Orangery of the Chernivtsi National University Botanical Garden (Botanichnyi Sad ChNU)

Chernivtsi's botanical garden was created in 1877 by decree of the Austrian Ministry of Education. Professor Eduard Tangl, who held the chair of botany, led the project, while Karol Bauer, a gardener from Lviv, laid out the grounds and became the first scientific director, working there until 1894. The garden took eleven years to establish, with stock from the Muskau nursery.

The present house dates from the Soviet period: a two-storey orangery commissioned in 1974. According to Ukrinform, Ukraine has only two buildings of this kind, built to identical plans; the other stands in the botanical garden at Dnipro.

Repair work started in 2008, aimed first at the orangery that holds the rare specimens. Ukrinform dates the actual reconstruction to 2010-2011: the glass was replaced with polycarbonate and the roof raised by about 8 m, but the heating was partly dismantled and only the lower rows of radiators were left. Several palms about 150 years old, which had reached the roof, were felled during the works, and a Victoria cruziana died for want of heat. In 2019 the house was still closed to the public, lacking heating, automatic watering and lighting. In 2025 the local press noted that no tours are taken inside it.

None of the sources consulted names the orangery's designers. It is a Soviet standard design, since the Dnipro house repeats the same plans. The building rises on two levels and is divided into four sections, ranging from the humid tropics to drier and subtropical settings; its planted area is 525 m².

The 2010-2011 reconstruction changed the original outline considerably. New walls and columns were built, the height was taken to 22.5 m, about 8 m more than before, and the glazing was replaced with polycarbonate panels. The weak point lies in the services: the partial removal of the heating makes it impossible to hold tropical temperatures in winter, and automatic watering and lighting were still missing in 2019. Within the 3.5-hectare garden, which describes itself as the smallest botanical garden in Ukraine, the orangery towers over a cluster of smaller glasshouses.

The Ukrainian Wikipedia counts 920 species of tropical plants in the orangery, and Ukrinform about 900 taxa in 2019, spread between the tropical and subtropical sections. The house also holds the rare specimens that the first works of 2008 were meant to protect.

The collection paid a high price for the reconstruction. Several palms around 150 years old, which were pressing against the roof, had to be felled, and the giant water lily Victoria cruziana did not survive the lack of heat. The outdoor garden, by contrast, still keeps old specimens: two tulip trees about 150 years old reach 30 m, and a Weymouth pine and a swamp cypress are more than a century old.

The garden lies at 11 Fedkovych Street in central Chernivtsi. Since martial law was introduced it can only be seen with a guide: in 2025 the tour season opened on 15 April, for groups of 8 to 30 people booked in advance with the garden.

The orangery itself is not part of the tours, so it is seen from outside, among the smaller glasshouses. The outdoor walk, over 3.5 hectares, is best enjoyed in the warmer months, in the shade of the tall tulip trees and the century-old conifers.