Chernyi Prins

Beefsteak tomato. A 2023 favorite - delicious and beautiful! Purple-black fruit with depressed shoulders. Indeterminate growth habit with regular leaves. Fruit borne in cluster of 2-3. Immature fruit with distinctive dark green longitudinal stripes. Susceptible to cracking. Market mature fruit measure 2.8-3.3" long, 3.4-4.3" wide, and weigh 10.7-16.8oz. This tomato takes you on a journey: punchy flavor with notes of molassas-style sugar and umami. Smooth and meaty texture. Mild vigor and productivity when grown in 2023 on Heritage Farm. This is one of several Soviet-era varieties that Debbie Premus (OH PR D2) of Lebanon, Ohio, has stewarded for the past 30 years. Debbie is a second-generation Slav-American and during her college years, became interested in learning about her ancestors’ culture and studied Russian. Debbie visited Moscow in 1991, attending an invitation made to her by Valery Bagmout, a Soviet citizen she met during a trip he made to the US in 1989. Debbie went back to Moscow again in 1993, this time to attend the ‘Pushkin’s Institute of Russian Language’. During this second trip, Debbie met Dr. Tatiana Mikhaevich, a biologist from Minsk (Belarus) who had common academic interests with one of Debbie’s college professors. Dr. Mikhaevich gifted Debbie with seeds from two tomato varieties, which Debbie later donated to SSE in 2021. SSE Accession # 133884