Principal engineer at one of the big plants, he has been a cactus enthusiast for 23 years. By Russian criteria, he has pretty good conditions for the plants -- two balconies measuring 6x1 meters each, located on a sunny side.

And all this space is well packed with cactus pots (photos 1-8). How many of them? Only God knows! The only thing we know for sure is that there are about 500 taxa. From May through October the plants are expanded on the balconies, during the rest of the year they take up window-sills. But there are not that many window-sills in a regular two-room apartment. Hence in winter the cacti are huddling in very unexpected places, sharing the room with his wife and the two sons - students.

Among Vladimir's priorities there are cristate forms, which belong to 20 genera and 32 species/subspecies. You can find the entire list of these plants in Cultivar Issue #4(5).

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