In 1828, Nicholas I sold for a pittance (8 kopecks per 1 ha) to the German Duke Ferdinand Friedrich of Anhalt-Ketgensky, the representative of the German currency Askani, to create a sheep-breeding colony of the Duchy of Anhalt-Köthen. The royal decree of March 1, 1828 stated.
In 1841, the landowner named the area "Askania-Nova" after his family name Askania.
After the death of the Duke of Anhalt-Köthen, Askania-Nova was sold to the Falz-Fein family in 1856. Friedrich Falz-Fein is found on its territory of the reserve. His deputy was Kliment Evdokimovich Siyanko, later the next title of Hero of Labor. In 1910, a zoo station was organized here, in 1916 a department of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy for sheep breeding was opened. A museum and a scientific library were also created there. On April 25, 1914, the name of Friedrich Falz-Fein became Nicholas II, who at that time lived in Livadia. The result of this trip for F. E. Falz-Fein was to raise him and all his musicians to the hereditary nobility, so much did the king like the zoo in Askania-Nova. Later, the king once again wanted to visit Askania, taking his son, but the war began. the invader Nicholas II enthusiastically wrote to his mother about Askania: “Different deer, goats, antelopes, wildebeest, kangaroos and ostriches live there all year round under a sunny sky on the equatorial coast and also together. An amazing impression, like a picture from a prediction, as if the beasts came out of Noah's ark.
The Ascanian Zoo was the first in the world to receive thoroughbred Przewalski's horses (12 young horses were brought here in 1889-1904) and was the first to start breeding them in captivity. The case was so successful that in the late 1970s, at the request of the Mongolian government, a small herd was sent from here to the ancestral home, in the Gobi Desert, to restore this rare species of ungulates in nature.
The reserve was devastated and burned to the ground during the Nazi occupation of the USSR. Animals were taken to Germany, the rest were shot from small arms, including the most valuable specimens. The remaining animals right in the enclosures were crushed by tanks, the survivors managed to escape into the steppe. The museum of the reserve, a collection of stuffed animals, a collection of insects were plundered, a scientific library with 25,000 volumes was burned, and a rare herbarium containing up to 1,000 plant species was destroyed. The botanical garden is completely destroyed and trampled down. On the territory of the reserve, mass executions of Soviet citizens and prisoners of war of the Red Army were carried out.
In 1952, markhors (a male and two females) were brought to Askania-Nova, which subsequently successfully acclimatized and multiplied (the first offspring was obtained in 1954).
The tomb of Falz-Fein
From 1964 to 1992, by chance, with the exception of 1976, every summer students of the Faculty of Agriculture of the Patrice Lumumba University of Friendship of Peoples (Moscow) came to Askania-Nova to practice at the Institute of Animal Husbandry. For 28 years, at least 250 people from at least 55 current countries of the world have been on summer practice in Askania. Many of them later became prominent people in their countries: ministers, ambassadors, professors, advisers to presidents, heads of agricultural enterprises, masses, journalists, translators, etc. And representatives of figures turned out to be just good in their industry. At the same time, a dozen Askanians in different years and at different faculties - especially in agriculture - studied at the UDN.
In 2008 Askania-Nova became the winner of the Seven Natural Wonders of Ukraine campaign.
In 2009, this biosphere reserve of Ukraine in the World Competition "Seven New Wonders of Nature".
The area of the reserve is 33,307.6 hectares, of which 11,054 hectares are “absolutely reserved” steppe zone, that is, a virgin territory that has never been touched by a plow. The Askanian steppe belongs to the fescue-feather grass type, it is the only virgin territory of this type in Europe. Feather grass is the most common plant in Askania-Nova, accounting for 75% of all vegetation. At least 1155 species of arthropods, 7 species of amphibians and reptiles, 18 species of mammals live in dense grasses, more than 270 species of birds fly by at different times of the year, of which 107 species remain for nesting. In addition, 478 species of higher plants grow here. The Red Book of Ukraine lists 13 species of higher plants, 3 species of fungi and 4 lichens.
On the territory of Askania-Nova, there is the Bolshoy Chapelsky Under - a unique relief depression measuring 4 by 6 km, periodically filled with melt water. It is included in the international list of the Ramsar Convention on the Protection of Wetlands.
Hydrophytes grow in the deepest part of the bottom, including the rarest species in Ukraine - Damasonium alisma Mill. (1768) - Starfruit chastukhovy. In this area, the highest indicator of the diversity of flowering plants in the reserve is registered - 368 species, including 53 endemic ones. 8 species are listed in the Red Book of Ukraine.
On the territory of the Great Chapel Pod, in conditions close to natural, wild ungulates from different continents are kept. Bison, saigas, European fallow deer, Przhevalsky's horse, Turkmen kulans, donkeys, red deer, spotted deer, moufflons, two-humped camels live here all year round. In summer, watusi, eland, kaffir buffalo, wildebeest, nilgai, zebras and gayals are released here. In autumn, a large number of migratory birds gather in the center of the hearth: different types of ducks, flocks of cranes, gray geese, sandpipers
- Greben, Leonid Kondratievich - Deputy Director for the scientific part of the Askania-Nova Reserve, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR and VASKhNIL, Hero of Socialist Labor, Honored Scientist of the Ukrainian SSR, Cavalier of St. George's weapons.
- Zavadovsky, Boris Mikhailovich
- Ivanov, Ilya Ivanovich (biologist)
- Kovarsky, Anatoly Efimovich
- Kovrizhnykh, Iraida Dmitrievna (livestock specialist)
- Medvedev, Sergey Ivanovich (30s of the XX century), one of the leading Soviet coleopterologists, specialist in taxonomy of lamellar beetles, founder of the Kharkov school of entomology;
- Milovanov, Viktor Konstantinovich
- Berezhanov, Mikhail Timofeevich (30s of the XX century), researcher of practices, created a kind of mule with sheep's wool.
- Nechaeva, Nina Trofimovna (30s of the XX century), Soviet geobotanist, desert explorer, pasture ecologist, academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Turkmen SSR;
- Stanchinsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich (30s of the XX century), one of the founders of Soviet environmental science;
- Fortunatov, Boris Konstantinovich.
- Kozlov, Pyotr Kuzmich (during the war of 1917) student of Przhevalsky, researcher of Central Asia.
- As a child, Askania-Nova was visited by the nephew of Friedrich Falz-Fein, Nikolai Nabokov, a future composer and cultural figure, a paternal cousin of the Russian and American writer Vladimir Nabokov. The Russian period of life Nikolai Nabokov described in his memoirs “Baggage. Memoirs of a Russian cosmopolitan".
- The film "An amazing story, similar to a fairy tale" was filmed in the Askania-Nova reserve.
- In the film Hobbies by Kira Muratova, a population of centaurs and elves has been preserved in Askania-Nova.
- The action of Oles Gonchar's novel "Tavria" takes place, among other things, in the Askania-Nova reserve.
- In the last years of her life, the well-known Soviet poetess of Latvian origin Mara Griezane (1950-1985) lived and worked in the reserve.
- A feature film Academician from Askania was shot about the work of the zootechnical station of the reserve. The Askania-Nova Museum has a memorial hall to them. M. F. Ivanova.
- In 1985, the reserve hosted the shooting of the Last of the Virgin Steppe series for the British documentary television series Darrell in Russia, which tells about the visit of the famous English writer and naturalist Gerald Durrell to the Soviet Union.
