Now on air
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The Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russia’s first botanical garden, the pharmaceutical garden, was established in the Kremlin under the reign of Tsar Ivan the Terrible in 1581. Plants from overseas were collected and cultivated here in order to prepare medicines. Nowadays botanical gardens are primarily research centres, thanks to which a variety of plants have been preserved on the planet. The main botanical garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences is national property of Russia and is the largest botanical garden in Europe by area with its contents including 18,000 plants.
The Tyumen cryobank — cold in the service of science
Nowadays medicine and the biological sciences would be nothing without cryogenic technologies – what is known among specialists as the freezing of cellular and genetic material. Such specimens are then preserved in cryobanks – low-temperature refrigerators which maintain these chilly temperatures with the help of liquid nitrogen. A cryobank is not merely a negative 200-degree refrigerator – it is an advanced piece of equipment developed with the help of complex high technologies. There are only about 200 of them in the whole world and one of them is in the Russian city of Tyumen. There the cryobank is used not only to store biomaterial, but as the basis for scientific research in the field of biotechnology – and scientists in Tyumen have already succeeded in making significant discoveries.
Now on air
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The Tyumen cryobank — cold in the service of science
The parks of Moscow — Bitsevsky forest
Bitsevski Forest is the only forest typical to the Moscow-region which has managed to survive in the city setting. Its close location to the metropolis has contributed to the defining characteristics of this forest and it is as if these two distinct areas are living one life. The global changes that have taken place in Moscow life can be seen in the existence of forests. It was at the beginning of the 1990s that Bitsevski Forest became a specially protected area. It was at this time that citizens began to fear that Moscow might swallow up this green area. Residents of neighbouring areas came to the forest’s defense, helping to develop an environmental advocacy organisation with the forest receiving the status of «natural-historical park» in 1994.
Now on air
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