Seeds
The essential work of agricultural genetic
of
WO YEARS INTO World War II, as Nazi forces laid siege to St. Petersburg (then known as Leningrad), Russia, suffocating the city’s food supply, a team of preservation in a changing world. Resilience researchers at the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry barricaded themselves in a secret vault to guard the world’s largest seed collection of the time — a priceless repository of genetic diversity.
For 880 days, this group of plant researchers struggled to stay warm and survive. They started to starve — adamant that they wouldn’t eat the seeds around them — and smuggled seeds whenever possible to safety, fearing that the institute’s collection of potato samples would either be taken by hungry locals, seized by enemy forces, or freeze during winter. As a result of their sacrifices, many members of the research team succumbed to disease and starvation. However, by the end of the siege, the survivors had managed to preserve irreplaceable food crops that they believed would be crucial to rehabilitating the nation’s agricultural system after the war.
by Kate Montana illustrations by Raymond Biesinger
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ISSUE 01
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