Symyrenko, Platon

Symyrenko, Platon [Симиренко, Платон], b 2 January 1821 in Smila, Cherkasy county, Kyiv gubernia, d 26 January 1863. Industrialist and philanthropist of the Symyrenko family; son of Fedir Symyrenko, brother of Vasyl Symyrenko, and father of Lev Symyrenko. He studied manufacturing and sugar refining in Paris in the early 1840s. When he returned to Ukraine, he helped direct his family’s sugar refining and other business activities. In 1856 he established an orchard near Mliiv, in Kyiv gubernia. There he developed new strains of fruit trees, especially apple trees, some of which gained great popularity throughout Ukraine; his son, Lev Symyrenko, developed the orchard into one of the most important orchards and nurseries in the Russian Empire (now the Mliiv Orcharding Research Station). Symyrenko was a friend of Taras Shevchenko and helped fund the publication of his Kobzar. He was a generous donor to various Ukrainian cultural projects.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]