Grigory Nikolayevich Potanin was a Russian botanist, ethnographer, and natural historian. He was an explorer of Inner Asia and was the first to catalogue many of the area's native plants. Potanin was also an author and a political activist who aligned himself with the Siberian independence movement.

Omsk is the administrative center and largest city of Omsk Oblast, Russia. It is situated in southwestern Siberia and has a population of over 1.1 million. Omsk is the third largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk and Krasnoyarsk, and the twelfth-largest city in Russia. It is an important transport node, serving as a train station for the Trans-Siberian Railway and as a staging post for the Irtysh River.