Growers’ Notes and Photos (USDA Zone 5 Experience)
Description from the seed packet (seeds sourced from the St. Petersburg Organic Farming Club): M16. A cold-tolerant tall variety. Height up to 6.5 ft (2 m), fruits 10.5-17.5 oz (300-500 g), slightly elongated, meaty, firm, and red. High yielding, requires partial pruning and staking.
I grew this one in the greenhouse. The main stalk is massive, large dark green foliage, just a very rugged plant overall. Mine easily pushed past 6.5 ft (2 m) tall. Pruned it to a single stem. It didn’t drop a single blossom regardless of whether we had heatwaves or cold snaps.
The fruits are very uniform, running about 10.5 oz (300 g) each. Meaty, firm, and the taste is that classic old-school tomato flavor. I’d call it perfectly balanced. Honestly, it’s weird the seed packet didn’t mention the flavor profile at all, so I was expecting something pretty mediocre and was very pleasantly surprised. It has the perfect hit of sweetness, acidity, and aroma. Ripe tomatoes don’t turn to mush on the vine if you’re late picking them, and they seem to have a decent shelf life (though I didn’t test exactly how many days they’ll hold).
Mid-season maturity. It has a really long harvest window since the trusses ripen progressively rather than all at once. Basically, it just keeps producing until the frost takes it out.
Adding one more detail: the baby fruits start out with a little beak on the blossom end, but it completely disappears by the time they are fully ripe.
Edited January 2, 2015 by Sweet
Got this one on my grow list for this season. Planning to put some in the greenhouse and some out in the dirt so I can compare how they do.
Full Summary: Plant, Yield, Taste and Storage
- 🌿 Plant: A rugged, heavy-duty indeterminate vine that easily exceeds 6.5 ft (2 m) under glass. Very thick stalk and dense foliage. It is highly resilient against temperature fluctuations, refusing to drop blossoms during excessive heat or early cold snaps.
- 📈 Yield: Excellent. Trusses ripen progressively over a very long season, providing a steady supply of large fruits right up until the frost kills the plant.
- 👅 Taste: A beautifully balanced, old-school tomato flavor. Hits the perfect ratio of sweet and tart with a strong, classic aroma.
- 📦 Texture/Usage: The fruits are meaty, uniform red beefsteaks weighing 10.5-17.5 oz (300-500 g). They start with a distinct beak on the blossom end that fills out as they ripen. Firm enough to hold on the vine without getting mushy, making them excellent slicers with decent shelf life.
Pavel Saraev is a legendary name among Russian heirloom collectors. He was an amateur Soviet breeder obsessed with creating frost-resistant tomatoes. According to horticultural lore, he once found a single surviving tomato plant in a field of cucumbers that had been completely wiped out by an unexpected freezing frost. He saved the seeds from that sole survivor and spent decades crossing them, eventually developing dozens of incredibly cold-tolerant lines (many designated by numbers, like M16 or 0-33). Varieties bearing the “Saraev” name are highly prized by northern growers for their ability to set fruit in awful weather and survive temperatures that would instantly kill normal tomato vines.
