Mardakan Arboretum


The Mardakan arboretum is located in the Mardakan township on the semi-arid Absheron peninsula, 40 km away from Baku.It was a personal garden of Murtuza Mukhtarov, a tycoon and oil millionaire of his time around 1895-1920s. Currently, an area of the Arboretum is 24 hectares. The Arboretum is listed among the world's richest collections for the number and age of flora species. About 1,800 species including 1,540 plant types and breeds both from Azerbaijan and many other countries are being introduced to visitors.

History

Mardakan arboretum is 4,5 km from the shore of the Caspian Sea. The territory of the arboretum is 12 hectares. 80-85% of the arboretum is covered with limestone. The soil cover is represented by various soil combinations. With increasing distance from the sea heavier and lighter sandy-loam grounds are encountered, which consists of insignificant depth of 0,5 to 1,5 meter. Only natural lignose and shrubs are almost absent. Cascara buckthorn, Georgian honeysuckle, tamarix, feral fig and other plants are encountered between the rocks.
Arboretum's vegetation exists on the ground, imported from Lankaran and with artificial watering.
The water is taken from deep wells, filtered through the limestone, 30–80 m depth. Water from the wells is pulled into pools, from which it is diverted through the territory of the park through pipes. The diameter of the wells is 8–13 m and the average depth is 36 m. The deepest well located near the Yesenin house-museum was built in 1835 and has a total length of 27 meters. The well is surrounded by a round stonewalls in the form of castle and has a circular staircase about 18 meters high. the well has underground passages.
The pools were built between 1903 and 1905. 6 artificial waterfalls have been installed in the garden along with the water-pools. The quadrangle pool has a 35 meters width, 50 meters length and 30 meters depth. The other pool was constructed on the ground in 1840 and in order to climb it, staircases are used.
According to Tofig Mammadov, the director of Mardakan arboretum, the overall quantity of species of flora and fauna in arboretum is about 1'700.

Plants

Natural plants exposition

On the right and left side of the central alley of the garden, expositions of natural plants are exhibited. The expositions are categorized into 8 botanical-geographical groups: East Asian flora, Central Asian flora, North American flora, South America flora, flora of Mediterranean countries, Australia and New Zealand flora, Caucasian flora and African flora.

Flower and decorative plants exposition

There are 22 types and 300 species of rose, 9 types and 35 species of daffodil, 6 types and 12 species of iris, 28 types and 56 species of cactus, 15 types and 26 species of poppy in this exposition.

Cultivated plants exposition

This exposition of 600 types and 760 species of cultivated plants is divided into 12 groups. It includes pomegranate and other fruit trees, berries, Medicinal plants and others.

Museums

There are 2 museums located in the area of Mardakan Arboretum: “Botany museum” dedicated to the Soviet botanist Nikolai Vavilov and “Sergei Yesenin museum” dedicated to the Russian poet Sergei Yesenin.

Yesenin museum

This is the house-museum of Russian poet Sergei Yesenin who lived here in 1924–1925. The museum was established in 1974 on the initiative of Heydar Aliyev and inaugurated on April 1, 1975 on the occasion of Yesenin's 80th anniversary. The street where this museum located has been named after Sergei Yesenin. The museum has been operating under the Literature Museum of Azerbaijan since 1999. After  the reestablishment of the structure of the Literature Museum in 2008, the house-museum of S.Yesenin transformed into the Center of Russian-Azerbaijani literary relationships named after S.A.Yesenin. The Center provides information about the poet's life and his poems, as well as collects and research the materials related to Russian-Azerbaijani literary relationship.

Filming

Some scenes of the Azerbaijani films, such as "The Cloth Peddler", "Qorxma, mən səninləyəm", "Bаşsız аtlı", "Lənkəran xanının vəziri" were shot in this garden.

Photos