In 1714 Peter the Great ordered to lay out on the bank of the Karpovka River the Aptekarsky ogorod (pharmaceutical garden) - a nursery where different herbs would be cultivated. It was the second botanical garden in Russia: the first garden "for the growing of useful, curious and foreign plants" had been founded by Peter the Great few years earlier in Moscow. By the middle of the 18th century about 300 plant species had been cultivated in the Aptekarsky ogorod, after drying and certain processing they went on sale to drugstores of Saint Petersburg.
In 1735 the Aptekarsky ogorod was renamed Medical garden. Since then not only herbs but ornamental plants were grown there as well. For heat-loving plants hothouses were constructed.
With the development of medicine and appearing of new medicaments, a need for herbs was coming down. Much more attention was paid to scientific research: herbariums were collected, botany that became an independent branch of science in the beginning of the 19th century was taught, plants were classified. In the beginning of the 19th century the garden was relieved the responsibility of growing herbs. It was renamed Botanical and in 1832 got the title Imperial.
On the bases of the Imperial Botanical Garden in the Soviet years the Botanical Garden and the Institute of Academy of Science of USSR were formed. In 1941 the Institute was named after V.L.Komarov, the president of the Academy of Science in 1936 - 1945.
Nowadays the Botanical Institute continues collecting and preserving of specimens of the vegetable world that were started under Peter the Great. The result of three centuries long work is an outstanding collection unmatched in Russia and one of the three biggest in the world. The Botanical Museum stocks about 7,000,000 herbariums, rich collections of wood, seeds and fruits, botanic-economic and palaeobotanical collections.
The only Botanical Museum in the country treasures collections formed by famous Russian travelers and scientists, among them - N.M.Przhevalsky, P.K.Kozlov, G.N.Potanin, V.I.Roborovsky, V.L.Komarov and others.
Nowadays there are several permanent exhibitions in the museum: The Flora of the Earth, The History and Evolution of Plants, The Plant Resources of Russia, Plants and Human Beings.
The hothouses, occupying the territory of 1 hectare, familiarizes with the flora of tropical and subtropical forests, savanna and deserts. In any season the visitors can admire exotic heat-loving plants. The majority of the hothouses were built in the last century, that's why many of them need repairing. In 1997 the wide-scale reconstruction works were started in the Botanical garden and they are still on.
In one of the hothouses there is a pool with a diameter of 12 meters. Every summer and autumn a gigantic water-lily blossom out. Its leaves can be 2 meters wide and carry 60 kg.
On the territory of 16 hectares the park-arboretum, laid down in the 18th century, represents the flora of different regions of Russia and countries of Europe, Asia and Northern America.
On the whole, in the hothouses and park of the Botanical garden there are 12,000 species of plants, representing practically all the regions on the Earth.