Day 3: Moscow Main Botanical Garden

Today we headed to Moscow Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences which was a short walk from our hotel. On the agenda today was a workshop arranged by Igor and Nikita on the "Management of Living Collections and Nurseries in Botanical Gardens". Andrew, Jim, and I spoke, as well as Mikhail Romanov, Yulia Vinogradova, Zarema Smirnova, and Igor Smirnov. You can view the program here: https://sites.google.com/site/botanicalexchangeprogram/workshop_moscow_2015

The workshop was successful with more than 50 attendees. Simultaneous interpreting was provided, which made it much easier to understand and interact with our Russian colleagues. The talks were all very interesting, and it was apparent that the exchange program had made an impact in several areas, new ideas were exchanged, and there was promise of collaborating on new projects in the future.

After the workshop, we were led on a tour of the tropical and subtropical collections by Mikhail Romanov. The plant collections were over the top, and included large collections of orchids, cycads, rhododendrons, conifers, cacti and succulents, aloes, begonias, selaginellas…ok, pretty much everything. It was hard to keep walking at times because you wanted to stop and look for a while, but there was so much to see! On top of the amazing collections is a new, state of the art glasshouse which covers several acres. Construction started about 20 years ago but stopped until relatively recently. It is now set to finally open in the next year. It is an amazing place! 

The subtropical house, in the process of being planted

The begonia collection

Some plants still have handwritten labels

Just a small part of the cactus collection;
these labels are computer generated on clear plastic.

An interesting rhododendron sp. (sorry, I forgot the species)

After the tour, we went for an early dinner and then back to the hotel. We are taking a train to St. Petersburg at 5:30 am, which means we need to leave the hotel at 4:45 am, which means we need to get up at....really early!