The Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden, also known as the Botanic Gardens of the Komarov Botanical Institute, is the oldest botanical garden in Russia. It consists of outdoor and indoor collections situated on Aptekarsky Island in Saint Petersburg and belongs to the Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The garden was founded by Peter the Great in 1714 as a herb garden in order to grow medicinal plants and re-established as a botanical institution under the name Imperial Botanical Garden in 1823. Ivan Lepyokhin was in charge of the botanical garden from 1774 until 1802. Beginning in 1855, Eduard August von Regel was associated with the garden, first as Scientific Director and then as Director General (1875-1892). Regel had a particular fascination with the genus Allium, overseeing collections of these plants in the Russian Far East and writing about them in two monographs. More than 60 of the alliums he identified bear his name, e.g., A. giganteum Regel and A. rosenbahianum Regel. Many alliums can be viewed in the Northern Yard of the garden.
In 1930 the garden became subordinate to the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union and in 1931 was merged with the Botanical Museum into the Botanical Institute.
References:Visby Cathedral (also known as St. Mary’s Church) is the only survived medieval church in Visby. It was originally built for German merchants and inaugurated in 1225. Around the year 1350 the church was enlarged and converted into a basilica. The two-storey magazine was also added then above the nave as a warehouse for merchants.
Following the Reformation, the church was transformed into a parish church for the town of Visby. All other churches were abandoned. Shortly after the Reformation, in 1572, Gotland was made into its own Diocese, and the church designated its cathedral.
There is not much left of the original interior. The font is made of local red marble in the 13th century. The pulpit was made in Lübeck in 1684. There are 400 graves under the church floor.