"Tree of Friendship" Garden-Museum

In the Khostinsky district of Sochi, a unique tree grows, with no equal in the world. On a single trunk, dozens of citrus species bear fruit, and the tree itself has become a living symbol of the friendship of peoples.

The story began with a scientific experiment. In 1934, breeder Fyodor Mikhailovich Zorin, who was working on developing frost-resistant citrus varieties, planted a wild lemon tree in the garden. To speed up his experiments, he began grafting different crops onto it: Japanese mandarin, Spanish orange, Italian lemon, Chinese kumquat, grapefruit. The grafts took, and the top of the tree turned into a veritable citrus garden of 45 species and varieties.

The tree became a symbol of friendship later. In 1940, while visiting Sochi, the famous polar explorer Otto Schmidt made a graft on it, and from that point, the tradition began. Scientists, cosmonauts, politicians, and artists from around the world who came to Sochi began leaving their "green autograph" on the tree. The name "Tree of Friendship" was established in 1957, and today its crown holds over 600 commemorative grafts from guests from 167 countries.

Over time, an entire garden-museum grew around the tree. Dozens of other citrus trees were planted there, as well as a bamboo grove, palms, and lianas. Nearby stands a museum pavilion, where gifts and relics given by the garden's guests are kept.

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The clay quarries of Bogdanovich, unofficially called the "Ural Mars," form a unique industrial landscape with an alien appearance in the Sverdlovsk region of Russia.

Clay was mined here as early as the 19th century, but on a small scale for domestic needs. Large-scale extraction began in 1930 with the construction of the Bogdanovich Refractory Plant. During the Great Patriotic War, the enterprise was the only supplier of refractories in the country.

When the clay reserves were exhausted, rains and winds gradually shaped a whimsical landscape: clay hills, ridges, canyons, craters, and islets surrounded by water.

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The multicolored salt mine. Verkhnekamskoye deposit of potassium-magnesium salts, Perm Krai, Russia.

All these incredible corridors and niches were created partly by nature itself, and partly by specialized mining combines that literally cut their way through the rock mass.

The multicolored patterns on the mine walls are cross-sections of mineral layers called carnallite. Interestingly, this coloration has an organic origin: it is linked to the remains of countless ancient microorganisms, such as algae and various spores.

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Russia's First Underwater Eco-Trail, Primorsky Territory
 
🐠 The underwater trail is located in the Far Eastern Marine Reserve near the Rimsky-Korsakov Islands. In the terms of beauty and diversity, it has no equal in Russia. Divers who venture onto the eco-trail will see caves and grottoes, Kamchatka crabs and giant octopuses, starfish, seals—the list is long and astonishing.
 
🐠 This underwater journey is only available to those with specialized training. In total, you can spend about five hours on the trail accompanied by an instructor.
 
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