Listing last updated on 08 Jul 2020.

Zarskoe Selo
St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg
Russia

Wilhelm ("Vasily Karlovich") Freundlich (b. 1855), son of Karl August Freundlich.

[From Gärtner-Dynastie von Freundlich und ihre Rosen, by Jota Arbatskaja, 2016:] Wilhelm, the son (who was Vasily Karlovich among Russian collegues), admittedly, not only did not disappoint his father, but also expanded the company to incredible scale. In 1881, as a true entrepreneur, he had already taken family business into his own hands and had built huge greenhouses near the train station at Tsarskoye Selo, although he was still under the guidance of his father. From then Freundlich’s company was no longer depending on the Imperial greenhouses, and one might independently be engaged in the introduction and the sale of roses all over Russia. V. K. Freundlich released one catalogue after another, which contained almost all novelties of European selections. At the same time Wilhelm was opening his own stores of roses in St. Petersburg (Nevsky, 34; Liteiny, 53; Officerskaya, 3), bought property in the Volyn region (near the village of Novostavtsy), where he arranged commercial orchard. Having married Alvine, the daughter of a factory owner, Conrad Nebe, who was a merchant of the first guild, he became the owner of the paper mill, and soon the newly- weds gave birth to their sons, Conrad (1882) and Bruno (1884).....Wilhelm Carlovich Freundlich - a permanent member of the board of the Russian Society of Horticulture, a member of the Board of Trustees of Tsarist- Slavic school of horticulture and market gardening, the Vice - Chairman of the Commission on the arrangement of Horticulture College, one of the richest people in St. Petersburg. From then he himself gave awards with his name to young contestants on horticultural exhibitions, he was among the benefactors at “Arbor Day celebrations”, organized in spring in St. Petersburg. At the exhibition of 1899 Wilhelm showed new rose of his own selection, but it left unnoticed by the jury.....With the outbreak of The First World War Freundlich’s name disappeared from the pages of periodicals: a special resolution of the emergency meeting of the Society of Horticulture on the 28th of August, 1914, all honorary and full members, relating to German or Austrian citizens, were excluded from the lists of the Society. Freundlich was a German by birth and a Lutheran by faith.