About us
The Park of Botanical Garden is situated in the center of large metropolis Saint Petersburg and occupies a rather small territory, bordered by rivers on two sides and surrounded by city buildings. This green oasis with its fresh dense verdure, calm straight alleys, ponds and alpine hills splendidly harmonizes with the beauty of Saint Petersburg. The Botanical Garden originates from the Pharmaceutical kitchen garden, Aptekarsky ogorod. Emperor Peter the Great founded it on an island at the mouth of the river Neva in 1714. This «Aptekarsky ogorod» was established for growing medicinal plants to supply the new capital of the Russian Empire and its army. In 1736 the director of the garden was I.-G. Sigezbek, he was the first inventory of «African and exotic plants.» Then there was a transformation of the Aptekarsky ogorod into the Medicinal-Botanical garden, which in 1823 became the Saint Petersburg Imperial Botanical Garden. At the 200th anniversary, in 1914, it was one of the world’s largest Botanical Garden and the center of botanical science, well known far beyond Russia for its comprehensive living collection, its herbarium and its collection of botanical literature. During the Second World War the pavilions and park were destroyed. At present, the territory of the whole garden together with the park-arboretum occupies 23 hectares. The modern greenhouse complex created in the middle of the 19th century has been preserved to the present day and occupies an area of about 1 hectare. This is the largest greenhouse complex in Russia. Now the greenhouse collection of living plants of the Botanical Garden of Peter the Great has more than 13.0 thousand taxa and is located in 24 greenhouses. The greenhouses are connected in a square and are convenient for excursions. Two greenhouses are designed for large plants Big Palm and Big Subtropical height of 23.5 m.
Now the Peter the Great Botanical Garden is a structure of the Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Employees of the Botanical Garden pay a lot of attention to the popularization of science and botanical knowledge. Festivals, festivals and flower exhibitions are held throughout the year. About 300,000 tourists visit its greenhouses annually.