The first information about tomatoes dates back to the times of Katherine II. The empress expressed a wish to hear a report “about wonder fruit and unusual plants” on European fields. To do so, the Ambassador of Russia had to wind up with all the matters in Paris and to rush to faraway Russia during the stuffy summer of 1780. In the trunk of a bulky stagecoach there were baskets with fruit never seen in Russia before. Only in 1850 they started to grow tomatoes as a vegetable in Ukraine. The first plantations were in the Crimea, in Georgia and the Lower Volga region. Thus, tomatoes first appeared as food on our tables not more than 150 years ago…

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