospects for Siberian gardening evoked a warm response from the delegates and the editors, who immediately invited him to go to Altai in the Oirot Autonomous Republic, “to plant gardening there.” M. A. Lisavenko came to Oirotia in 1933, became an experimental gardener, then made his first expedition trip to Altai to collect breeding material. Following this, a plot of land was secured in the today famous Tatanakovsky ravine next to regional center. Not everything went well at first; not all leaders supported the scientist. But the first secretary of the West Siberian Territory, R.I. Eikhe, welcomed any undertakings of Siberian gardeners.
A significant meeting for M. A. Lisavenko was his meeting with I. V. Michurin. The world-famous scientist was in awe of the first steps of the gardener-breeder in Altai. Of the seeds brought by Mikhail Afanasyevich, he was most interested in the varieties of Altai onions. Saying goodbye and presenting his portrait, I. V. Michurin admonished M. A. Lisavenko with the words: “Go ahead! Know how to stand up for your cause!” IN last days throughout his life, Ivan Vladimirovich did not forget about Altai, saying: “Today in Rybnoye, tomorrow- in Altai. What kind of gardens there will be, how they will live!”
In 1934-1936. work was in full swing in the Tatanakovsky ravine: the first seedlings of apple trees, currants, etc. were planted on four hectares. And in 1937, the Altai gardening center was nominated as a candidate for the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition.
M. A. Lisavenko was especially fond of the Altai Mountains. Every year he and his employees traveled through the mountains and valleys, looking for interesting plants that could be introduced into culture. So, they brought currants from the mountains and used them in experimental work, which the Altaians called “kazyrga”,- black sorrel, a large number of ornamental shrubs, trees and flowers. Mikhail Afanasyevich himself bred decorative apple trees with red leaves, red flowers and small red apples for landscaping our cities. His romantic nature is evidenced by his searches in the Altai Mountains for the “blue light”, a variety of fry from the Trolius family, which, according to the Altai people, grows near the eternal snow. Lisavenko found the “Blue Light” or “Blue Bird”. The famous Siberian poet Ignatius Rozhdestvensky wrote poems dedicated to M.A. Lisavenko, which he called “Blue Light”.
Thanks to the persistence and organizational skills of Mikhail Afanasyevich, the small stronghold in Gorno-Altaisk quickly expanded its work and already in 1943 it was transformed into the Altai fruit and berry experimental station, and Gorno-Altaisk began to attract the attention of an increasing number of workers in science and agriculture . In 1949, the station was relocated to Barnaul, becoming the Altai Experimental Horticulture Station, and in fact- All-Siberian Research Center, where, under the leadership of its founder M.A. Lisavenko, not only new varieties of fruit, berry, flower, and ornamental crops were created, zoned, and distributed, but also a unique scientific school of outstanding scientific breeder practitioners was formed. In 1961, the Altai Horticulture Experimental Station became a participant in the international horticultural exhibition in Erfurt (GDR), where it was awarded a Diploma of Honor, two gold medals for pome fruits and sea buckthorn, and one silver medal- for grapes. In 1969 at international exhibition gardening, apples, sea buckthorn on branches, chokeberries, raspberry compote, and sea buckthorn jam were sent to Erfurt.
In the 1960s total area under gardens in the Altai Territory amounted to 16.1 thousand hectares, including 2.5 thousand hectares of household and collective gardens. The range of scientific problems that the station solved under the leadership of M.A. Lisavenko was very diverse: the development of new highly productive, winter-hardy and immune varieties of fruit and berry crops with high-quality fruits; chemical and technological assessment of Siberian fruits and berries; a comparative study of various methods of maintaining soil in an apple orchard in the forest-steppe zone; study of the biological and physiological basis of growth and fruiting; study of the production and economic efficiency of horticulture in the Altai Territory, etc. All the best that was bred in experimental plots was transferred to nurseries for propagation and became the property of Siberian gardeners. Tens of millions of seedlings of fruit, berry and ornamental plants have been transferred to production over the years. Every year hundreds of letters, telegrams, parcels, literature were sent to various parts of our country. Every day, especially in spring and autumn, people from various places came to the station and left, taking with them a precious cargo of seedlings, cuttings, seeds and a wealth of experience in a new business. The expression “buy from Lisavenko” will continue to exist among people for a long time.
Gardeners of the Altai Mountains worked under the unflagging attention of M.A. Lisavenko; Romanovsky, Shipunovsky, Blagoveshchensky, Rodinsky and other districts of the Altai Territory. With his support, wonderful gardening masters grew up: I.V. Ukrainsky, P.I. Voronkov, R.O. Shukis, I.A. Bykov, N.I. Kravtsova, I.A. Kukarsky, N.N. Tikhonov, Z.I. Archer, Z. S. Zotova, I. P. Kalinina, V. S. Putov, Yu. D. Bury, A. A. Semenov, I. V. Vereshchagina, E. I. Panteleeva, etc.
The notebooks of M. A. Lisavenko, stored in the Central Academy of Arts of the AK, are witnesses to the events that happened to their author. They capture the results of scientific sessions, meetings, exhibitions, diaries of trips around Altai, field notes; applications for the sale of seedlings, fruits and berries and meetings with wonderful people, whose friendship Mikhail Afanasyevich was very proud of. Among them- the outstanding scientist N.I. Vavilov, who spent the whole day with Lisavenko in Oirot-Tur in 1936 and became very interested in his “modest work.” But the most important characters in Lisavenko’s letters, notes and notebooks were the enthusiasts of Siberian gardens, who selflessly and unselfishly fulfilled the dream of many generations to turn Siberia into a blooming garden. Almost not a single scientific meeting devoted to the problems of horticulture, where Mikhail Afanasyevich always gave bright reports, was complete without examples telling about outstanding and little-known master gardeners. This is F. M. Grinko (collective farm named after Molotov, Shipunovsky district); Voronkov (collective farm named after Stalin, Elikmonarsky district, Altai Territory); Pilipenko (collective farm “Verny Trud”, Minusinsk district, Krasnoyarsk Territory); Lukashov (collective farm named after Michurin, Altai region); Kornienko (Krasnoflotets collective farm, Loktevsky district); A.K. Zakharov, an old honored railway driver who took an active part in landscaping the steppe city of Rubtsovsk; N.P. Smirnov and his famous garden on the shore of Lake Teletskoye and many others. "About them,- Mikhail Afanasyevich said,- one could write entire heroic poems.” Lisavenko always emphasized that Siberians, amateur and experienced gardeners were consistent successors of the methodology of I.V. Michurin, who called “not to transfer the south to the north, but to create a local original assortment on a biological basis, sharply different from the same assortment of the old regions fruit growing."
The great merit of M. A. Lisavenko, his students and gardeners of Altai was not only the development of new varieties of fruits and berries in Siberia, but also the development and promotion of collective and home gardening, the introduction and selection of ornamental and flower crops, as well as their use in food and pharmaceutical industries.
In 1967, the fruit and berry experimental station was named after M. A. Lisavenko, and in 1973 it was transformed into the Scientific Research Institute of Horticulture of Siberia.
Today, the Scientific Research Institute of Horticulture of Siberia named after. M. A. Lisavenko coordinates research and experimental institutions for horticulture in Siberia, the Urals, and the Far East, and has close contacts with scientific institutions in the near and far abroad. For the first time in the world, sea buckthorn was introduced into culture here, the triumphal procession of which takes place where natural conditions allow. Suffice it to say that in China alone, about 1 million hectares are allocated for it, while in Altai- 400 thousand hectares, and the Chinese are seriously interested in introducing the latest, most medicinal and large-fruited varieties, bred by breeders of the Institute. Lisavenko.
M. A. Lisavenko in his work was not limited only to fruit and berry plants. He and his team worked with vegetables, grains, and subtropical crops. Altai varieties of potatoes and onions were bred. During the Great Patriotic War, the Altai Experimental Horticulture Station was engaged in medicinal herbs, seed production of corn, perennial grasses.
There is a wide range of work with ornamental plants native to Central Asia, the Caucasus, Far East, China, Canada and other regions. Blue spruce and Ledebur willow from the Altai Mountains, Chinese lemongrass and Amur grapes, pyramidal poplar and Manchurian walnut, Mongolian oak and Daurian larch today decorate the streets of Altai cities. A student of Mikhail Afanasyevich and the daughter of the famous Altai researcher V.I. Vereshchagin, Irina Viktorovna, noted in her memoirs that M.A. Lisavenko “knew how to foresee and correctly solve cardinal issues.” Thanks to him, Altai varieties of currants, sea buckthorn, and chokeberry “conquered Europe,” and a “reserve orchard” was established near Leningrad from frost-resistant varieties of Altai apple trees.
People like M.A. Lisavenko are talented in many areas of activity. An excellent organizer of his business, an outstanding scientist, he managed to create a friendly, creative team, lay down traditions that live today, allowing the Horticulture Research Institute to solve complex problems.
Correspondence with writers L. Leonov and M. Shaginyan, A. Koptelov, N. Dvortsov, gardeners A. Zhebrovskaya, V. Putov, public activities as chairman of the Altai Peace Committee, teaching activities at the Altai Agricultural Institute are revealed by M. A. Lisavenko as a person who deeply loves his Motherland, its unique nature and working people. Like any major public figure, he was a man of varied interests, loved literature and art, and in his youth even wrote poetry. All his life he fought to preserve the beauty of nature for people, so that holiday homes, pioneer camps, and tourist centers would be built in the best corners of Altai.
After the death of M.A. Lisavenko in the 70s. XX century On the basis of the Altai Experimental Station, and then the Research Institute of Horticulture of Siberia, Lisavenkovsky readings began to be held, dedicated to the memory of the academician. Since 1976, they have grown into republican scientific and practical conferences, international symposiums, where scientists and practicing gardeners from all over the USSR and abroad made presentations on issues of selection, agricultural technology and fruiting of fruit, berry and ornamental crops. Even during the life of M.A. Lisavenko, arboretums began to be created in Altai schools, and this Altai initiative was taken up in Russia.
In his autobiography, Mikhail Afanasyevich once wrote: “Looking back, right up to the memories of a far from joyful childhood, I can say that gardening for me is a kind of creative calling. As a child I never saw an orchard- native Siberian (great-grandfather- an exiled serf from the Voronezh province), I had no idea about the fruit tree, and yet my favorite reading in childhood was, from an unknown source, an old book by a nameless author, “The Fruit Garden,” which began with a lush epigraph from the Bible. I read and re-read this book an infinite number of times; obviously, it seemed to me like some kind of delightful fairy tale. This book still occupies a place of honor in my library. My favorite pastime as a child was to sow and grow...”
With a group of devotees like him, M.A. Lisavenko created a miracle and left behind not only a beautiful blooming garden, “the pearl of Siberian gardening,” but also a school that will live forever and gardens will bloom everywhere.
Source: Maltseva T. G. 110 years since the birth of the scientist-gardener M. A. Lisavenko (1897-1967) // Calendar of significant and memorable dates. 2007. Barnaul, 2006. p. 43-48).
Source: akunb.altlib.ru
85 years ago, the star of gardener M. A. Lisavenko rose in Siberia
By 1930, Siberian experienced gardeners had raised in their midst a new generation of gardeners - M.A. Lisavenko, an educated man with a strong mind and a warm heart. He became the protector and organizer of gardening in Siberia for the coming decades.
In Siberia, industry developed rapidly and the population grew. According to the plans of Z. A. Metlitsky and V. V. Arnautov, fruits had to be imported to Siberia, and the first two state farms had to be founded in 1937-38. 32-year-old Mikhail Lisavenko boldly entered into controversy with them. His large article was published in the magazine “Garden and Vegetable Garden” No. 11-12 for 1930, summarizing the experience of amateur gardeners over 40 years. He wrote:
“I saw enormous prospects for Siberian gardening. I wanted to bring maximum benefit to society from my experience, from the experience of old Siberian gardeners.” M. A. Lisavenko
“We must not miss the opportunities and prospects of great Siberia, which seems like terra incognita for most of our Russian fruit growers.” He described in detail the successes of the Siberian Michurins in each breed, mentioned fruit exhibitions in the cities of Siberia, starting from the time of N.F. Kashchenko, and especially focused on berry gardens, the most profitable in the harsh climate. He wrote: “In recent years, berries have become a luxury in the cities of Siberia. We are seeing ugly phenomena like Omsk importing garden currants from Samara, which are immeasurably worse in quality than wild Siberian currants. Currants and raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and sea buckthorn should find a place for themselves in the powerful state garden farms of Siberia. Without exaggerating, we can say that fruit growing in Siberia should be one of the profitable agricultural sectors. Siberian coal, ore, and Siberian wheat have achieved their recognition. Turn your face to Siberia in the matter of fruit and berry construction!”
“He knows how to speak, but is he good for business?” thought Uritsky and Pantyukhov in the Peasant Newspaper and summoned the daredevil to Moscow in December 1932 for a congress of experimental collective farmers. “This one will do!” - the editors gave their assessment and suggested that he organize a fruit growing stronghold in Altai. “Without hesitation, I agreed,” Lisavenko recalled, and began to promote Michurin’s ideas.
Z. A. Metlitsky wrote on December 6, 1960 to Mikhail Afanasyevich: “We did not know Siberian gardening, but you were confident in it and now showed everyone how to work. We are proud of you and learn from you.”
M.A. Lisavenko recalled: “I imagined enormous prospects for Siberian gardening. I wanted to bring maximum benefit to society from my experience, from the experience of old Siberian gardeners.”
Let us remember our pioneers and the brave young man who led the movement for gardens in Siberia at a turning point.
O. A. Baranova , NIISS im. M. A. Lisavenko, Barnaul
How a tireless scientist “introduced” gardening to the region
Still from a film about a scientist
The history of a country, region, city is created by people. On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Altai Territory, POLITSIBRU decided to talk about those who made a great contribution to the development of Altai, but are not remembered as often as they deserve.
Sea buckthorn, honeysuckle, viburnum, chokeberry - berries that, it seems, have always been in our gardens. And you can’t even imagine a garden plot without apple trees. But they took root in Altai thanks to the great work of a modest and dedicated man - Academician Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko.
Where “there were only stones in the mountains,” now everything is blooming. Mikhail Afanasyevich led the guests up the mountain, through the garden, where apple and pear trees grow in rows, a vineyard curls up, on the other side there is a sea of berries - strawberries, raspberries, currants. The garden is surrounded by poplars, and maples grow between them. Along the road there is a Kurai willow, a Manchurian walnut, roses are blooming, and there are cannas and dahlias in the flower beds. The guests were surprised.
"Miracle! A real miracle!<..>And you, Mikhail Afanasyevich, are a sorcerer! Wizard!” they exclaimed. And Lisavenko just smiled embarrassedly: “No miracle, just hard work.” This is how the writer Afanasy Koptelov talks about the main gardener of Siberia in his essay “The Altai Magician”.
“Our people didn’t believe: “How come, floating, did you invent apples? Potatoes are the Siberian apple!” said Lisavenko. Few people believed then in the prospects of Siberian gardening.
1. Mikhail Lisavenko plants an apple tree in his first garden, 1929
Mikhail Afanasyevich was born in 1897, grew up in Achinsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory. His mother loved to tinker in the garden, with her the future Michurin resident went into the forest, dragging wild currants, raspberries and bird cherry into his first garden. As a child, Misha loved flowers and poetry. He had read about orchards and knew about them only from books.
“Sometimes rosy, fragrant apples were brought from beyond the Urals. Lisavenko has not seen how they grow. I only read from the poet: ... like smoke from white apple trees. I thought: “This is about flowers. What are they like? Probably very small, if they look like smoke? What do they smell like? You have to think the same way as ripe apples. Oh, if only there was this apple tree smoke all over Siberia, all the cities and villages!” Koptelov says in the essay.
2. Home garden of Mikhail Lisavenko, birch alley, Achinsk, 1932
In 1933, as a follower of the great Michurin, Lisavenko moved to Altai. The Chuya tract was just being built, and from Biysk Lisavenko rode on horseback and carried irises and gladioli bulbs in his bosom, protecting them from frost. Mikhail Afanasyevich organized an experimental horticulture station in Gorno-Altaisk, which was later transformed into the Siberian Horticulture Research Institute. Moreover, the city itself was then big village no trees or sidewalks. Lisavenko rented a room and filled it all with boxes of seedlings. Then people began to talk in the city that an eccentric had come to plant gardens.
“We lived in the mountains for a century, we didn’t know any apples, but now we need apples...” the neighbors whispered. But soon Mikhail Afanasyevich found himself assistants - city Komsomol members. Together they greened the city and its surroundings.
3. Mikhail Afanasyevich at a strong point. Collection of ranetki, 1939
Then several years were spent collecting seedling collections and expeditions to remote corners of Altai. The City Council met the future academician halfway and allocated one hundred hectares to the Michurin stronghold. Mikhail Afanasyevich did not even imagine then that in ten years he would already have 830 hectares and several nurseries in the Altai Territory.
The academician’s main creative quest is, of course, apple trees. Walking through apple orchard, Mikhail Afanasyevich touched the leaves of one or another tree, as if shaking hands with them. He named his best apple tree in honor of the city near which he bred it - the Gorno-Altaisk variety apple tree. “Gornoaltaika” has received recognition from all Siberian gardeners.
4. 1946
In 1949, the Altai fruit and berry experimental station was relocated to Barnaul. The news that Mikhail Afanasyevich was moving to Barnaul seemed incredible to his colleagues. It was difficult to imagine Gorno-Altaisk without Lisavenko.
“It’s not easy to leave. And we need to move. It's necessary for business. From the Altai Mountains, we can say we took everything that could be introduced into culture. In Barnaul we will have more space,” said the academician. The scientist really went wild in the open air - under his leadership, 128 varieties of 11 crops were bred. Gardening began to develop by leaps and bounds.
5. Academician Lisavenko analyzing hybrid forms of apple trees, 1950s
6. Mikhail Afanasyevich at home with his dog Rex, 1956
On August 27, 1967, Mikhail Afanasyevich passed away. In the same year, the fruit and berry experimental station was named after him, and in 1973 it was transformed into the Scientific Research Institute of Horticulture of Siberia (NIISS).
After the death of the scientist, the Lisavenkov Readings, dedicated to the memory of the academician, began to be held at NIISS. During his lifetime, on his initiative, arboretums began to be created in schools in Altai, and then throughout the country.
The tireless scientist Mikhail Afanasyevich Lisavenko performed a real miracle on Altai soil. He grew a blooming garden on bare rocks, created a friendly team of scientists, and laid the foundations and traditions of Siberian gardening that live to this day.
