Carolyn,
there are at least 2 different ways to spell one Cyrillic word in English with Latin letters. Germans use the same Latin letters but spell Cyrillic letters differently so you will get at least another 2 ways of spelling from Russian to German. That's why Reinhard and Mannfred have so many varieties from former Soviet Union countries but with the special German kind of spelling, for example.

As for Ephiopea and Ephiopeans as one the most known black for Soviets I see it under education exchange prism. There is a well-known University in Moscow called Peoples' Friendship Univercity of Russia ([URL]http://www.pfu.edu.ru/en/[/URL]). They have been giving a great education with a wide professional scale to so many foreign students (especially from Africa). So I think there were a plenty of Ethiopeans there and Soviet people associate blacks with Ethiopeans much even if they usually have mild black skin ;)

[QUOTE=Andrey_BY;90047]Carolyn :D ,

actually Ethiopia as well as some other countries with Communist party regimes have been never occupated by Soviet Union Army. Their goverment just asked USSR to help with weapons, Army technicians and sometimes Soviet and foreign Communist leaders made decision like Soviet soldiers had to dislocate in such countries like Ethiopia, Cuba and many countries of former Warsaw Pact countries. The same way USA are still having military bases in many countries ;) And I highly doubt any Soviet soldiers/officers thought about bringing any vegetable seeds with them and grow them there :D You don't know Soviet Army ;)
We (my parent's family) haveve spent 3,5 years in Eastern Germany as a part of Soviet Army forces there (and my wife's parents had been to Cuba that way) and I must admit nobody from our neighboors think about vegetable gardening or seeds that times... :no:[/QUOTE]
Well, in 1990, when I first visited Vietnam, I saw a Soviet aircraft on the runway, with dozens of Soviet women disembarking. A Vietnamese official told me it was a visit of wives to their husbands stationed in Vietnam. Many of them carried bags of food and even vegetables, no doubt requested by their husbands. It makes sense to me that some of them carried seeds with them that could be turned into gardens for the benefit of the men.

I imagine the same applies to tomato varieties, now considered heirlooms in their adopted country, whose origin actually is the United States, but carried back by exchange students, naturalized U.S. citizens visiting their relatives, or via some other means of transport from the U.S. to the adoptive country.

Also, I wonder about the true origin of "black" tomatoes supposedly native to the U.S., yet sharing the same [I]gf [/I]genes with "black" tomatoes supposedly native to the former USSR, France, and the Philippines.

[QUOTE=travis;263425]I imagine the same applies to tomato varieties, now considered heirlooms in their adopted country, whose origin actually is the United States, but carried back by exchange students, naturalized U.S. citizens visiting their relatives, or via some other means of transport from the U.S. to the adoptive country.

Also, I wonder about the true origin of "black" tomatoes supposedly native to the U.S., yet sharing the same [I]gf [/I]genes with "black" tomatoes supposedly native to the former USSR, France, and the Philippines.[/QUOTE]

I keep forgetting to post here but my former student Tadesse Wuhib, who was from Ethiopia said that there were permanent camps, or the like, where the Russians did live and did have gardens so I still think that Black Ethiopian was from the former USSR and named by someone Black Ethiopian.

[URL]http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Black_Ethiopian[/URL]

.. from the Ukraine as documented above.

And speaking to the issues that Travis just raised I find the following thread from GW to be very interesting on a number of fronts:

[URL]http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg042317529042.html?13[/URL]

Scroll down to the post by Mulio on April 21 and look at the assigmnet of gf alles and the comments that go with the interpretations.

Travis, despite what's been written about the origin of the so called blacks I still feel that the true origin was not the US, although yes, we know there were some around, especially after reading the thread here in the Legacy Forum about True Black Brandywine as introduced by Will Weaver, I still feel that it was the other way around, that is, so called blacks coming from especially the Crimea area of the former USSR.

Can I prove it? Well no one else can so I guess I'm entitled to my own opinion.;)

Is there any chance that black tomatoes were originally a mutation? Could that mutation have occurred more than once, causing the origin of black tomatoes to be more than one country? Unlikely, but just a thought.
It does seem that more than a few black tomatoes originate from the Eastern European countries, and with the number if immigrants that came from there to the US in the late 1800s to Eary 1900s it seems to make sense that somebody simply brought seeds with them, bringing the black tomatoes to the US, from which the black gene was added to the US tomato gene pool.

[QUOTE=Tracydr;264954]Is there any chance that black tomatoes were originally a mutation? Could that mutation have occurred more than once, causing the origin of black tomatoes to be more than one country? Unlikely, but just a thought.
It does seem that more than a few black tomatoes originate from the Eastern European countries, and with the number if immigrants that came from there to the US in the late 1800s to Eary 1900s it seems to make sense that somebody simply brought seeds with them, bringing the black tomatoes to the US, from which the black gene was added to the US tomato gene pool.[/QUOTE]

For sure the gf alleles could have been a mutation, for almost all new varieties arise either by an initial X pollination and dehybridization or a mutation, either a seed DNA mutation or one in a plant cell, called a somatic mutation.

From origin analysis, mainly from histories given for specific varieties it appears that the gold/red bicolors originated in Germany or near by and were brought the US via immigrants for that area.

We have no information as to what was grown in the Eastern European countries in the mid 1800's to the late 1800s when so many immigrants did come to the US. All we know as to possible origins was the analysis of gf alles in the link from GW that I provided above.

Absolutely fascinating...

[QUOTE=Tania;90280]Carolyn,

This may have happened because not many other 'black' nations were widely known to 'general' Soviet public... And also because the Ethiopian culture is so interesting and unique. I remember as a kid I was watching a weekly program on TV back in Russia that was called something like 'The Club of Cameramen Travellers' where they were showing other countries. I am sure that there was a list of countries that were allowed to be shown on Soviet TV, and Ethiopia was one of them. Anyway, interestingly enough I remember watching one of these programs where Ethiopia was a main topic; I don't remember any other countries being shown - probably because it was a long time ago and I forgot... but Ethiopia and ethiopian people and culture got embedded in my brain. I think that was back in the mid or late 1970s...

Sorry for a long rumbling about a distant past...[/QUOTE]

All of this is so interesting and nice to know about my favorite tomato (and it is my favorite, just love orb