Peter the Great Botanical Garden

The Peter the Great Botanical Garden operates within the structure of the Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and occupies a plot on Aptekarsky Island between the Bolshaya Nevka and Karpovka rivers — it is one of the oldest botanical institutions in the country.

It began as the Apothecary's Garden, laid out on the order of Peter I for growing medicinal herbs shortly after the capital was moved to the Neva; the exact date of its founding is unknown, as the documents were destroyed in a fire in 1737. In 1735 the garden was renamed the Medical Garden and entrusted to the German botanist Johann Siegesbeck, under whom scientific observations began and a hothouse for heat-loving plants was built. Under Catherine II the grounds expanded to nearly 640 by 425 metres, and in 1798 the institution took the name Botanical Garden. In 1830, by order of Nicholas I, the garden was removed from police jurisdiction and placed under the court's patronage, and in 1863 Alexander II transferred it to the Ministry of State Domains. For its 150th anniversary in 1873 the garden sent an expert to the World's Fair in Vienna. The institution took the name of Peter the Great in 1913, to mark its bicentenary.

After the revolution the garden was given the hothouses of the former imperial residences, and in 1931 a merger with the Botanical Museum formed the institute as it exists today. The Siege of Leningrad was a severe trial: about fifty incendiary bombs and dozens of shells fell on the grounds, and the largest explosion, in November 1941, shattered the windows of several buildings, including the Great Palm House. Amid the frosts only around 250 plants could be saved — seedlings and cacti that staff kept at home or gathered in the garden's one heated greenhouse; the horticulturist Nikolai Kurnakov kept part of the cactus collection in his own flat. After the victory the garden was restored, and its director, Sokolov, successfully defended the institution against an attempt by the Academy of Sciences president Sergei Vavilov to have it closed.

Today the greenhouse complex comprises 28 buildings covering roughly a hectare, and the walking route through them stretches almost a kilometre; two rings of greenhouses were built in 1823–1826 to a design by Friedrich Fischer. The collections include more than 12,500 plant taxa. The park's grounds are divided into 145 plots: the eastern part is laid out in formal avenues, the western in landscape style; here are rockeries, a rose garden founded in 1950 by Professor Semyon Saakov, a garden of continuous flowering, and a Japanese garden. The arboretum contains several hundred species of trees native to the local flora. The garden also has a museum, founded in 1823, whose collections were assembled by Fischer, Przhevalsky, Maximowicz and Komarov.