Sugar Beet - East Germany

 

 

Beta vulgaris - Sugar, extracted from cane, was an expensive luxury for 18th century Europeans. In 1747 Andreas Marggraf, a director of the Prussian Royal Academy of Sciences,  began experiments to extract sugar from beetroots. His student Franz Archard tested several varieties to determine which yielded the highest concentrations of sugar and settled on the mangelwurzel, a variety of Beta vulgaris. Sugar made from beets accounts for almost 15% of the world’s total production.

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Lake Müritz is one of many lakes in the Mecklenburg Lake Plateau region of Eastern Germany. With an area of 112 square kilometers, it is the largest lake completely within the borders of Germany and was formed during the last ice age. The lake is fed and drained by the Elde River and is partially located in the Müritz National Park, a wildlife refuge of about 322 square kilometers. The park features extensive pine forests, marshy bogs, and over 100 other lakes exceeding one hectare in size.

Beet - Ukraine

Beta vulgaris - There are nine different species in the beta family; beta vulgaris being the most widely known. The tap root and leaves of the beet plant are edible. The leaves are usually steamed or boiled, having a taste similar to spinach. The beet root is either pickled, eaten cold as a salad or made into borscht, a soup of Ukranian origin. The juice of the root contains betanin and provides an intense reddish color; the juice of the root is used as a industrial food coloring additive.

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Belarus, Russia, and the Ukraine trace their ancestral beginnings to Kievan Rus’, a collection of eastern Slavic fiefdoms. Prince Oleg of Novgorod is regarded as the founder of Kievan Rus’. He inherited the holdings of Rurik, a Varangian chieftain. The kingdom was expanded by capturing and relocating the capital to Kiev. The Mongol invasion of the 13th century splintered Kievan Rus’. The southern section, the Ukraine, did not become fully independent for any real length of time until 1991.