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The Leningrad botanists who saved the first seed bank
The long read: During the siege of Leningrad, botanists in charge of an irreplaceable seed collection had to protect it from fire, rodents – and hunger
There was naked-grained barley found on the plateau that borders Turkestan, India and Afghanistan; wild perennial flax picked from Iran; orange and lemon pips collected on the road to Kabul; radishes, burdock, edible lilies and chrysanthemums from Tokyo, and sweet potatoes from Taiwan. On the outskirts of Leningrad, the countryside already bore the pock marks of war: craters either side of the tracks filled with water, splintered telegraph lines, earth scorched by explosives, trees snapped and uprooted. Throughout the autumn of 1941, a few dozen Soviet aircraft succeeded in delivering food supplies each day, but these provisions fell far short of the requirements to feed even a fraction of the 3 million people trapped in the city.
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