St Petersburg University launches a virtual tour of the University Herbarium
The online tour includes : the collection of a unique herbarium with a 200-year history; the greenhouse of the Botanical Garden; and a collection of 19th-century botanical models.
The Herbarium of St Petersburg University is the oldest in Russia. The first collection appeared at the University in 1823. The interiors of the richest botanical collection have remained practically unchanged since the day of its foundation. Ancient herbarium cabinets keep unique collections, which contain at least 800,000 herbarium sheets of higher plants.
The online tour continues in the greenhouse of the University’s Botanical Garden, which is adjacent to the premises of the Herbarium. This is the implementation of the idea of Andrey Beketov, who was a great Russian botanist. He took part in the design of the building and believed that the Department of Botany should be located next to the Botanical Garden and form a single complex with it. Greenhouse plants are still an essential illustrative material for classes with students.
The list of objects of the new virtual tour includes a unique collection of 19th century botanical models by the Brendel company, founded by Robert Brendel in 1866 in Germany. The University acquired demonstration models back in 1897, and some of them are still used in the classroom.
Text information and photographs that accompany the tour will help visitors to get a good glimpse of every object in the Herbarium.
Visitors will also see in detail the restored spiral cast iron staircase with dragons that leads to the second floor.
For reference: St Petersburg University has launched clickable tours of: the Modern Sculpture Park; the Twelve Collegia building; the University building on 22nd Line of Vasilyevsky Island; the Mendeleev Museum; the Vladimir Nabokov Museum; the Kelch mansion; the places of Alexander Blok at St Petersburg University; and the Bobrinsky Palace.