planting

tulips

Suleiman I,
Turkish sultan

Tulips were common in Turkey as early as the 11th and 12th centuries, from where they made their way to Europe and then to Holland

Tulips were considered a symbol of wealth and power. They were forbidden to be sold or taken out of the country.

Only as a gesture of incredible generosity could a Turkish sultan give a tulip bulb to a particularly important guest

Karl Clusius,
botanist at the University of Leiden

Augir van Busbeck,
French Ambassador to Turkey

Clusius planted some tulip bulbs in the botanical garden of Leiden University

The following year, the flowers that determined Holland's future destiny appeared

how EVERYONE was crazy about tulips

There were more and more people who wanted to grow a beautiful flower in their own garden

Word of the extraordinary flower spread throughout the country. The coloring of the tulips was unlike anything gardeners had seen before, their colors were much brighter and more saturated

half a kingdom for an onion

Floriculture has become a game of chance

Everyone who had even a small piece of land grew flowers. Tulips were sold at fairs and markets, in pubs and taverns. Prices rose with the demand and reached 4600 florins per bulb. At an average wage of 150 florins a year.

"The Tulip Trade"
caricature painting, 17th century

For one rare variety of tulip they gave 4 oxen, 8 pigs, 12 sheep, 4 barrels of beer, 1000 pounds of cheese, 25 liters of butter, 2 barrels of wine, a bed, a silver bowl, 2340 kg of wheat and 4680 kg of rye

In the begining the flower trade was seasonal

In May tulip bulbs were dug up after flowering, in October they were planted until spring — the market stopped for almost six months. But the demand did not disappear with the closure of the market

wind trade

The sale of flowers that have not yet grown has been called "wind trade"

Particularly enterprising merchants began selling rights to bulbs that were still in the ground. The buyer would receive them at the start of the season

Press

final

Many Holland people quit their jobs to devote themselves to trading in the stock exchange

The peasants grew nothing but tulips. Soon the number of transactions far exceeded the actual number of flowers. The bubble burst. Prices fell. Both the poor and the rich went broke. The market collapsed overnight

The tulip market has recovered in two years. The number of tulip farms has decreased, but the industry has not disappeared completely, but has become a hallmark of the Netherlands

Natali Zagarova

The designer of this project

Non-profit project

All materials belong to the authors