V. N. Karazin National University

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  • Name

    V. N. Karazin National University

  • Herbarium Code

    CWU

  • Current Status

    Active

  • Correspondents

    Yuriy Gamulya, Head Curator, y.gamulya@karazin.ua
    Olexander Akulov, Curator of Fungi Collection, akulov@karazin.ua

  • Contact

    [380] 572 457 616
    [380] 572 457 501
    Email: y.gamulya@karazin.ua

  • Address

    Herbarium
    V. N. Karazin National University
    4 Svobody Square
    Kharkiv 61022
    Ukraine

  • Specialty

    Geography: Ukraine, Russia (European part, Far East), Europe, Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Africa, Australia, Central in America (Nicaragua, Cuba).

  • Notes

    Updated 3 Mar 2022, from Sergei Mosyakin, Kyiv: The Karazin University of Kharkiv is located in a complex of huge buildings near the Freedom Square (Ploshcha Svobody), the largest city square in Europe, Bombing of this area has partly destroyed or severly damaged those buildings. The section with the CWU herbarium was also damaged, but not so badly; there and no windows in the herbarium premises anymore, but herbarium staff people came without hesitation to the place after the airstrikes and tried to cover the frames with cardboard and plywood. As far as I know, at present there is no loss of specimens, but under the current wet weather conditions the specimens are in fact open to the elements. Update from Oct 2020. The name of the University was changed from Kharkiv State University to V. N. Karazin National University. CWU consists of three parts: 1) Kharkiv Botanical Garden (former CWB, now part of CWU); 2) Department of Botany; 3) Department of Mycology and Plant Resistance - CWU (Myc). (curator O.Yu. Akulov) Information about the Mycological Herbarium Dr. Olexander Akulov, curator of the Mycological Herbarium CWU-Myc (V.N. Karazin National University of Kharkiv, Ukraine) addresses you. I am very grateful to you for your kind letter of support and suggestions for help. This is very important for us. I apologize for being late in replying to your letter. In the conditions of hostilities, it is difficult for me to answer letters in time. CWU-Myc – the oldest and second-largest collection of herbarised fungi in Ukraine, that has the status of the National Heritage of Ukraine. It holds about 40,000 specimens, including a large collection of old mycological exsiccates. There are many type specimens and memorial collections of world-famous scientists among them. The oldest specimen in our collection dates back to 1797. In modern times the collection is being intensively replenished with new materials. Some of them represent species that are new to science, including new genera. Our herbarium has already survived several wars of the past. During WW2, part of the collection was not evacuated. It was placed in metal boxes and buried in the ground in the botanical garden, where it lay for several years. After the war, part of the collection that was evacuated never returned to Kharkiv. It was moved to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and still, it is housed in the KW herbarium. That part, which was buried underground, is still stored in CWU. The current war with Russia has caused enormous damage to the city of Kharkiv and the University in particular. In the large city with about 1.5 million citizens, about 20% of homes were destroyed, including several buildings of the University. Fortunately, the herbarium has survived till now. The blast shattered the windows, but we closed them from rain and wind with plywood and polyethylene. The samples are stored in airtight metal boxes and are reasonably well protected. This will not protect the collection from a cruise missile or air bomb, but we will hope for the best. Now the Ukrainian army has pushed the invaders 40 km away from the city, so the shelling has decreased to some level. None of us could have imagined that the horrors of war would be repeated in central Europe in the 21st century. We were not ready for such a situation. And the current force majeure has very clearly shown what we did right and where we made mistakes. As never before, we are aware of the importance of digitizing our funds. We were moving in that direction, but not fast enough. The University already has the status of Data publisher in GBIF. In collaboration with the University of Tartu via PlutoF platform, we have digitized about 7,000 samples. Information about 6,000 of them is already available to anyone in the world through the GBIF site. In 2021, we have prepared information for about another 2,000 specimens. From the first days of the war, the main server of the University stopped working, and with it stopped the access to the electronic archive and catalog of the herbarium disappeared. Only due to the fact that Dr. O. Prylutskyi had a backup copy of the data and posted it on a server in Norway, access to the information was restored. In 2021, we also started a revision of valuable specimens from the CWU-Myc herbarium using molecular genetic markers. We already obtained about 200 sequences. As a result of this work we are preparing a series of publications, for example, https://ukrbotj.co.ua/archive/79/2/84 Unfortunately, about 300 amplicons and all reagents for molecular research were lost during the war, and it will not be easy to restore them.

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  • Number of Specimens

    299997

  •   Num. of Specimens Num. Databased Num. Imaged
    Algae
    Bryophytes
    Fungi/Lichens 60000
    Pteridophytes
    Seed Plants
  • Date Founded

    1825

  • Updated

    03/03/2022

  • Associated Institution

    Associated garden: Kharkov Botanical Garden, V. N. Karasin National University, 52 Klochkovskaya Street, 61022 Kharkov, A. A. Alekhin, Director, [380] 572/ 477 251; 332 666, garden@univer.kharkov.ua

  • Important Collectors

    A. S. Bondartcev, F. Bubak, V. M. Czernajew, C. H. Ehrenberg, L. Fuckel, O. Jaap, A. A. Jaczewski, J. E. Kabat, V. L. Komarov, C. H. Persoon, A. A. Potebnia, G. L. Rabenhorst, V. A. Tranzshel etc