Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden was founded on (11) February 22, 1714, by decree of Peter I as the Apothecary Garden for growing medicinal herbs and rare overseas plants.

Apothecary gardens and vegetable gardens were established in Russia since the time of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov. The first such garden in Saint Petersburg, which has not survived, was cultivated on the current Bolshaya Okhta, near the ruins of the Nienshants fortress. There were also Apothecary gardens on the Moika River.

The exact founding date of the Apothecary Garden is not established, as almost all documents were destroyed in a fire in 1737. Tsar Peter, when moving the capital from Moscow to Petersburg, ordered the establishment of a "much-needed institution for medical affairs" as the Apothecary Garden "for sowing medicinal herbs and flowers." A "remote place" between non-Orthodox cemeteries on Vorony Island was allocated for the Apothecary Garden, which received its name from this new purpose. The Apothecary Garden is mentioned in the First Census of Petersburg in 1713: "...the census began from the Trinity Church along the banks of the Bolshaya Neva and Nevka rivers to the Apothecary Island, already at that time allocated for the Apothecary Garden."

The main purpose of this garden was the cultivation of medicinal herbs.

The garden's territory gradually expanded through the purchase and annexation of new plots. The beginning of the creation of greenhouse collections is considered to be 1732, when the first real greenhouse was built.

The first greenhouses for keeping medicinal plants were built as early as the mid-18th century, but there were no heat-loving tropical plants there, as maintaining stable temperatures in those buildings was impossible. The start of creating greenhouse collections is probably considered to be 1732, when the first real greenhouse was built. More precise information dates to 1749, when the first inventory of "African and exotic plants" was conducted. According to the inventory, three wooden greenhouses contained "921 units." Judging by the plant assortment, the greenhouses were apparently heated quite moderately. It is unknown what the greenhouses looked like, but in 1865, in a letter to Linnaeus, the then botanist of the Garden, Falk, described them as "Chukhon rigs." In subsequent years, the greenhouse collections grew, cultivation facilities were built, and by 1795 their number reached twenty.

Under Catherine II, the garden measured 300 by 200 sazhen (i.e., 640 by 425 meters). A large wooden house was built here, where the botany professor lived, and in summer the president of the Medical College.

The garden was always closely connected with the medical educational institutions of the capital, serving as an aid in teaching; botanists gave lectures here: Buxbaum — the first specialist botanist who managed the garden, made several excursions across Russia, and enriched the apothecary nurseries with the first rare species of Russian plants; Fischer, Ziebeck, Rudolf, Stefan, and others; they also managed the garden.

On March 22, 1823, by decree of Alexander I, the Garden was separated from the Medical-Surgical Academy and became an independent scientific institution with the status of the Imperial Botanical Garden. From 1823 to 1826, a quadrangle of 27 greenhouses and two rows in the southern courtyard were built — a total of 34 greenhouses, whose layout has largely been preserved to this day. At the same time, a park was created.

Since 1934, the Botanical Garden has been a scientific department of the Komarov Botanical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Today, the garden covers 22.6 hectares, including 16 hectares of park-dendrology and about 1 hectare of greenhouses. The collection includes over 80,000 specimens, including more than 7,500 plant species collected in the greenhouses. This is the fifth largest collection in the world and the largest northern plant collection.

During the war and the Siege of Leningrad, the greenhouses and greenhouse plant collections suffered greatly. More than 200 species of cacti, several specimens of cycads, and several palm seedlings were saved. The restoration of the greenhouse collection began in the spring of 1943; seeds of subtropical crops were received from the Batumi Garden, spores of ferns taken from plants that died during the winter of 1941-42 were sown, and plants were collected from other city greenhouses and private individuals. In spring 1944, a package arrived from the Lisbon Botanical Garden with seeds of greenhouse plants. The greenhouses were not yet restored, but the nursery began to work actively.

In the film "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson," in the episode "The King of Blackmail," the greenhouse of the Botanical Garden was used as Milverton's greenhouse.

The historic door that Holmes opened with a glass cutter is located at the very end of the Tropics route (tropical plants are located in 13 greenhouses with a total area of 5,300 square meters) — here the guides hurry visitors to exit. The door handle is now different.

Behind this iron door hides the first botanical Holmes place.

Next, the heroes find themselves in the Large Palm Greenhouse — thick bamboo stems are visible on the left. Before the October Revolution, this palm greenhouse, built in the second half of the 19th century, was the tallest in the world — 23.5 meters. It houses plants of the humid tropical forest. Tall trees grow here: anchar, mango, mahogany, giant bamboos, and others.

Then Holmes and Watson walk around the pool of the aquatic (Victoria) greenhouse, which adjoins the Large Palm Greenhouse.

Now this pool is heavily overgrown, making a similar photo difficult. Here, Victoria amazonica blooms and bears fruit annually. The rare aquatic plant Barclaya longifolia is cultivated. The pool is bordered by tropical water lilies with blue, pink, and red flowers. Lotus, papyrus, rice, sugarcane, tropical lianas, orchids, and carnivorous plants — nepenthes — also grow here.

The last section of the greenhouses is again on the Tropics route. To cover the parrot, Watson climbed a beautiful staircase, then followed Holmes down the same stairs.

There are two such staircases — one to the left of the Large Palm Greenhouse, the other to the right.

Judging by the signs, ours is the one on the right. Unfortunately, it is not in the best condition — the railing is either lost or under restoration, and the exit under the stairs is overgrown with weeds. In general, it is not photogenic, and it is hard to approach it properly due to the thickets. I had to photograph a similar staircase in the left greenhouse; its appearance is closer to the 1980s.

As for the place where Watson stepped into a puddle and dirtied his tennis shoe — it cannot be filmed at all, since the path now goes along a completely different trajectory, and where it was before, there are now dense thickets.

Sources:

https://botsad-spb.com/ru/oranzherei/vodnye/zogolovok

https://www.221b.ru/geo/3-botanic.htm