St Petersburg's parks are dead this time of year. The soil is brown and slushy, the trees are bare, and everything seems drab and dirty.
Yet a small, quiet corner of the city is very much alive: a blaze of color in dazzling reds, vibrant blues, luscious greens and radiant yellows. The sight of so much color at St Petersburg's Botanical Gardens is breathtaking. It's how you'd imagine a walk through the Garden of Eden.
Before World War II this garden was considered one of the best in the world, second only to Kew Gardens in London, and it still is one of the jewels in St Petersburg's crown. The garden has been closed to the general public on and off for years, but soon its treasures will be open for all the world to see.
At present, work is being completed on the famous Japanese Garden, which contains unique miniature trees and ornate shrubs from the Far East.
But there are other halls containing fabulous collections from such far-flung places as Africa, China, the Caucasus, Australia and New Zealand.
About 6,000 species are arranged in various-sized vases and pots throughout the garden's 25 orangeries, 15 of which are now open to the public.
Peter the Great started the garden in the 18th century to grow herbs and vegetables for his table. Later the Russian imperial family was given exquisite and extraordinary plants alien to Russia as gifts from visiting dignitaries. And so the garden grew.
The year 1823 is considered a benchmark in the garden's development, for it was around this time that it became a true botanical collection.
During the war the gardens suffered terrible neglect, and only 861 species of plants survived from the prewar total of 6,000.
The garden's employees valiantly tried to save as many plants as they could, even taking them home. To keep them warm they burned books and furniture -- they even warmed them up with their bodies in a bid to save the delicate species during the frosts of the Leningrad siege.
Some plants survived in hospitals -- for example, "The Fiancee," one of the treasures of the collection, which is a 130-year-old snow-white rhododendron tree. Cacti fared better, and some of them are now more than 150 years old.
There are many curious plants. Among them is the Montezuma pine tree, with needles as long as the hair of the famous Indian chief it is named after. There are fir trees with leaves, and deciduous trees with pine needles. Dragon trees and gigantic tree ferns -- the tops of their leaves curled like snail shells -- represent species that have been around for 400 million years.
Yellow Chinese jasmine, Australian bottle-brush trees with red flowers, and New Zealand flax (a bush with leaves taller than a man) also strike the imagination of visitors.
It's only possible to get into the garden with a guide. Unattended visitors are not permitted, because the administration suspects they might collect unique leaves for home herbariums or gather rare bouquets for their beloved.
If you're not satisfied joining a Russian-language excursion, make a reservation for an English-speaking guide well in advance with Olga Ipatova, the head of the excursion bureau. (Even for a Russian tour, it's better to reserve ahead of time.)
Getting to the garden can be tricky. To find it, exit at the Petrogradskaya metro station and turn left. Then take the street on the left to the Karpovka River. Turn right along the embankment. After walking one block, turn left and walk along the metal fence. Then turn right where the fence turns, and after a few steps you'll enter a courtyard -- without any visible sign that there is a botanical garden there. Keep walking.
On your left you'll see a shabby (from the outside) glass house. Pass it and turn left under the arch. Keep going about 150 meters to the end of the path and enter the door. Keep going and you'll finally reach the cashier (kassa), where you'll find Olga Ipatova or your guide.
Don't ask Mrs Ipatova when they're going to finish the Japanese Garden, or why the orangeries look so shabby on the outside. "We barely survive," she says. "I can only pay the workers doing the Japanese Garden with funds paid by visitors. They can only work once a week on that money."