A feat in the name of science: how scientists at the cost of their lives saved a collection of seeds during the siege

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Scientists of the All-Union Institute of Plant Industry (VIR) N. I. Vavilovs performed an outstanding feat during the siege of Leningrad. VIR possessed a huge fund of valuable grain crops and potatoes. To preserve the valuable material that helped restore agriculture after the war, the breeders working at the institute did not eat a single grain, not a single potato tuber. And they themselves were dying of exhaustion, like the rest of the inhabitants of besieged Leningrad.

Grain for the weight of life

Prominent geneticist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov has been collecting a unique collection of genetic plant samples for more than twenty years. He visited different parts of the world and brought the rarest and most unusual cultures from everywhere. Now a collection of hundreds of thousands of samples of grains, oilseeds, root crops and berries is estimated at trillions of dollars. This fund remained intact until the end of the war, thanks to the feat of the VIR employees. The exact number of people who worked at the institute at that time is still unknown. Like the rest of the employees, they were given 125 grams of bread daily.

Weakened by cold and hunger, scientists to the last protected the priceless seed fund from thieves and rats. Rodents made their way onto the shelves and threw cans with grains from there, they opened from the blow. The institute employees began to connect several cans with ropes - it became impossible to throw them off or open them.

To prevent the seeds from spoiling, it was necessary to keep the temperature in the premises at least at zero and fire homemade stoves. Only thermophilic plants - bananas, cinnamon and figs - did not survive the blockade. Two-thirds of the grain that is stored at the institute today is the descendants of those seeds that were saved during the blockade.

Chief curator of the collection

After the first group of VIR scientists left for evacuation, Rudolf Yanovich Kordon, who was in charge of fruit and berry crops, was appointed the chief custodian of the seed fund. He created a strict routine for visiting the vault. All doors to the rooms with scientific material were locked with two locks and sealed with sealing wax, it was possible to enter there only in case of emergency.

There were legends about the resilience of the chief keeper. In the self-defense group of the institute (MPVO) people were constantly changing - they were sick, tired and died of hunger. Everyone was invariably replaced by Cordon. Rudolf Yanovich remained at the institute until the very liberation of Leningrad. After the war, he continued his work. Gardeners are well acquainted with his Kordonovka pear variety, which survives even in the humid Leningrad climate.

Death by starvation in seed cabinets

The collection in the institute's repository contained seeds of nearly 200,000 plant varieties, of which almost a quarter were edible: rice, wheat, corn, beans and nuts. The reserves were sufficient to help breeders survive the hungry years of the blockade. But none of them took this opportunity. The collection filled 16 rooms in which no one was alone.

When the siege dragged on, VIR employees began to die one after another. In November 1941, Alexander Shchukin, who studied oilseeds, died of hunger right at his desk. They found a bag with a sample of almonds in his hand.

In January 1941, the keeper of rice, Dmitry Sergeevich Ivanov, passed away. His office was filled with boxes of corn, buckwheat, millet and other crops. Oat keeper Lydia Rodina and 9 other VIR workers also died of dystrophy in the first two years of the blockade.

Potato plantations near the Field of Mars

In the spring of 1941, in Pavlovsk, VIR employees planted potatoes from a collection of 1200 samples from Europe and South America, including unique varieties that were not found anywhere else in the world. And in June 1941, when German troops were already near Pavlovsk, the valuable collection had to be urgently saved. In the first months of the war, the agronomist and breeder Abram Kameraz spent all his free time at the Pavlovsk station: he opened and closed the curtains, imitating the night time for South American potatoes.

European tubers had to be harvested from the field already under fire and taken to the warehouse of the Lesnoye state farm (Benois's Dacha). The shockwave knocked Cameras off his feet, but he did not stop working. In September, Abram Yakovlevich went to the front, and transferred his duties to a married couple of scientists - Olga Aleksandrovna Voskresenskaya and Vadim Stepanovich Lekhnovich.

Every day, the weakened and exhausted spouses came to the institute to check the seals and heat the room - the safety of the unique scientific material depended on the temperature in the basement. The winter was harsh, and in order to heat the basement, it was necessary to constantly look for firewood. Lekhnovich collected rags and rags throughout Leningrad to close the holes in the room and prevent the samples from dying. The food included the same 125 grams of bread, cake and durand. They did not take a single potato tuber, despite weakness and exhaustion.

In the spring of 1942, it was time to plant the salvaged material in the ground. Plots of land for planting were sought in parks and squares. State farms and local residents joined the work. Throughout the spring, the spouses taught the townspeople how to quickly get a harvest in difficult conditions, they themselves bypassed the gardens near the Field of Mars and helped the Leningraders who worked in the beds. The goal was achieved - in September 1942, local residents harvested a potato crop. Scientists kept a few important samples for scientific purposes, and the rest were donated to city canteens.

Olga Voskresenskaya died on March 3, 1949. Vadim Lekhnovich continued to work at VIR and wrote several books on gardening, died in 1989. In one interview, he said: “It was not difficult not to eat the collection. Not at all! Because it was impossible to eat it. The work of his life, the work of the life of his comrades …”.

In 1994, a memorial plaque was installed in the VIR building - a gift from American scientists who admired the act of their Soviet colleagues who sacrificed their lives to preserve the unique Vavilov collection for future generations.

And this illiterate shepherd was able to eliminate a bunch of Germans in the war.