Language — English; German translation by Dekoder (if possible)

Dendrarium is an investigative novel about the naturalist and dreamer Vladimir Degtyarev (1885–1938). A romantic and adventurer by nature, Degtyarev worked with the Imperial Botanical Garden and travelled through Latin America in search of rare plants. After the Revolution, he was falsely accused and sent to the Solovki prison camp. Even there, however, he continued his work and created a remarkable garden, cultivating tropical trees in an exceptionally harsh northern climate. After spending almost ten years on Solovki, Degtyarev was released and returned to work, only to be arrested again in the late 1930s and executed. He was later rehabilitated.
Journalist Alisa Kusti’s book stands at the intersection of historical research and autofiction. It is a story about a man who devoted himself to creation in the midst of destruction, and about the search for one’s place in the world. Drawing on archival documents, letters and testimonies of contemporaries, the author reconstructs the life of her protagonist. Step by step, the reader discovers not only the biography of an extraordinary man, but also the process of historical investigation itself — an attempt to recover a name that had almost disappeared from memory.