Economic importance of park and garden zones of landowners’ estates of the Tambov Governorate in the second half of the 19th – early 20th century

The relevance of the study is determined by the need to fill the historiographical gap in the study of the parks and gardens history of Tambov estates. We consider the problem of organization of park and garden zones of Tambov landowners’ possessions in the post-reform period. We show changes in regional features of the landscape, composition, structure and elements of the park organization. We study the main reasons for the decline in park creation after 1861, the peculiarity and depth of this process. We show the influence of the economic crisis on Tambov landowner’s position as a part of consideration about the sources of green areas depletion of Tambov estates. We reveal that the owners needed time for the economic adaptation of the estates, there was not enough money to establish profitable savings and to form a new property administration system. In relation to the history of Tambov mansions, we identify a number of new areas of park art (commercial gardens). We analyze the process of gradual transformation of the regular and landscape style in the planning of green areas. This material allowed us to show that, thanks to creative continuity and the accumulation of valuable practical skills, landowners of the pre-reform time largely managed to overcome the gap between two epochs, and opened a new page in the development of Russian park-building. Considering the specific changes in the park areas of the Tambov Governorate estates, we analyze the material on the possessions of the Chicherins, Vorontsov-Dashkovs, Lodygins, Petrovo-Solovovs and Orlovs-Davydovs. A feature of the parks and gardens of these landowners was a symbiosis of the local flora and samples adapted to local conditions uncharacteristic for the Tambov nature. The desire to increase the attractiveness of their parks forced the owners to look for new plants to create original exteriors. A separate aspect of the study is the characteristic of commercial gardening in Tambov estates, the specificity of forestry in large economies of the region.

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