The 8th of March is a day when a lot of countries celebrate womanhood. All women will receive presents on this day. As a man, you not only give your wife flowers and your mother (in-law), but also your female colleagues, etc. This makes it by far the biggest flower holiday in these counties.
This year Flower Circus visited St Petersburg and Novosibirsk in Russia to get an impression of what is happening in flower and plant sales during the International Women’s Day.
The weather was extremely mild in big parts of Russia, which helped sales. Especially the western part of Russia had warm weather. The weather in Novosibirsk was colder, but nevertheless it didn’t affect the street sales. They are used to some cold.
The 8th of March is more and more a holiday were people also celebrate the start of spring. This is why Tulips, Daffodils are very popular, next to, of course, the roses, chrysanthemums, Lisianthus, and gerbera. Another flower that is typical for this day is the Mimosa.
Tulips are more and more locally grown. These tulips are much bigger than the Dutch tulips. Great to see the street sales in Novosibirsk, where a lot of people try to make some extra money, by selling tulips on the street.
At the metro, and at shopping malls and other busy spots in the city, lots of cars have posters, balloons, etc to attract the attention of 
potential buyers. Almost everybody is selling tulips from their cars, which makes the available assortment not really big.
The wholesalers Flower Circus talked to had a positive feeling about the sales, although they said they could only really tell after the 8th of March once they have the figures.
NB Due to a conflict between Saudi Arabia and Russia - parties could not agree on stabilizing oil prices, the demand of which decreased sharply due to the world wide coronavirus crisis. Over the last days the value of the Russian ruble tumbled accordingly, a downer for buyers who still need to pay their foreign suppliers.
Text: Flower Circus