Kievlyanka Tomato Review & Photos: A Massive Pink Plum

A very productive variety. The fruits are meaty and delicious. Interesting shape, too.

A really great variety, seeds from Redko. It kind of takes a while to get going. Early in the season, it’s nothing special. But then it starts pumping out large, delicious tomatoes.

Galiy wrote:
A really great variety, seeds from Redko. It kind of takes a while to get going. Early in the season, it’s nothing special. But then it starts pumping out large, delicious tomatoes.

Galya, I completely agree with you. 🙂 At first, it’s just doing nothing, and then towards the end of July it finally started setting large fruits higher up on the vine. For me, that means it’s a late variety, maybe I should start the seeds earlier next time? Though I can’t really say it was super productive for me.

o-lya-lya wrote:
Galya, I completely agree with you. 🙂 At first, it’s just doing nothing, and then towards the end of July it finally started setting large fruits higher up on the vine. For me, that means it’s a late variety, maybe I should start the seeds earlier next time? Though I can’t really say it was super productive for me.

Olya, with Kievlyanka I realized one thing: it will produce fruit exactly when it feels like it. I was about ready to pull the vine out, and the very next week it gave me gorgeous fruits. You have to grow Kievlyanka for the soul, not just for the yield. Just my two cents.

Edited September 25, 2014 by Galiy

Galiy wrote:
Olya, with Kievlyanka I realized one thing: it will produce fruit exactly when it feels like it. I was about ready to pull the vine out, and the very next week it gave me gorgeous fruits. You have to grow Kievlyanka for the soul, not just for the yield. Just my two cents.

Again, Galya, I agree. I wanted to yank it too, and boom, surprise! 😀 The fruits are so incredibly beautiful!

My Kievlyanka is from Red’ko. It’s one of my absolute favorites: productive, tasty, and the fruit shape is just lovely.

My Kievlyanka came from Nadezhda Berezhnova, and I absolutely loved it!

Semechka wrote:
My Kievlyanka came from Nadezhda Berezhnova, and I absolutely loved it!

Svetlana, my Kievlyanka was very late. How about yours?

Elfiya wrote:
Svetlana, my Kievlyanka was very late. How about yours?

Elya, yes, you definitely can’t call this variety early. I’d classify it as mid-late. My first red tomato was picked around July 20th.
The fruiting and ripening periods are very extended.

One of my absolute all-time favorites!!! I’ve grown it two years in a row and have no plans to stop. For me, it is soooo delicious. I’d say it has two main flushes of production: late July and early September. I’ll attach a photo later if I can find one.

I liked this variety. Grew it in the greenhouse pruned to 2 stems, mid-season for me. Heavy yielder, set fruit well. Large, oval, pink, meaty fruits up to 16 oz (450 g) all the way up the plant. I don’t really remember the taste, honestly, by that time I was already sick of eating tomatoes and was tossing everything into canning pots. 😀

2015 Season:

A good, productive variety. The taste was average for me, a bit dry inside. Good for paste and drying, but for fresh eating, I prefer juicier types. The fruits were all large and there were plenty of them. Seeds from Svetikk.

Overall, I liked the variety. A solid candidate to grow again next season. 🙂

Edited August 20, 2015 by trofi

I liked this one. It has an unusual fruit shape and keeps setting large beauties right until the end of the season. Thanks to Svetlana (Semechka) for the seeds!

Edited August 12, 2016 by Drosera

I enjoyed this variety. You can get up to 6 fruits on a truss, and if it only sets 2 or 3, they grow massive. It keeps producing right up until frost. The first ones started ripening in late July/early August. Meaty and on the sweet side. This was towards the end of the season.

Edited September 30, 2015 by Lana_s_Kavkaza

I ordered mine from Redko. The description from my spreadsheet says: mid-late, plum shape, large 7 oz (200 g), productive, red. I grew it in the greenhouse. It was supposed to be my number one variety for excellent yield, fruit size, and flavor.

But my plant had such thin, spindly vines that absolutely could not support the weight of the fruit. Plus, they grew at a sharp angle. The branches snapped almost as soon as the fruits started filling out. I got tired of tying them up, and tying the main truss is useless, you basically have to support every single tomato individually.

When they started ripening, they had this blocky, unimpressive shape, almost like a plum with a small beak. I didn’t like how they looked at all. But the taste! Don’t let the somewhat hollow look fool you, it is extremely juicy, meaty, and melt-in-the-mouth delicious. Just fantastic flavor.

In mid-summer, it dropped some blossoms and skipped trusses (like many of my varieties did, probably bad weather or poor ventilation). But by the end of the season, it kicked into high gear again. The last photo was taken in late September. It grew very tall, hitting the greenhouse roof. Set fruit early, but took a long time to ripen. Stores decently well, too.

So Kievlyanka is definitely plum-heart shaped or oval, sometimes with a little beak and sometimes without, right on the same plant. Looking at the forum photos, that’s how it is for most folks. My seeds were from Redko.

A seed randomly sneaked into my mix, and I am so happy it did! This variety is an absolute workhorse, sets fruit all the way up the vine (I’ve already had to lower the plant twice). The fruits are all large and tasty. It’s one of the few varieties this summer that basically didn’t drop a single blossom, despite nearly 100% humidity and crazy temperature swings. I had read about it before but never paid much attention. What a champion!

kalinka-malinka wrote:
When they started ripening, they had this blocky, unimpressive shape, almost like a plum with a small beak…

I really don’t think that’s Kievlyanka… Or at least, mine is completely different! The plants are vigorous, the stems are super thick, and the fruits are massive plums without any beak, painted in a pale pink color. Oh, and it cracks heavily at the stem, which is my one minor complaint. The flesh is dense, sweetish, with a watermelon-like texture. Pani Tomat’s photo looks very much like mine, just a bit lighter in color. 😉

Ninulia wrote:
I really don’t think that’s Kievlyanka… Or at least, mine is completely different! The plants are vigorous, the stems are super thick, and the fruits are massive plums without any beak…

I’m confident it’s Kievlyanka. Last year, towards autumn, a lot of my different varieties suddenly developed pronounced beaks. I have no idea why. So the beak probably isn’t a strict indicator. Mine also cracks, and it’s pale too, kae-2’s photo captures the color perfectly. And the shape matches cat2008’s. I’d call its shape a “little tumbler” or a “cube” now, an elongated, slightly ribbed, large fruit.

I really liked Kievlyanka. The vine was loaded from top to bottom with heavy fruits, basically didn’t skip a single truss. The tomatoes taste excellent, sweet, tender, with sugary flesh. Grew to about 6.5 ft (2 m) tall in the greenhouse, and the yield was fantastic.

People really praise this variety. Pink fruits. For me, it didn’t really show its potential. The yield was below average. I’ll keep it for the beautiful fruits though, they didn’t crack at all. The plant did get sick.

Svetikk wrote:
I don’t really remember the taste…

Sveta, well I remember it! 🙂 Very good flavor. Rich, aromatic. The taste of real, true tomatoes. Just a classic, overall. Grew them from your seeds, thank you!

I really love this shape, heavy, massive pink bombs up to 14 oz (400 g). Definitely growing this one again in the future.