For most readers the region of Russia called Sakha — officially the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) — in the far north conjures up images of snow, reindeer, permafrost and polar night. But even though this region borders on the Arctic Ocean, these images are just stereotypes. Sakha is a country of honey and berries, strawberries and.
.. watermelons.
In 1893, a journalist of the “Herald of Europe” was surprised to discover that “even bees are bred and watermelons are grown” in the region. “Spring barley grows best near the Nerchinsk plants. Winter crops are dying out.
There are no fruit trees, but melons and watermelons grow to enormous sizes in greenhouses,” Ivan Shtukenberg wrote in his ‘Statistical Works’ back in 1860. At the Irkutsk Fair of 1869, a peasant from the Yakutsk region, Joseph Spiridonov, received a commendation for a cauliflower weighing 10 pounds. A merchant with the apt agricultural name of Maria Kapustina ("Maria Cabbage Lady") won an award for the watermelon she grew.
The art of growing watermelons in this part of the world was not forgotten after the 1917 Revolution. “In January the night brings deadening slumber, while in August watermelons ripen under the bright shining sun. It is like an amusing fairy from A Thousand and One Nights, and yet it is reality,” wrote an author for the collection “Soviet Yakutia” in 1937.
We do not know who thought he saw a fairy tale in 1937, but some time ago these authors were quite surprised to find.