The Image of the Fabulous "Scarlet Flower" decorated the New Uniform of the Football Team “Krylia Sovetov”

Krylia Sovetov will play Spartak Moscow in the second round of the group stage of the Russian Cup today. The match will be held at the Solidarity Samara Arena stadium. The Samara players will take to the field in a new special cup set of uniforms, jointly developed by Krylia Sovetov and FONBET.

The design of the new set of uniforms resembles the features of the natural, cultural and historical heritage of the Samara region. The basis of the new design was a sketch of a rare red book flower – a thin-leaved peony, which, according to scientists, could be the prototype of the famous scarlet flower from the fairy tale by Sergei Aksakov (whose son Grigory Aksakov, as is known, was once the governor of Samara in the XIX century). The new form also resembles the historical date – the year of the club's creation. The white-green and green-white-blue lines with the collar form the silhouette of the famous Monument of Glory on the T-shirt, erected in honor of the merits of Kuibyshev aviation industry workers who made a huge contribution to the victory in the Great Patriotic War.

The first photo session of the Krylia Sovetov players in a new set of cup uniforms was held in the Botanic Garden of Samara a University in a Samara square dedicated to the Aksakov family and the fairy tale "The Scarlet Flower". It was the scientists of the Botanic Garden who managed to revive the "scarlet flower" in the XXI century, the thin–leaved peony, which almost disappeared in our region in the 70s of the last century. In the first edition of the “Red Book of the Samara Region”, published in 2007, this species was listed as completely extinct one.  Fern leaf peony was the first to be revived and reintroduced from the Botanic Garden into the wild.

"We are glad that Krylia Sovetov is interested in the story of the scarlet flower. For the first time, a thin-leaved peony was brought to the Botanic Garden in 1947 from the Klyavlinsky district. At that time, these plants were only found in the wild. Until 1994, we preserved and propagated wild peony on the territory of the Botanic Garden. This is painstaking work, since this plant reaches maturity only a few years after sowing the seeds. Then we began to systematically return the thin-leaved peony from the Botanic Garden to the wild. To do this, in the Kinelsky district of the Samara region, we found a place where the "scarlet flower" had the best conditions for growing. We chose the place for reintroduction (return to nature) with our scientific staff very carefully. Parameters such as a certain type of soil, humidity, and lighting were taken into account. Now, based on the results of our long–term annual observations, we can say that the thin-leaved peony has taken root on the territory of the Kinelsky district: it actively blooms, sets seeds, gives offspring," said Svetlana Rozno, director of the Botanic Garden.

In 2013, the seeds of the thin-leaved peony visited space in Earth orbit aboard the Bion-M orbital laboratory. As the results of the experiment showed, the seeds of the "scarlet flower" that have been in space have faster germination and post-flight development compared to their "terrestrial" brothers.

Photo: Krylia Sovetov FC press service