Day 4: St. Petersburg

This morning, Igor picked us up from the hotel at 4:45 am and took us to the train station. We were taking the Sapsan train, a high speed electric train that travels the route from Moscow to St. Petersburg in about 4 hours. Igor took good care of us and escorted us all the way to our seats on the train.

When we arrived in St. Petersburg, Nina met us and drove us to the botanical garden, or the Botanical Garden of the V.L. Komarov Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is also known as the botanical garden of Peter the Great and is one of the oldest botanical gardens in Russia. Founded in 1714 by the order of Peter the Great as the Apothecary's Garden. Regular expeditions to various parts of the world have resulted in significant plant collections.

Today, we were going to participate in a large conference at the garden this week, the International Conference of Young Professionals. There were many concurrent sessions going on with talks on all sorts of projects in botanical science. Our track focused on botanical garden management, marketing, and education.

After the sessions in our track were over, we had a late lunch with a few of the staff from the botanical garden and then took a tour of the woody plant collections. We were led by Gennady, the garden's dendrologist, who knew the name and exact source of pretty much every plant in the collection. The diversity and comprehensiveness of the collections was incredible, and with the fall color settling in and the sun setting, it made for gorgeous, enlightening, albeit cold, tour.

Gennady talking about Magnolia obovata, from the Kurile Islands

A portion of the rock garden, still full of color

In other words, "donors". Interesting translation.

Jim standing next to a very old (200+ years) Malus mandshurica

Gorgeous catkins on a Carpinus sp.

After our tour, we headed to our hotel which is conveniently located right across the street from the botanical garden. After we checked in, we went for dinner and Nina picked us up for a quick tour of the city at night. Even in darkness, it was spectacular. We will see more of the city in the coming days.

St. Isaac's Cathedral