Published on: 2026-10-11
Source: Moscow Government – Правительства Москвы –
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At the VDNH Syringa Collection, 39 five-year-old seedlings of domestic lilac varieties were planted. Among them are plants bred by the famous Soviet breeder Leonid Kolesnikov. Visitors will be able to see the first blooming of the new bushes as early as 2027.
The Syringa Garden is located in the “Cultivated Nature” zone of the VDNKh landscape park. It was established in 1985 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Today, the collection includes over 300 bushes, including varieties created by Leonid Kolesnikov. No more than 50 of the varieties he developed have survived to this day, making the addition to the collection particularly valuable.
At the beginning of October, lilacs of the varieties “Kolhoznitsa,” “Izobilie,” “Indiya,” “Moscow University,” “Nadezhda,” “Olimpiada Kolesnikova,” and “Aleksey Maresyev” were planted here. In addition, the collection was supplemented with bushes of domestic selection: the varieties “Ogni Donbassa,” “Bogdan Khmelnitsky,” and “Vecherniy Zvon.”
A special place among the new plants is occupied by three specimens of the “kolkhoz woman”. This variety was created by Leonid Kolesnikov in the 1930s. Its double pink flowers feature a lighter silvery-blue center and a pleasant fragrance.
Another addition was the rare variety “Izobilie,” bred in 1963. During flowering, its branches are covered with dense purple-lilac inflorescences, behind which the leaves are almost invisible. The lilac “Aleksei Maresyev,” created in 1951, is notable for its unusual petal shape. When fully open, they bend and curl, resembling propeller blades.
There are about three thousand lilac bushes growing on the territory of VDNH. Large plantings are located on the Lilac Alley, near Pavilion No. 57 “Russia — My History”, the “Friendship of Peoples” fountain, and in the Young Naturalists’ Square. Here you can see lilacs of domestic and foreign selection, including Amur, Hungarian, and “Preston” varieties.
VDNH specialists, together with the N.V. Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences, continue to study and preserve the historical collection. They are inventorying the plants and identifying the varietal affiliation of Leonid Kolesnikov’s specimens, which have been preserved in the lilac collection since 1984. The research involves Irina Okuneva, a Candidate of Biological Sciences, an employee of the Ornamental Plants Laboratory of the Main Botanical Garden, and an author of scientific works on lilacs.
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