About how a botanist outsmarted the officials
According to a well-known proverb, a real man must plant at least one tree in his lifetime. In the history of Kyrgyzstan, there was a unique individual who broke all records by planting 200,000 trees! And he did this, as they say, not thanks to, but in spite of - regardless of the arid climate, scant finances, and bureaucratic indifference. His name was Alexey Mikhailovich Fetisov. If it weren't for his efforts over a hundred years ago, who knows what Bishkek would be like today.
Botanist Alexey Fetisov arrived in Pishpek in 1878. He was originally from Crimea, specifically Sevastopol, where he graduated from a horticultural school. Today, Fetisov is remembered only as a gardener, but he was primarily a scientist - before his life in Pishpek, he traveled almost all over the Tien Shan and collected a unique botanical collection. He received job offers from the very Scientific Society of St. Petersburg (which at that time was a serious organization that did not extend invitations to just anyone), but Fetisov chose Turkestan - the nature of the region was too different from that of Russia, providing a vast field for study, and what else does a true scientist's soul need?!
So, Fetisov arrived in Pishpek and got to work: the new city in the middle of a semi-desert needed greening. You might say: oh, what's so clever about planting trees! But imagine Pishpek at the end of the 19th century, and you will immediately understand the scale of the task at hand.
In 1878, Pishpek had just received city status. The military governor of the Semirechye region, Lieutenant General Gerasim Kolpakovsky (the same one under whose command the Kokand fortress was taken in 1862 at the site of future Pishpek) approved the "Plan for the Projected Layout of the Newly Proposed City," or, in simple terms, the scheme for dividing the city blocks and squares. The plan proposed to create "market, guest, and church squares, a parade ground, a city garden, a place for forges, a hospital, and a cemetery." What was on the site of the destroyed fortress before all of this can be judged from the description of a traveler who passed through those places at the end of the 19th century:
"A small town began to grow around the half-ruined khan's fortress. Its inhabitants were partly newcomers - Russian officials and military, partly Uzbeks - craftsmen, gardeners, and traders. The main inhabitants of the region - the Kyrgyz - continued to migrate with their herds in the adjacent steppes and mountains. They came to Pishpek on market days on small, thin-legged ponies and two-humped camels, wearing long-haired sheepskin coats that they did not take off even in summer - it was always cold in the mountains. They did not part with their horses and saddles even in the market square, between the gravelly shallow bed of the Alamedin River and the old courtyard built by the Kokand people - a caravanserai, the only two-story building in the entire town. Almost all the houses in Pishpek were squat, clay-built, thatched, and surrounded by clay walls - duvals. There were no wells; water was taken directly from the ditches - canals branching off from mountain streams and flows. Next to the majestic Alatau mountains, the brown mud huts of Pishpek looked particularly small and miserable..."
Such a "cheerful" picture. But this is through the eyes of a passerby. Here is Pishpek through the eyes of a settler from the banks of the Oka:
"In the city, there are six lanterns, but there are no glass panes in them. The market is muddy, the mud houses have squinting windows, and around the town are malarial swamps, endless drunkenness... Especially dreary here at night. There are no entertainments, not even the most miserable. Everyone sits in their shacks and snores silently. You go out into the street, and a thick darkness hangs over the city. Dogs bark, and there are a lot of them here. It's depressing!"
Let's not dwell on the fact that this old description closely resembles today's Bishkek, but let's focus on the mentioned "malarial swamps." What other swamps are there in these places? Where did they come from?
In those years, the city was many times smaller than it is now, and the number of Pishpek streets could be counted on one hand. The eastern border of Pishpek was the Vernensky tract - the road to the city of Verny (what Almaty was called earlier; later this road became Almatinskaya Street). The northern border was the Tashkent tract, now known as Jibek Jolu Street.
According to Kolpakovsky's plan, the division of city blocks went southward from the Tashkent tract. The streets ran at right angles, strictly from north to south and from east to west. This was done not just for convenience but to facilitate irrigation from the ditches and ensure good natural ventilation of the city.
To understand where the city center was at that time, imagine the square formed by today's streets Frunze, Soviet, Jibek Jolu, and Razzakov - this was the very heart of old Pishpek. Here stood the house of feldsher Vasily Frunze, the father of the famous military leader Mikhail Frunze, after whom our capital was later named. His friends, military doctor Fyodor Poyarkov and gardener Alexey Fetisov, lived nearby. The friends would gather at someone's home for a cup of tea or something stronger, and the street block with their houses became the starting point for the capital's tree planting.
Alexey Mikhailovich Fetisov. Bishkek owes its parks and boulevard to him.
Alexey Fetisov understood that to green an entire city, planting material was needed, so he started by establishing the so-called "State Garden." It was located where the current Panfilov Park is and stretched from the Tashkent tract to Chuy Avenue, which at that time was called Merchant Street.
Fetisov made considerable efforts to obtain seedlings. The military governor of Semirechye assigned him the task of greening, but was in no hurry to provide funds for it. Fetisov had no means to purchase the necessary number of seedlings for the garden. But he was helped by a tradition that still exists in all botanical gardens around the world - exchanging plants. Fetisov exchanged seeds of Turkestan mountain flora for foreign cuttings, grafts, and seeds. He corresponded and received parcels from everywhere, even from picky grape growers in France. The State Garden quickly expanded, and the varieties of fruit trees in it increased. By 1890, the area of the garden was 20 desyatins (a little over 20 hectares).
By the way, the remnants of the State Garden now make up Panfilov Park. But there are no fruit trees there at all; what kind of garden is that, you might ask?! Right, there are none. A hundred years ago, in 1916, a very harsh winter occurred, and the State Garden almost completely froze. Then Soviet power was established in Pishpek, and it is still unknown which was worse for the garden. The garden began to be restored only in the 1930s, but fruit trees were no longer planted, and the area of the garden was significantly reduced, taking on the shape of a five-pointed star. The Bolshevik executive committee took advantage of this and renamed Fetisov's State Garden to "Red Star Park." Later, in the 1940s, it was named after the hero of the Great Patriotic War, Panfilov.
Gardener Fetisov could not have known what would become of his creation many years later; he simply did his job - planting and growing trees. He also actively encouraged the townspeople to engage in greening, regularly and freely providing various seedlings to the local residents.
And, of course, he set an example himself. It was Fetisov who began planting the avenue of two rows of silver poplars, which we now know as Erkindik Boulevard. The author himself simply called it the boulevard alley. Subsequently, the alley was supplemented with oaks, becoming longer and denser; in the 1930s, it was paved with cobblestones, and in the 1950s it was asphalted and streetlights were installed. Particularly observant Bishkek residents know that even today along one edge of the boulevard, from Bokonbaeva Street to Kyiv Street, there runs a very deep ditch, which Fetisov himself would have seen.
But I seem to be talking about plantings south of the Tashkent tract; what was happening to the north? It is hard to imagine now, but at the end of the 19th century, below Jibek Jolu were those very "malarial swamps" - marshy areas overgrown with reeds. Game could be found there, and hunters would go there to shoot boars and pheasants. Today, this seems utterly unbelievable, but an old photo from the early last century titled "After a Successful Hunt in the Vicinity of Pishpek" has survived in the archives, showing a hunter holding a killed bird against a backdrop of reeds.
The marshy land was of little use, but not for Fetisov. In 1881, he decided to drain the reed swamp and create a nursery there. The Semirechye authorities, shaking their heads, allocated the desired wasteland to this, in their view, crazy Pishpek gardener. They even sent two poods of elm seeds. But again, they did not provide any money.
Fetisov got to work; his goal was to plant a grove of elms. Today, the grove has turned into a real forest, but here is how it all began (from a letter by Alexey Fetisov to the head of the Tokmak district):
"A great deal of labor was expended to ensure that such a meadow, overgrown with a mass of roots and never plowed, was properly drained, developed, and transformed into an excellent area for forestry. The virgin soil was turned with a plow to a depth of 4-5 inches. Then, due to the lack of suitable tools for breaking up the layers of the plowed soil, Kyrgyz plows had to be used, which turned out to be quite suitable for this purpose. The breaking up was done six times, and after each time, toothed harrows were used, and manual cleaning of the soil from roots was carried out. The area occupied about 8 desyatins."
After struggling with clearing the land, Fetisov faced a new problem - the seeds of the elms sent to him did not germinate and turned out to be unviable. What to do now, how to obtain funds to buy new ones?
Fetisov's house in the early 1900s. It stood at the intersection of today's Jibek Jolu and Erkindik Boulevard; now there is a GKNB building here.
Reaching out to officials has always been a difficult task, and convincing them of the benefits of tree planting was even harder... But the scientist-gardener found a way. Officials only move when they hear the sound of coins, so Fetisov decided to speak their language - the language of income and profits.
"...If we evaluate each decade-old tree at 10 kopecks," wrote Alexey Fetisov in a note to the district head on January 9, 1882, "then with 15 desyatins, 150,000 trees will yield 15,000 rubles. Andijan elm in Pishpek reaches a height suitable for a telegraph pole in ten years, and the value of this forest will increase by a much larger amount than I estimated..." At the end of the note, the gardener requests an annual allocation of 400-500 rubles for the expansion of the elm plantation over 8-9 years and again convinces the officials that in ten years the costs will pay off and the grove will become a profitable item for the district.
Such arguments reached the authorities immediately. By order of the district head, a whole 12 bags of Andijan elm were delivered to Pishpek! Fetisov established a nursery, and just five years later, it had more than 10,000 seedlings, and by 1904, the plantings occupied not 8 but 80 desyatins, and every spring, several hundred young elms and poplars were distributed throughout the nearby and distant areas of Semirechye. Just imagine - if Fetisov had not outsmarted the officials back then, the Bishkek residents would not have the Elm Grove today.
In the following years, already without Fetisov, a dendrarium was established in the grove, a stage was built, a dance floor, a fountain, and paths were laid. In the 1940s, the Elm Grove saw the emergence of Komsomol and Pioneer lakes and a boat station. The grove became a popular recreation spot for the townspeople.
In Soviet times, the area of the grove was 215 hectares. Today, it is only 128, and this number continues to decrease. Since 1997, the territory of the Elm Grove has been allocated by various Bishkek mayors for construction. But there were no plans for any construction - people are simply gradually seizing the lands of the grove, building houses there, and then demanding to legalize them. And they do legalize! Apparently, the old tried-and-true method works - the sound of coins...
Today, "Kara Gachi" is no longer such a beautiful place as it once was. The lakes have been leased and are littered, the boat station is in decline. Residents of the surrounding new buildings are cutting down trees for firewood. Particularly gifted idiots throw trash in the grove, arriving by car and dumping bags right under the trees. On holidays, young people have picnics in the grove, parking right on the glades and leaving behind mountains of garbage. The grove is dying, and the Bishkek city authorities pretend that nothing is happening.
What would gardener Fetisov say to them today? He would probably just spit in their direction.
Eastern wisdom says: if you want to be remembered for a year, plant flowers; if you want to be remembered for a long time, plant trees; and if you want to be remembered forever, teach children. In his time, Alexey Mikhailovich Fetisov poured his soul into the Kyrgyz capital. With the increase in plantings, more skilled hands were needed, so in 1889, the gardener opened an agricultural school, where he himself taught. In the first year, 4 Russian and 15 Kyrgyz boys were enrolled in the school. The course lasted three years. The school trained farmers, gardeners, vegetable growers, and beekeepers. The school did not have its own building; classes were held in the house of a Pishpek merchant, but students practiced in the State Garden. By the way, where there were once greenhouses with plants for the school, today stands our House of Government.
Fetisov's nursery, also known as the State Garden in Pishpek. Year 1886.
In 1898, students of Fetisov's school laid the Oak Park (another green oasis without which today's Bishkek is unimaginable) and continued to plant the Boulevard Alley. In 1913, the construction of a building for the agricultural school began. The site was chosen "far outside the city," and you will be surprised, but at that time, it was the current intersection of Mederov and Tynystanova streets, where the Kyrgyz Agrarian University named after Skryabin is now located. This university was established on the basis of Fetisov's agricultural school.
But all this happened without Alexey Mikhailovich Fetisov. The gardener died in February 1894 from laryngeal cancer. The scientist was gone, but his work continued thanks to the efforts of Ilya Terentyev, who came to Pishpek. These two - the gardener and the merchant - found common ground even during Fetisov's lifetime. The very plot of land in the area of the current Palace of Pioneers and the Dordoi football base, where today the semi-ruined remains of Terentyev's house still stand, once belonged to Alexey Fetisov. There, the gardener established a hop plantation and successfully grew hops for brewing beer.
In 1895, a year after Fetisov's death, Terentyev was elected the elder of Pishpek, which in modern terms means "city mayor." He bought Fetisov's plot, expanded it, and established a fruit orchard there. In Soviet times, this place was called the Terentyev Garden until it was renamed in 1963 to the park named after Kychan Dzhaqypov. Over the past 20 years, the park has turned into a pathetic sight: trees have been cut down, most of the territory has been given to football players, and the once beautiful, ancient, unique Terentyev house has been brought to complete ruin.
Such is the barbaric attitude towards what was inherited.
Yet Elder Terentyev did everything possible to transform Pishpek into a garden city. He issued an order requiring every visiting merchant to allocate funds from their income for the greening of the city, and every townsman was to plant at least 25 trees next to their house (for this, seedlings were provided free of charge from Fetisov's nursery). Under Terentyev, Pishpek began to celebrate a special day called "Tree Planting Day," which fell on March 31.
The current Bishkek mayor would do well to adopt such an approach. But alas!
Looking at what is happening in Bishkek today, it is unclear - for whom did the predecessors strive? Trees are ruthlessly cut down, green zones are given over for the construction of high-rise buildings.
Last week, the mayor's office presented a new "surprise" - announced the complete cutting down of trees in the square formed by the streets Panfilov, Chuy, Razzakov, and Bokonbaeva. That is, precisely those planted by the hands of gardener Fetisov! According to agronomist Jumaliyev from the First May district of Bishkek, parking lots and sidewalks are planned to be built in their place. What can one say here... Mayor Terentyev went down in the history of the city as a greening figure; the current mayor Ibraimov will apparently go down in history as a lumberjack mayor.
The authorities' approach to greening the capital can easily be traced over time - by the titles of the officials responsible for it. A hundred years ago, the person greening Pishpek was called a gardener. Today, the chief... agronomist is responsible for the greening of Bishkek in "Zelenstroy"! If you think about it, what does a gardener do? Right, he plants gardens. And what does an agronomist do? He cuts down gardens to make fields in their place. There you have the answer...
It is frightening to imagine what our capital will turn into with such an approach in ten years. Back to a semi-desert, like 120 years ago?
And to avoid ending on this sad note, here’s an interesting fact: Alexey Mikhailovich Fetisov left behind not only a garden city. In Bishkek, his descendants may still live. About ten years ago, an interesting correspondence took place on one of Bishkek's internet forums - users posted old photographs, and under the photograph of gardener Fetisov, a woman named Tatyana wrote:
"I am the great-great-granddaughter of Alexey Mikhailovich Fetisov, born in the village of Kara-Jigach. Relatives remained in Bishkek, and I have lived in Russia since 1979. My great-grandfather, Joseph Alexeyevich Fetisov, was a merchant and had a cheese factory. He died in the early 1950s. He was a friend of Mikhail Frunze and saved him and his family from being dekulakized - he warned them in advance to voluntarily give up all their possessions and took the family out of the city.
My grandmother, Evgenia Iosifovna Fetisova, was one of Joseph Fetisov's daughters. And his sister, my great-grandmother Maria, was kidnapped by the Kyrgyz, and our branch went in the Kyrgyz direction..."
What a twist! What is true and what is not is hard to say now. But it is known for sure that Alexey Mikhailovich Fetisov indeed had a son named Joseph and a daughter named Maria, who were friends with the Frunze family. And they did have a cheese factory.