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You really wonna help us?

We've got plenty of useful things. But we still miss something. Until we compile an itemised list of our possibilities / needs, we present here a wish list in a very general form. A short list of things we'd be glad to receive as a gift or purchase at a reduced price is given below.

If, after you got acquainted with our activities, you'd like to support some of them financially, you can do it via the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists.

Phone:	+7 (812) 328-9620
Fax:	+7 (812) 324-0885 (Indicate: Att. Financial manager)
E-mail:	baltic@teia.org (Subject: Att. Financial manager)

• Binocular microscopes. We work on the binocular microscopes, which are kindly provided by the Department for Entomology of the St. Petersburg State University. The problem is that these microscopes are pretty old, and, like so many other old things, they decompose. The department, quite obviously, has no funds to afford the new microscopes, and our prospects, accordingly, are rather gloomy.
• Insect pins. Russia is notorious for lacking many useful things. Insect pins are among the latter. Not only the Russians do not make pins, they even do not sell officially the pins produced somewhere outside. The only pins we use are those smuggled occasionally from abroad. So, we'd be much indebted even for providing us with a channel of pins purchase, let alone your generous gifts.
• Identification keys and atlases. In our work, we use the books from the library of the department and from the A. Kouprianov private library. These libraries, however, are not without some shortcomings. The most palpable lacunes are in the realm of the user-friendly identification books. The problem is that here in Russia we do not have such series as Kosmos or Collins, which can be found at any bookshop in Europe. Besides that both libraries suffer from careless students who sometimes do not return books. This leakage is small comparing the size of the library (the cynic average is about one book per three to four years only) but always painful. The situation is complicated by a peculiar system of books printing. In Russia, unlike many other countries, a book once printed in a limited number of copies, has little chances to be re-printed again (unless it is a cheap detective series or a school textbook). This system of continuous re-printing which is so familiar for the European and American readers is absolutely unknown in the domain of the Russian scientific literature. So, if the library loses a book, the given book can be returned only by chance ia the system of "used book" shops.

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