Russian Heirloom Tomato Varieties: My Favourite Russian Tomatoes to Grow

I grow many heirloom tomato varieties, and some of my favourite tomatoes to grow are old Russian heirloom varieties.  While others are tomato varieties I bred and am developing myself.  

Some of the tomatoes I grew 

Some of my favourite tasting tomato varieties are old Russian heirloom varieties.  As a generalisation, Russian tomatoes have been bred for rich tastes and high productivity.  There are very few heirloom tomatoes in Australia that can rival the flavour of the old Russian varieties.  

I always used to be under the impression that Russian varieties would be quick to ripen and not mind the cold (unless there is frost) and perform well with short days with only weak sunlight.  From what I understand now, that is not always the case as many Russian tomato varieties were developed for greenhouse culture.  That is ok as they make up for any short comings in having a deep and often complex tomato taste that is hard to beat.  

Unfortunately I have not grown very many heirloom Russian tomato varieties.  I would like to grow a few more of them as their taste is often superb.  Some of the Russian tomatoes I have grown are listed below.

I like tomato season 

My Favourite Russian Heirloom Tomato Varieties (From Decades of Growing My Own Food)

Variety	Appearance	Fruit Size	Flavour	My Verdict
Japanese Black Trifele	Dark brown/black pear-shaped fruit	Medium	Rich, complex, excellent	One of my favourites. Great flavour and reliable performer
Malachite Box (Malakhitovaya Shkatulka)	Green/yellow when ripe	Large	Sweet and unusual	Beautiful colour and a great conversation tomato
Giant Siberian Pink	Large pink beefsteak-style fruit	Very large	Good, mild flavour	Impressive size and productive in cooler conditions
Little Oak Like	Small red round fruit	Small	Excellent sweet flavour	One of the best tasting varieties I have grown
Black Russian	Dark brown/black round fruit	Small-Medium	Disappointing in my garden	Famous variety, but not one of my personal favourites

Japanese Black Trifele

Japanese Black Trifele - Yaponskiy Trufel Chernyyi   Японский трюфель

Tomato - Japanese Black Trifele

Japanese Black Trifele is a great Russian heirloom tomato and one of the few varieties that I will grow each and every year.  They produce mahogany brown, pear shaped fruit, that is often green on the shoulders.  The size and shape of the fruits varies a little even on the same truss.  Apparently it was named 'Japanese' to make it sound more exotic, but was developed in Russia and it is a commercially produced tomato in Russia.  These produce a large yield for me every year under different conditions, and they taste incredible.  They are great raw or cooked.  This plant has potato leaf and is indeterminate.

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka - Malachite Box - Малахитовая Шкатулка

Tomato - Malakhitovaya Shkatulka

Tomato - Malakhitovaya Shkatulka

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka is another great Russian tomato.  The size and shape of the fruit lend it to slicing for sandwiches, and it goes well in a salad.  Everyone who tastes this has loved it.  It is difficult to tell when they are ripe from a distance, but you are close enough to touch them it becomes pretty simple.  They tend to have small yield in my garden, I wish that it was higher yielding as they taste so great.  It is often said that Russia does not produce green when ripe tomatoes, often when being sold in Russia this variety is listed as having yellow skin.  I don't care how you describe it or what colour you want to call it, this variety tastes great.

Giant Siberian Pink

Giant Siberian Pink - Sibirskiy Velikan Rozovyi - Сибирский Великан Розовый

Tomato - Giant Siberian Pink

Giant Siberian Pink is a good tasting Russian tomato that produces very large, mostly round, pinkish fruits.  This variety produces firm flesh, and has a decent number of seeds which makes seed saving easy.  This plant produced a medium to large yield (medium number of fruit, super large sized fruit) over the season.  Being a large fruited tomato it does not ripen early in my garden.  

Little Oak Like

Little Oak Like - malenʹkiy dub, kak   маленький дуб, как 

Tomato - Little Oak Like

Little Oak Like is a great tasting heirloom Russian tomato that is far too rare.  It is only a small plant, maybe a foot tall and wide.  The red round tomatoes have green shoulders and taste great.  Little Oak Like tomatoes have the deep, rich, old fashioned tomato taste that people think of when they think of home grown tomatoes.  This is one of the best tasting red tomatoes I have eaten.  This plant has a large yield over a reasonably long season for a short determinate tomato.  It is usually among the first tomatoes to ripen in my garden.  The fruit are a little small, but more than make up for that by tasting great.

Black Russian Tomato Review: My Honest Experience

Black Russian - Chernyy Russkiy - черный русский

Tomato - Black Russian

Tomato - Black Russian

Black Russian is probably the most famous variety of heirloom tomato in Australia even though it is one of the worst.  Black Russian tomato is by far the worst Russian tomato I have ever grown!  I have grown them in several climates, and for me crops were always small, the fruit cracks often, and it lack any real depth of flavour that you expect from home grown tomatoes.  The colour of the black Russian tomato fruit is amazing inside and out, and they are a good size, unfortunately the taste, yield, vigour, and time it takes to mature always let it down severely in my garden.

Zolotoe serdtse

Zolotoe serdtse - золотое сердце

Tomato - Zolotoye serdtse

Zolotoe serdtse is rare in Australia, but is grown commercially in Russia.  This variety produces superbly coloured blocky fruit that never cracks, doesn't bruise easily, is very uniform in colour, shape, and size.  This is a semi determinate tomato variety, that produces very early in the season.  It produces shorter plants, perhaps two feet tall, with slightly rugrose regular leaves.  The plant itself looks quite weak, but it is surprisingly productive and very disease resistant.  The only issue I have with this variety, is it tends to get blossom end rot more easily than some other varieties.

Various tomatoes I grow

Where to buy Organic Russian Tomato Seeds

I often sell seeds saved from my open pollinated organically grown plants through my for sale page.  If you are interested please have a look.  

If you are Russian or have a Slavic background, and know about some other traditional vegetable varieties I would love to hear from you.  I would be interested to grow some more Russian vegetable varieties, not just tomatoes but other vegetables as well.   

Growing Russian tomato varieties sparked an interest in Russian language and culture for me.  If you're interested in how I've been learning the language, I have a list of Russian Language resources that I use.

If you grow some other Russian tomato or other Russian vegetable varieties and would like to swap some seeds or sell me some seeds please also let me know.  Either leave a comment on this blog post or my email address can be found on my for sale page.