Fascination of Plants Day 2015 Russia Success Story

1. Fascination of Plants Day 2015​​in Russia​– Success Story
Quick Facts
Cities​: 10
Events​: 48
Attendees​: more than 1500 people
Institutions​: 23
High Schools​: 8
Map from ​FoPD Russia website​ showing geography of events
— A lecture for first graders could be much more fun than for university students!
prof. Alexander A. Soloviev​, chair, department of Genetics, Russian State Agrarian Academy – Timiryazev
Moscow Agricultural Academy
Fascination of Plants Day is a great international initiative which aims to attract people
to plants and show everybody the importance of plants in our life and for the whole
planet. Thanks to numerous enthusiasts, including Russian Society of Plant
Physiologists, FoPD is coming to Russia second time and with greater number of
events.
Fascination of Plants Day was not widely celebrated in 2014 because it was coincident
with FESPB and EPSO congress in Dublin, Ireland. It was a pleasure to see that in

2. report of Christine Metzlaf from EPSO on FoPD 2013 almost a half of photos were
taken at events in Russia!
One year later, in May 2015 our colleagues again went to parks and gardens, forests
around, and invited school students to their labs.
Events Overview
Plants Day in Russia started even before the official date in city of Petrozavodsk,
because events are organized when it’s appropriate for guests and hosts. Dr. Evgenia
Markovskaia, head of Department of Botany and Plant Physology, and her colleagues
were leading excursions and hands­on activities for school students in Petrozavadsk
State University – more than 300 people from 15 schools in Karelia! Students met one
of the most modern herbariums in Russia which was maintained since 18th century,
received a new knowledge about medical herbs, carried out experiments with plants,
and learned more on lichens that are so abundant in Karelia.
St. Petersburg school students have picked up the baton the same day heading to
Karelian forests to hike and examine water ecosystems. Kazan Institute of Biochemistry
and Biophysics and Timiryazev Moscow Agricultural Academy invited grads to lectures
on agricultural plants and excursions to experimental plots in the centre of Russian
capital. Everyone there had chance to taste bread, porridge or pancakes made of
various kinds of wheat.

3.
Fascination of Plants Day in Petrozavodsk State University. Photo by O. Kuslis / PetrSU press service.
Workshops “What do we know about wheat?” by Valentina S. Rubets, “Flax – a plant which gives us dress” by Alexandra V.
Shitikova and Olga A. Schuklina; excursion “Agriculture and selection in the centre of Moscow” by Alexander A. Soloviev.
Fascination of Plants Day in MSAA. Photogallery of department of Genetics..

4. St. Petersburg, Pskov, Perm, and Kemerovo hosted a number of events during the
week of May 18th. There were a lot of excursions, photo and painting contests for
school pupils, and, the most important, kids planted their own trees in their school
backyard.
Fascination of Plants Day coincides with spring in the most of Russia’s territory, and
that gives a great benefit for teachers to demonstrate rapid nature development and
successive flowering of numerous primrose plants. Students and school graduates learn
that not only coltsfoot does flower in spring, but primroses, bluebell, pilewort, anemone,
corydalis, lungwort, viola do flower as well, succeded by iris, buttercup, and common
dandelion. Girls and boys also learned how harmful are dry weed fires for nature, and
got familiar with biodiversity of plant neighbourhood even in the city.
Photos: V. Gromova, V. Kurinov, P. Sharikov, O. Chernova.

5. Thanks to remarkable enthusiasm and activity of Viktoria Gromova, lots of school
teachers participated in Fascination of Plants Day in St. Petersburg. Together with
pupils, they planted trees, explored local parks and distant bog and wetland complexes
studying the basic principles of how plants live together and survive near a big city.
Photos: M. Karaborcheva, V. Shepeleva, B. Pokrovsky, N. Luchina.
It’s hard to highlight every event of FoPD week. More importantly, all the colleagues enjoyed the
Plants Day and organised a number of events with great enthusiasm to the joy of students and
schoolkids!
We appreciate the work of all event organisers and thank FoPD guests for their interest! It is a
big pleasure to especially thank Viktoria V. Gromova from Primorsky DDT in St. Petersburg, Dr.
Yulia A. Danilova from Baltic Fund for Nature for their honoured support and organisation of
events, and Dr. Nelly R. Zaripova, scientific secretary of Russian Society of Plant Physiologists
for her informational support and suggestions!
Current news, mentions, reports are available at ​https://vk.com/plantday​ (in Russian).
NC’s videomessage to teachers in St. Petersburg, 2015­05­29: ​https://youtu.be/WXR_tlFI3Es

6. As a national coordinator, it is a pleasure for me to invite everybody to an open discussion for
FoPD future in Russia at the VIII Congress of Russian Society of Plant Physiologists this
September in Petrozavodsk. We have number of ideas to present you, meet everybody in
person and invent how to make Plants Day even more fun and interest to everybody in May of
2016!
Gregory A. Pozhvanov
PhD, assistant lecturer
Department of Plant Physiology and Biochemistry
Faculty of Biology
St. Petersburg State University
www.plantday.ru
gregory@pozhvanov.com