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Reconstruction of the Orchard in the Parental Estate of M.A.Sholokhov

The Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov is completing a reconstruction of the memorial orchard in the estate of the Sholokhovs in Kruzhilin Village. The final works will take place there on April, 15, they will be participated by the Museum workers, honorary residents of the Sholokhov District, leading experts in the field of horticulture from the All-Russian I.V.Michurin Research Institute, the Kuban State Agricultural University, the Don State Agricultural University, the agricultural campaign “Krasny Sad” from Bataisk, members of the environmental movement “Sholokhov Source”.

The workers of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov have prepared the saplings grown by the experts of the Garden and Park Department, planting holes supplied with black soil enriched with organic and mineral fertilizers. Old sorts of apple-trees (Anis Striped, Titovka, Polosatka, Miron Sakharny, Korobovka) and pear-trees (Bergamot, Gliva), which were grown by the Upper Don Cossacks early in the XX century, will be planted at the estate. For additional moisture saturation the orchard is planned to be provided with grooves and mounds to retain spring waters.

In the 70-s of the XIX century the estate belonged to the deacon of the local church. Then it was acquired by Pyotr Mikhailovich Sholokhov, a brother of the future writer’s father. It was he who put into practice an original method of moisture accumulation by means of making grooves. The orchard well fruited and developed, the apples and pears were popular in the whole neighbourhood. Also, plums and cherries grew there. In 1898, the estate was purchased by Alexander Mikhailovich Sholokhov.

Little Misha remembered very well the orchard at the parental estate, and later he depicted it in his novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”: “…A steppe river fed with the springs of clear water somewhere in the tops of the ravine slowly flew across the village dividing it into two parts. From both sides, spacious Cossack yards in dense thickets of orchards with cherries shading the kurens’ windows, with spreading apple-trees extending to the sun their green leaves and young fruits, slipped down to it.

In 1984, when the house, where M.A.Sholokhov was born, and the estate were included into the structure of the Museum-Reserve, the orchard was reconstructed. Unfortunately, steppe conditions do not favour for the long life of fruit-trees, and the plants periodically need reconstruction.

Alla Shevtsova

Oksana Domanova