Russian first lady Svetlana Medvedeva opened the 61st annual flower show Wednesday at Keukenhof, the world's largest bulb garden -- with this year's theme "From Russia with Love".
"Now I have the very pleasant and honourable task, the opening of the flower exposition," she told a ceremony attended by diplomats, government officials and Dutch Crown Princess Maxima before the official christening of a newly bred white tulip named Medvedeva after her.
The exhibition, which officially opens on Thursday and runs until May 16, this year features a variety of Russian landscapes and beds planted in the form of matryoschka dolls.
The highlight is a 25-metre (82-foot) by 15-metre (50-foot) flower reproduction of Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, comprising 65,000 bulbs.
The 32-hectare (80-acre) Keukenhof gardens in Lisse in the western Netherlands is a popular tourist attraction and claims to be one of the most photographed spots in the world.
Lying in the heart of "bulb country", between Amsterdam and The Hague, it transforms into a multi-colour feast for the eye every spring when seven million bulbs, among them 4.5 million tulips of a thousand varieties, start flowering.
The gardens were visited by some 45 million people over the last six years.
"In spite of the economic crisis, we had 850,000 visitors last year and we are very confident we will have another 850,000 this year, maybe even more," Keukenhof chairman Walter Jansen told journalists at the launch.
Keukenhof general director Piet de Vries said this year's unusually cold and snowy winter should bolster rather than hinder the bulbs' growth.
"The cold weather has caused them to produce extra growth regulator (gibberellic acid -- a plant hormone), which means that any time now they will start to grow and develop more quickly than usual."
The Netherlands is the world's biggest flower exporter, with ten billion Dutch tulip bulbs produced every year -- 70 percent of total world yield.
Total bulb-growing area covers about 20,000 hectares, equivalent to 40,000 football fields.
Copyright 2010  AFP Global Edition
