Orangery of the Botanical Garden-Institute, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Oranzhereya BSI DVO RAN)

On 24 February 1949 an order of the USSR Council of Ministers allotted land for a botanical garden to the Far Eastern Base of the Academy of Sciences, and that date remains the institution's official birthday. In the first years, when Maria Skripka, appointed head in 1950, was the garden's only scientist, work began on a collection of orangery plants.

According to Alexei Salokhin, who now heads the garden's scientific and production department, the orangery was built in the 1950s by the city construction administration. It then consisted of two small connected houses and was, at the time, the only glasshouse east of the Urals displaying tropical and subtropical flora. The garden's own page on its indoor collections, however, places the start of the tropical holdings in the early 1960s.

Andrei Zhuravkov's arrival as director in 1974 opened a period of building: in 1978 the laboratory block was completed and the collection glasshouse reconstructed. Salokhin himself speaks of a first enlargement in the 1980s, followed later by new walls in modern materials. The 2014 reconstruction, dated 2015 on the garden's website, opened the house to unguided visits and replaced the systematic arrangement of the plants with displays by geographical region. The garden became a research institute in 1990 and has borne its present name since 1998.

The orangery is not an architect's design but the product of successive extensions around two small 1950s glasshouses, built by the city construction administration and linked to each other. Their foundations and walls were kept and can still be seen inside the present building. The floor area was increased in the 1980s, and the walls of the envelope were later replaced with modern materials.

Russia's register of unique scientific installations gives the tropical and subtropical collection 880 m². The space is not divided into climate compartments: tropical, subtropical and dry-tropical plants share one atmosphere, which shifts the flowering of some species. Lacking height, the house cannot show palms either, as they would need taller structures; the staff hope eventually for separate houses, or even climatrons.

Since the reconstruction more than 500 taxa have been laid out by region: Australia, southern Africa, North and South America, East Asia and India.

The orangery holds about 1,500 taxa (species, cultivars and hybrids) from 443 genera and 126 families, drawn from the Americas, the Mediterranean, Africa, Australia, India, Indonesia, China and Japan. Orchids are its pride: more than 200 taxa in 45 genera, including Russia's largest Cymbidium collection, which gathers most of the genus's wild species. A recent acquisition is the slipper orchid Paphiopedilum papilio-laoticus, described from Laos in 2018 and wiped out in the wild by poachers.

The azaleas number 55 cultivars, some raised from the garden's own seedlings; one of them, 'Malinovy Vals', was patented in January 2026. There are also 92 tropical and subtropical ferns, more than 30 carnivorous plants, including seven Nepenthes added in 2023, and 365 taxa of cacti and 'living stones'. A female cycad has produced cones regularly since 2008, and the titan amorphophallus and a Bulbophyllum from New Guinea are among the rarities. The garden also keeps old varieties that private growers have lost and that people now come looking for.

The garden covers 169 hectares in the Sovetsky district, 19 kilometres north of central Vladivostok, on Makovskogo Street. Since 2014 the orangery can be explored without a guide, and guided tours and a treasure hunt are also offered by appointment.

It is a winter destination: azaleas bloom there in February and orchids almost all year, and a late-winter show, 'Ahead of Spring', ran until 9 March 2026. In the warmer months a visit combines well with the open-air collections, the forest nature trail and the 'Dni R' festival, held in spring among the rhododendrons.