Meet the nature:Botanical Garden

One of the places I love and where I find a peace in Baku is The Botanical Garden. Being in this famous oasis of landscape design, you will get an opportunity to see the different styles of gardening and to meet the excellent nature. It is located in Mikayil Mushvig street, which is very easy to get to from the city centre.

A little bit of history

The first proposals about the creation of the Botanical Garden in Baku had been put forward in the 1930s. From 1935 to 1938, the building of the İnstitute, hothouses, glasshouses,and houses for garden workers began to build. In hard war years (1941-1945), in spite of suspension of the construction and delay in the introduction works, researches on studying of grassy, wood and shrubby plant species of native flora were continued. The 1960-1978 years are considered like the years of the flourishing in Botanical garden. Construction of reservoir in 1960 and irrigation water supply contributed to the considerable expansion of the Botanical Garden. During this period, 25 hectares of plots was attached to the existing 16-hectare, which led to an increase in the garden's total area up to 41 hectares. During the years The Botanical Garden has collected more than 2000 trees, shrubs, flowers and herbs from different botanical-geographical regions of the world.

Unlike Botanical Gardens in the world, Azerbaijan's Botanical Garden is not a commercial entity, but rather is a scientific-research institution, and the main activity is to conduct research. Nowadays, this garden has become a cultural leisure centre for urban residents. Especially young families, students, parents, and elderly people choose this place for relax.The area of the garden is about 50 hectares.The entrance fee to the garden is 1 manat for adults and 50 qapik for children. For pre-school children the entrance is free.Visitors to the garden are extremely increasing in spring and autumn. It is difficult to say how many people visit the garden every day: 500, 600, even 1000 people visit the centre per day. The number of visitors is increasing especially on May.

Currently, about 130 plants are preserved in the Botanical Garden, which is found rarely in nature.During all seasons of the year, tourists can visit the Botanical Garden. Guides are working to help visitors in the garden. They inform the tourists about the trees, bushes and plants in the garden.

Botanical gardens in the world are structured either in a botanical-geographical or systematic design. If some geographical region plants are located in a certain area of the garden, it is a botanical-geographical principle. On a systematic design, plants are collected according to its type. In Botanical Garden in Baku, we can see the systematic design.For example, only roses are collected in the rose field.In the field of rose collection we can see about 500 types of local and foreign roses.There are Indian-Chinese, African, Australian, Arabian and other varieties of citrus plants. A large number of trees and shrubs and ornamental plants have been brought from different countries, tested and planted.You can see 43 geophysical plants which are included in the Red Book.

The Botanical Garden is also famous among couples who want to spend romantic time with loved ones in such a great nature.