Dutch tulips

Maybe you have read a historical romance by Alexandre Dumas Père and heard the popular quote: “Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy. ” La Tulipe Noire it is called in French. The plot is set in Haarlem, a city in the Netherlands, which is very popular nowadays and everyone know it, first of all, because it’s 15-minute train ride from Amsterdam and many people go to work from there to the capital, and it’s about people trying to grow a black tulip.

When mentioning tulips everyone is reminded of the Netherlands _ so called “tulip land”. Tulips are like an icon of the Netherlands and we all have seen those vast valleys of different coloured tulips in many rows which are in the Netherlands. So, I guess, everyone thinks, that the homeland of tulips are the Netherlands. But you’re wrong if you think it that way! As of many historic records, tulips are not even from the Europe, not to mention the Netherlands.

A little bit of history

The history of tulips all goes back to the Middle Ages. Well, at least, that is an approximate time, when we have some records and descriptions about flowers that resemble tulips. However, scientists still can not say exactly when and where tulips were “born”.

It’s said, that the cultivation of the tulip began in Persia, perhaps in the 10-th century. But tulips are not mentioned by any writer from antiquity and, so, it’s thought, that maybe tulips were introduced to western parts of Turkey by Seljuks in the 11-th century or something. And there are records of numerous types of tulips been cultivated in the Ottoman Empire. And, as you know, the Ottoman Empire was founded in 1299, so breeding tulips was in an “advanced” stage in the 13-th century, I could say. And the Tulip era or Lale Devri (in Turkish) is the era when the Ottoman Empire was the wealthiest.

So, how did tulips get to Europe? That’s a really good question and, while there is not the exact date and explanation, there are some theories based on the records, which probably describe tulips or their ancestors, I guess. The most widely accepted story is about an ambassador for Emperor Ferdinand the 1-st, Holy Roman Emperor to Turkey. It was Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq and according to his letter, he saw “an abundance of flowers everywhere; Narcissus, hyacinths and those in Turkish called Lale, much to our astonishment because it was almost midwinter, a season unfriendly to flowers. ” And that was all in the 16-th century. So he sent the first tulip bulbs and seeds to Vienna in 1554 from the Ottoman Empire and soon the bulbs were also distributed from Vienna to Augsburg, Antwerp and Amsterdam. Now, here’s my favourite part; there is even a year that is a tulip year in the Netherlands, I could say. 1594 is considered the year, when tulips first flowered in the Netherlands. But there are reports, which state, that tulips cultivation in Antwerp and Amsterdam had started two or three decades earlier than that. But it was in private gardens, and so, that was not for everybody, I guess, I mean, for the ordinary people. And when in 1592 Carolus Clusius finished his first major work on tulips, he planted a teaching garden and his private garden, too, with tulips. He was a faculty member at the University of Leiden, if you’re interested.

Soon tulips became so popular, that merchants got high profits from selling them. And then was the tulip mania, when prices for bulbs reached a peak and were extremely high for a period of time and them went to slump. Its peak was in March 1637, when a single tulip cost so much, that it was more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. There are even some paintings describing the madness and stupidity of people, well, nobles in particular, who could give everything just to buy those tulip bulbs. And there was this Semper Augustus, which is famous for being the most expensive tulip ever sold during this tulip mania.

Tulips in the Netherlands

If you are visiting the Netherlands, and you will arrive at the Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, it’s really easy to take a chance and visit a very beautiful garden of flowers _ Keukenhof, which means “kitchen garden” in Dutch and is also known as the Garden of Europe. It is one of the largest flower gardens in the world. It’s situated in Lisse in an area called Duin- en Bollenstreek, which means “Dune and Bulb Region” and you can take a bus or something from the airport itself and just go there and see many different flowers and there are different sections of different flowers, etc. This year, it’s scheduled to be open from 24 March to 16 May. And the Flower Parade will be held on 23-rd of April, 2016.

And if you are in the Netherlands in January, stay up for the Nationale Tulpendag (National Tulip Day). Just get yourself on the Dam Square and be amazed. The event is held from the very morning and many people go there. There you will find the whole square covered with tulips. It’s not so long that this tradition has been established. This has been since 2012 and there are 200, 000 tulips on Dam square on that day. In the morning you can just look at the tulips and in the afternoon you can pick the tulips for free! So, just don’t miss the chance of getting those Dutch tulips for yourself! The tulips are from North Holland!

It’s very interesting, that the tulip was a symbol of paradise on earth in Turkish culture, it was kind of divine, and in the Netherlands, however, it represented the briefness of life.

How I managed to buy tulip bulbs

So, I want to tell you a story of how I got the tulip bulbs in the Netherlands. You may think, how can it be interesting, as the Netherlands is full of tulip bulbs. Well, guess what, you’re wrong. This is not a complaint or anything, it’s just a story, and I want to share it with you, so that when you visit the Netherlands and if you want to get some tulip bulbs from there, this won’t happen to you, too.

As you already know, I was staying in Ommen, somewhere in the north-eastern part of the Netherlands, and it’s a town, not a city or something to have all these souvenir shops everywhere in every corner and stuff like that. And in this very particular town, people don’t usually go outside after 7 p. m. I guess, and on weekends everything is just closed! Well, not everything, and maybe you can find just one shop that is open there, but that means that almost everything else is closed.

One day, I remember, it was a great evening, well, almost nightfall, it was 9 p. m. and I went to look around the town at night and to buy some things for family members, some souvenirs or whatever would be nice and suitable. There were not any people outside. Okay, well, I thought, when I crossed the bridge and got to the center of the town there would be some people there. But no! there weren’t any. I just saw a lady in a hurry, probably going home. And there were two guys on their bikes just riding around, having fun, I guess. That was it! No soul on earth.

I walked around the town center hoping to find any supermarket open, because here in Georgia every big grocery store is open at 9 p. m. Even the pharmacy was closed. Then I saw a lady coming out of a house, probably going home or to hang out with friends in a pub or something. And I asked her if I could find any open supermarkets around the town. She was surprised at first and told me there weren’t any of them open at that time. Then, maybe she thought I was hungry or something and that’s why I wanted to find a supermarket, and asked if she could help me with anything. Well, I told her that I hoped to go shopping for some souvenirs and she was like “oh, well, there’s nothing open here. Maybe if you go to Zwolle there might be some shops open. ” Going to Zwolle? That was like 30 kilometres distance (about 20 miles) and I was supposed to go there by train _ that’s approximately 15 minutes and it would cost something like 6 euros, I guess. Well, no, thanks! And I wouldn’t even be sure whether any shops or supermarkets were open at that time even in Zwolle. So, I thought: okay, tomorrow’s a new day, people will come out and everything will be open and I’ll just shop around then. So, remember guys, never hope to go shopping in Ommen on weekends!

I remember, it was a Sunday evening and I just wanted to find some tulip bulbs somewhere, as the next day was Monday, obviously, and when I asked around, they said, that shops would open on Monday after 10, maybe 11 a. m. Can you imagine that? It was a shock for me, as we planned to leave Ommen early on Monday. So, I was desperate to buy some tulip bulbs, but in vain. I couldn’t find any shop open and there was no trace of tulip bulbs anywhere.

Then I went to some café and asked for some information about tulips and shops and anything that could help me and some waitress there told me all these things about shops being closed on weekends and not opening until at least 10 a. m. on Monday. Well, that was a bust! Then she suggested to have a look at a shop nearby at a petrol station, because it usually closed up late. And I hurried there. And to my surprise, it was open. Okay, well, it was one thing that it was open and another thing was whether they had what I wanted or not. Well, I found it some kind of a miracle to see there this large packs of tulip bulbs. Although, there were just two kinds of tulip bulbs there, and each of them cost 15 euros, if I remember it correctly, I didn’t mind that at all. I found what I had been looking for and I was ready to take them. Also, they were all wrapped in such a lovely way, just like they were prepared to be gifted to someone, that you really couldn’t resist not buying them. So I bought both of them and went to Olde Vechte with pride and happiness that in the end I did get the tulips.

After that, things changed and I decided to go to Amsterdam and stay there for some days, as my friends were staying, too. So it was no problem getting other tulip bulbs there. And there were many tulip bulbs in Amsterdam, I can say that. You would see souvenir shops almost in every corner, where tulip bulbs were sold, too. And there were plenty of them. All in different shapes and sizes and different kinds… You would want to buy them all and have them in your yard so that you could have your own little Holland in your garden. Remember, I told you about that tulip, the one that was the most expensive one sold during tulip mania? Well, I saw that one in a shop and bought it at once. So, now I had three kinds of tulips and despite the fact that I wanted more to take home with me, I couldn’t, because, first of all, my luggage would fill with them, and secondly, it would be really heavy and I wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So, what happened to all those tulips I bought in the Netherlands, you might ask. Well, I can say, that they blossomed pretty well and they were really beautiful. I was very excited, and all the people, too, whom I gave the bulbs. That was an amazing feeling to see something I had brought bloom in such grace. It was really worth everything!

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