OREANDA-NEWS. On 30 April 2009 was announced, that This suggestion was made by Valentina Matvienko when she was addressing to the City citizens at the opening ceremony of St. Petersburg Festival of Flowers and Landscape Design at “Lenexpo”.

Sergey Alexeev, Dierector General of JCS “Lenexpo” opened and held the ceremony. He also pointed that a large exposition is presented by the Department of City Landscape Management which celebrates its 65 th anniversary this year.

- Flowers Festival is the most beautiful event in the City’s life and it has already become a tradition, - said Valentina Matvienko, Governor of St. Petersburg. A lot of Russian and foreign companies participate in the Festival. The City Government also pays a lot of attention to the spectacular decoration of St. Petersburg as our City should have an aesthetically beautiful appearance. And we can see that the City has already become well-equipped and beautifully decorated. And all this became possible due to hard work of many people working in the Department of City Landscape Management.

- I wish our City could look like this beautiful exhibition stand presented by the Landscape Department. It is creates a positive mood for the City citizens, guests and tourists. Despite the financial crises we haven’t cut our financing in this sphere. – stressed the Governor. 9 million of flowers, 20 thousand trees and 200 thousand bushes are planned for planting this year. And we expect citizens of St. Petersburg follow us and take part in the decoration of their own city. If everyone organizes a flowerbed and plants at least one flower in front of the house the city will get several million flowers.

Valentina Matvienko urged everyone to take part in “subbotnik” and thoroughly preserve everything which is done for the City’s decoration. She believes St. Petersburg will shine with new bright flowery colors this year.

- When Valentina Matvienko became the Governor we understood what the City had been lacking before – flowers. Within the last 5 years we can see that more and more flowers appear and the City becomes more and more beautiful. – said Vadim Tulpanov, Chairman of St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly. He urged all men give their women flowers not only on holidays.

- A lot of Dutch businessmen and enterprises with tight connections to my country have come to participate in this exhibition. – said Consul General of the Netherlands in St. Petersburg mr. Anthony M. van der Togt. –St. Petersburg has become a window to Russia for Europe and the Netherlands. And “Lenexpo” has played an important role: for 40 years it has been a wonderful ground for Russian and foreign companies. Here they can meet and share their experience, learn new tendencies. Anthony M. van der Togt told about a new program presented at St. Petersburg Flowers and Landscape Festival. It offers a complex solution for the protected soil. The program is aimed to develop “greenhouse business” in Russia and proposes a new educational center for teaching and demonstration.