8  hours

Starting point of the tour: st.m. Prospect Mira, Prospect Mira, 26

10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Price from 200 rub.

In the center of Moscow is located "Pharmaceutical Garden" - a cozy islet of nature in the concrete walls of the metropolis. A huge collection of flowers has been collected in the greenhouses of the Pharmaceutical Garden. Overseas plants bloom here even in winter frosts, and the warm season, the main flowering period of most plants, the garden is unusually beautiful. The Pharmaceutical Garden is open year round. About three hundred thousand people visit it annually. This place is suitable for people with limited mobility, but it is recommended that you visit the garden in the presence of an attendant.

Today the Pharmacy Garden is a branch of the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University, but it was founded by order of Peter the Great in the 18th century, which makes it the oldest botanical garden in Russia. The Tsar ordered to collect in one place all the medicinal plants that were previously grown in the Kremlin. The garden was set up on the then outskirts of Moscow, behind the Sukharev Tower. The ancient brickwork of the greenhouses, the pond and larch, planted by Peter the Great, have survived to this day.

Those who are visiting the Pharmacy Garden for the first time should join a sightseeing tour. It allows beginners to get acquainted with the device of the garden. The guide will also tell you which plants can be touched and which cannot. The tour route is selected based on the composition of the group. Wheelchairs can explore the open part of the garden, the rest can visit the second floor and view the collection of succulents.

In every season, the garden takes on a unique look. In spring, it is full of tulip and snowdrop carpets, water lilies bloom in summer, chrysanthemums bloom in autumn, and the leaves on the trees turn yellow and red. In winter, deciduous trees stand bare, and conifers are decorated with snow caps.

In the arboretum there are flower beds, flowering shrubs and trees: sakura, magnolia, rhododendrons. On the Heather Hill, plants of the heather family grow: heather, erica, lingonberry. In the open part of the garden is the Mirror Canal - an old pond where fish and turtles live in the warm season. It is rich in aquatic and near-water plants. Also there lives a family of ducks-ogare (red ducks), each year giving offspring.

Right behind it is a coniferous hill, where evergreens are planted. In the summer they are easily overlooked in the general riot of colors, but in the winter they are very popular. Parallel to the pond there is an alley of climbing plants with a canopy perlog. In the warm season it is very beautiful here, you can walk under a canopy and admire the outlandish plants, among which there is the well-known kirkazon liana, whose flowers prey on flies. Around the Italian well is a garden of medicinal herbs with benches for relaxation. Previously, this part of the garden was equipped by foreign botanists, but now it is looked after by employees of the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University.

The palm greenhouse of the Pharmaceutical Garden is more than one and a half hundred years old, and the age of some exhibits has exceeded two hundred. Tropical palm trees and flowers grow here, which can be seen at any time of the year. Despite the fact that the greenhouse was rebuilt, part of the old masonry was preserved for demonstration to tourists. The main branch of the greenhouse is a tropical forest full of palm trees, ficuses, vines, all kinds of shrubs and epiphytes - plants growing on other plants.

When visiting the tour, you need to take into account that the toilet is in the basement and is not accessible to people with limited mobility.

There is no change of seasons, the maintained temperature and humidity allows even the most capricious plants to grow: begonias, ferns, orchids. There are also plants whose fruits are eaten: avocados, bananas, coffee, cocoa, pineapples. Nearby is a curious exposition of carnivorous plants - flycatchers, papillaria, sundews.

On the second floor there is a desert office with a different climate. It is cool in winter and hot in summer, which corresponds to the seasonality of tropical deserts. On this floor, visitors can see cacti, aloe, agave and other desert inhabitants.

On the territory of the “Pharmaceutical Garden” flower exhibitions are regularly held and a pottery master class is open. In the palm greenhouse there is also a stage where actors from Moscow theaters periodically give performances: the Vakhtangov Theater, the Maly Theater, the Theater of Nations, the Commonwealth of Artists on Taganka and the Sphere theater.

In the master class in pottery from the "Club of lovers of pottery" everyone can participate, except for wheelchairs.