The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice

by Simon Parkin

From the award-winning author of The Island of Extraordinary Captives, the riveting, untold true story of the botanists at the world’s first seed bank who were faced with an impossible choice during the Second World War’s Siege of eat the seeds to stave off starvation, or protect their life’s work to potentially end world hunger? In the summer of 1941, German troops surrounded Leningrad with a plan to besiege the Russian city and starve its citizens into submission. So began the longest blockade in recorded history. By conservative estimates, it would claim the lives of three-quarters of a million people—four times the number killed in the atomic bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima combined. Most died by starvation. At that time, the world’s largest collection of seeds and plants were stored in a converted palace building in the city center. Hand-collected during the previous two decades under the leadership of the world-famous explorer Nikolai Vavilov, the Plant Institute represented the greatest living library of plant matter ever assembled, more than a quarter of a million seeds from every continent. But as the siege wore on, attempts to evacuate this priceless collection failed. Trapped in the city with dwindling supplies, the botanists faced a terrible should they distribute the seeds to the city’s starving population, or preserve them in the hopes that future scientists might use them to breed crops and prevent future famine? Drawing from previously unseen primary sources, The Forbidden Garden tells for the first time the story of the botanists who remained at the Plant Institute during the darkest days of the blockade, many of whom sacrificed their lives in service to their mission. As climate change, wars, and supply chain issues impact food security in today’s times, this fascinating story remains as relevant and urgent as ever.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Russia, World War II, Food, Audiobook

384 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2024

About the author

Simon Parkin is an award-winning writer and journalist from England. A sought-after video game pundit, Parkin has been a guest on BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live and his criticism and journalism has featured in numerous high-profile publications, including the New Yorker, Guardian and New Statesman.

Reviews

[Blaine DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A totally different look at WW2 as author Simon Parkin takes us to the Siege of Leningrad to learn about the story of the worlds first Seed Bank and the utterly amazing efforts by the scientists who worked there to preserve this valuable treasure through the 2+ year siege of Leningrad. The book looks at the efforts of these scientists, as well as going into detail as to the actual battle and siege of Leningrad. Hitler decided early on that the city should never have been founded and that it needed to be wiped off the face of the earth. The hardship was massive with 5 times more people dying during the siege than died due to the Atomic Bomb. The scientists went to extreme lengths to protect the millions of seeds that were stored there, to the point that these scientists took a vow not to eat the seeds in order to save themselves - the result, many of these people died from starvation at their desks rather than eat the seeds to save their lives, The barbarity of both the German army, as well as Stalin is well documented, and is shocking. But the stories of those who survived is amazing. Definitely a much different WW2 history book than the usual books on that conflict. Who knew the worlds first seed bank was in Russia, and who would have known of the dedication of those scientists. Utterly amazing book. 4.5****

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a rather long review, but I was so blown away by this extraordinary book and it’s topic that it was hard to condense into a few paragraphs.

In the early 1920’s, Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov acquired a large building in the center of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) with the intent to establish a seed bank. This became the world’s first and largest repository of seeds. Nikolai Vavilov wanted to begin collecting plant seeds from across the globe in order to preserve genetic plant material.

Many countries around the world had already experienced famine. Vavilov hoped to prevent tragedies like that from happening again. Together with a hand picked team of knowledgeable botanists Vavilov traveled the world - visiting 64 countries from Asia, Africa, South America, North America and Europe in order to obtain seeds and plants that could soon become extinct. From the seeds of those plants he hoped to develop abundant and hardy super plants that could be grown in various climates.

Vavilov’s enthusiasm, charisma, knowledge, and optimism inspired others. He was a world renowned authority and spokesperson for seed and plant conservation. Winston Churchill was one of Vavilov’s early supporters.

Nikolai Vavilov was well respected and admired for his selfless efforts and his knowledge that he hoped to share with other botanists and scientists throughout the world. However, there were people in the scientific community in Russia who were jealous of Vavilov. And when Stalin rose to power, they found a way to undermine Vavilov’s efforts.

At the same time, the rise of Hitler and the Nazi goal of world domination, Russia became a target for invasion. Hitler in particular was determined to wipe Leningrad and its inhabitants off the face of the earth. The siege of Leningrad lasted for nearly 900 days during which time the seed bank’s staff endured extreme sacrifices, moral challenges, and hardship.

Simon Parkin’s meticulously researched and well written book brings this time in history to life. It also highlights the long overdue recognition and achievements of researcher and scientist, Nikolai Vavilov. Mr. Parkin was allowed access to original documents and orders, notebooks, diaries, interviews, and archives in the writing of this book. It’s an outstanding and informative book that is hard to put down! Anyone interested in Russian history - primarily the World War II era and the Stalinist regime would find this book well worth reading.

[Dawn Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT. GOOGLY. MOOGLY.

This is not a happy book; it's not meant to be. It is meant to be a book about hard work, deep [almost unthinkable ] sacrifice and a love of the land, what it can yield and the deep importance of honoring that and the seeds that feed us. Does this book accomplish that? It 100% does and so much more.

I knew absolutely nothing about the world's first seed bank [in fact, it is only been in the past 10 years that I learned about seed banks in general ] and those who worked there, and that was absolutely fascinating [even the super-sciencey stuff I didn't quite understand ]; the travel and care required was a bit mind-blowing and the scientists dedication to the seeds care was also a bit boggling as well.

While I DID know about the Siege on Leningrad, I didn't know all that happened there [the saving of the seeds just being one thing ], amongst other things, the Soviet government's hand in refusing to send food for "fear of feeding the Germans"; this unfortunately was not a complete surprise given the Soviet's handling of their own people/soldiers later in the war [and if you do not know about that, I highly suggest you look up that part of history an be prepared to do a deep-dive into some seriously sadistic behavior ], but it was still very shocking, and I was often left weeping by the end of a chapter [as an aside, I do not reccoment eating while reading this; every time I did, I had massive guilt. I will say it made me slow down and really APPRECIATE just what I was eating and what went into it ].

The fact that we today eat food from germinated seeds that were saved during that time [at the cost of many lives ] will change how you look at food forever. It will also make you think about what you would have done in their placeAND will make you think about upcoming days and what we would do if our access to food suddenly stopped or was dramatically reduced [I know that this filled my thoughts while reading AND after ].

Deeply researched [the author's note at the end delves into this more deeply ] and very well written, this is a must-read book for everyone, especially now.

I highly recommend this book and hope it reaches all the people it needs to.

Thank you to NetGalley, Simon Parkin, and Scribner for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book captivating for its story and alarming for the parallels to current world events I couldn’t help but draw. Then I read the postscript and the afterward and was fascinated by the task of assembling the accounts (facts?) that survive and constructing the narrative. The book is a hard read for sure in that the suffering is vivid and intense, but so is the sense of purpose. I will think about the stories in this book and the questions posed by its author for some time.

[Susan Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite a solid account of little known events, as the plant scientists in Leningrad struggled to survive & keep the seed deposits intact during the Siege of Leningrad.

[Nava · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was deeply affected by this book. As a scientist as a human who profits from grown food. And as a someone with family from Leningrad during that time. I knew of the starvation in Russia during the war. But this book makes it real and alive. This is not an easy book. But it is a good and important one, describing both the longest siege, nobel scientific work, and the corruption of power. If any book were to remind me that virtue had its own reward, this would be it. Even if the rewards are sometimes never seen by those who make the greatest sacrifice. Hands down best book I’ve read so far this year.

[Mary Elizabeth Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible

[Polina Kordik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poignant and heartbreaking

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

moving and intimately researched - made me wonder about what it would be like to have work you considered important enough to defend against a siege and your own impending starvation, in light of a government that has forgotten you and disappeared your leader.

It made me deeply grateful for every bite of food I have eaten since.

[Jonny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like most books that engage the history of the USSR, this is really about the depravity of the regime - in particular the blind eye that Stalin turned to the siege of Leningrad and the willingness of the Soviets to at best ignore the brutality meted out to their own citizens. In practice it was obviously a lot worse than that and Parkin sets out how Russia’s biologists were tortured and murdered for effectively no reason whatsoever.

But beyond that - this is an incredible story of how the same scientists preserved a seed bank during one of the worst sieges in human history, somehow deciding not to…just eat the seeds in order to survive. The epilogue of the book where you learn about how important the seed bank has been to post-WWII agriculture is amazing and really places all the different seed banks you hear about (and the work of Kew Gardens, for example) in a different context.

Like the best books about WWII you learn about something you have never even heard about, and also realise how tough even studied periods of history are to write about - eg the fact that this story seems never to have previously been told, and how much inaccuracy has been propagated about it (including, predictably, the myth circulating that all the seeds were destroyed/eaten and how long it took for Russia to properly acknowledge the scientists who built and maintained the seed bank).

[Diane C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The siege of Leningrad by Germany, and trying to save a precious seed bank. The siege being told in comprehensive, dark and horrific detail is hard to take, however one can skim through after a while, getting to the latter part of the war (when the siege was over), and how the seed bank in Leningrad not only survived, but scattered to other locations in Europe, Britain, etc. Totally worth a read, an important story to know, with lots of history thrown in. Recommend!

[G.Thulasiram · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read

[Yogesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Unwavering Commitment Of Botanists Protecting The World’s First Seed Bank During Carnage Of Ww2

The siege of Leningrad lasted for 900 days, the longest recorded siege in human history. As a result, one third population out of 2.5 million residents of Leningrad perished. This book is the story of scientists working at the Plant Institute of Leningrad and how they ensured survival of stock of the world’s first seed bank at great personal costs.

The story starts with internationally respected Soviet Agronomist Nikolai Vavilov. He arrived in Petrograd (it was yet to be renamed Leningrad), in 1921 with 20 scientists. They were determined to setup World's first seed bank. By 1933, they had collected 148000 types of seeds & tubors. By 1940, Vavilov had visited 64 countries and collected seed samples of various wild and domesticated varieties!
It was through his efforts that wild varieties became available for research. It was due to his talent and charisma that over 2 decades he was able to attract the best scientists in Russia. They included agronomist, botanists, plant breeders, geneticist, phytologists, physiologists, agroclimatologists and geographers; the kings and queens of crop research!

Hitler had ordered his troops not to attack Moscow without first capturing Leningrad. Hitler's plan was to use Russia for replenishment of military resources for European war and food for German citizens. Later he changed his plans owing to Russian winter and ordered his army to starve people of Leningrad to death.

Simon Parkin describes the inhuman conditions in Leningrad in great detail. He provides proper context so that the reader can appreciate the extraordinary sacrifice involved in the decision of seed bank staff not to consume seeds as grains.

His writing is also very impactful and there are many noteworthy paragraphs throughout the book.

1) While describing the quaint atmosphere in Leningrad on the morning of the first German attack on Soviet border, the author poetically describes,

"The rhythms of familiar routine would soon stall, to segway into a new song of as yet unknowable agonies. But like anticipatory grief for a dying loved one, misery was for now a shapeless looking thing. Something one hoped might still be avoided."

2) The strong conviction of botanists is articulated as follows:,

"The institute was like Noah's Ark for the plant matter. A catalogue of the past and a hope for the future, an insurance policy against humanity's indifference and negligence."

3) People of Leningrad eventually got used to death. Simon writes,

"The capacity for grief was squeezed from people. Death had become routine, as ordinary and expected as shadow at sunset."

4) Another example of honest soul searching by the author:

I have not known hunger. Like everyone, I have been introduced. Like on a long night drive whenever fast food joint had closed a few hours earlier or at a cinema when I arrived too late for popcorn. Hunger, but glancingly. Not close enough to shake its bony hands & feel those fingers begin to rub the flesh away. I know, vaguely, that hunger squats ever patient, in the empty space on supermarket shelves, behind the tins of soup and boxes of cereals. I know it waits for the systems to snap, the logistics to fail when it finally emerges to move in intimately, and given time, fatally. How long would you or I survive, if hunger arrived today?

Highly recommended reading for anyone interested in stories of human resilience in extreme hardships.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The Forbidden Garden” is indeed the story of "The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and their Impossible choice".

I had not come across the name Nikolai Vavilov before reading the review, and buying this book. Now I want to visit St Petersburg even more to visit the Vavilov Plant Institute to see where this amazing story unfolded and how it still affects us today. (This isn't quite true. I've always wanted to visit St. Petersburg to see Peter the Great's Capital on the Neva. I now have one more stop on this tour.)

This story takes place in 1940’s Leningrad, during Germany’s 872-day siege. I hate to spoil the story, so if you want to read the book and be surprised, please stop reading this review.

Vavilov was an extraordinary Russian botanist who believed that the genetic diversity of seeds was important to human survival, and that rare seeds needed to be collected from around the world, to ensure their genes were captured before their environments degraded. He traveled worldwide for grains, seeds, and tubular crops, gathering them a centralised hub in Leningrad, and growing them in various climates.

His travels took him to high altitude regions like Tibet to find crops that would thrive in harsh conditions, as well as South America, where potatoes and tomatoes originated. Vavilov’s goal was to create the world’s most comprehensive seed bank.

As he traveled around the world, and published his findings, his international fame grew and grew. In turn, Vavilov attracted many Russian followers and numerous European Fans. His fame grew with his success and he was invited to many renowned institutions such as the Royal Horticultural Society in the United Kingdom.

This international fame also became his undoing as Stalin’s intelligence service suspected him of being a British spy. For this he was arrested, beaten, and sent to a gulag, where he subsequently died.

Most of the story covers his brave followers at the Plant Institute during the siege of Leningrad. Many of the staff and their loved ones starved to death while protecting these seeds which technically could have saved their lives. They did it for belief in the purpose of their cause.

This “Impossible choice” between survival and protecting the lifetime of work, is the central theme in the book, which the author meticulously assembled from book, letters, and documents – obtained when he could not visit Russia, because of the recent invasion of Ukraine. Brits were not allowed to travel to St. Petersburg.

I enjoyed the story – although it’s an incredibly sad one, and one where I don’t think I’d have the courage to do what the faithful employees of the Seed Bank did.
I liked the book thoroughly.

At the end of it I felt that as a reader, and perhaps as the author, we needed to see that their sacrifice was not in vain. Something needed to be said about this work having meaning.

While the author did discuss how Vavilov’s name is no longer vilified, and how there Vavilov Plant Institution continues, I felt that he should have done more. He mentioned a few things; but I would like to know what Mother Russia feels about Nikolai Vavilov now? Is he well known? Is his story taught in schools?

Also what is the importance of seed bank? The author mentions a few cases and refers to the famous seed bank in the UK and Norway. But I didn’t think it adequately punctuated this book.

I’m still left with the question, was the sacrifice worth it. For me, the story was left somewhat unresolved.

[Desi A · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fascinating book! I have absolutely stayed up too late most nights reading this. It was an incidental discovery on the New Books shelves at Central while I was browsing before JP's cello lesson, and then I happened to see that it was reviewed in LRB.

Parkin tells the story of The Plant Institute - the Soviet seed bank in Leningrad - that was led by an internationally known and respected scientist, Nikolai Vavilov. Vavilov is arrested shortly before the Nazis invade the Soviet Union, but his absence looms large over his many devoted staff. (And it is his international fame that leads to some of this story coming to light in the 1960s...)

In 1997, while I was on a semester study abroad in Moscow, we were taken on a week-long trip to St. Petersburg. We took the overnight train, and because we were all ~20 years old, we stayed up late and many of us drank too much en route. That first day, we were taken on a groggy bus tour of the city. The only stop on the tour that I remember in particular is Piskaryovskoe Memorial Cemetery, site of the mass graves where some 500,000 people who died (of starvation) during the Siege of Leningrad. (Another quarter of a million civilians likewise perished). Even 20-year-olds who study morbid histories cannot quite grasp such things. Over the next several years I visited St. Petersburg many times, and I lived there for 4 months in Jan-April, 2005. I am grateful to have walked the parquet floors of the Hermitage Museum multiple times and seen with my own eyes Rembrandt's "The Return of the Prodigal Son," which was packed up and saved, along with so many other precious works of art by the independent, inventive, and decisive museum staff in the summer of 1941. The city remains one of my favorite places in the world, and it has become a part of me that lives on, twenty years later.

Parkin's work is full of death and despair -- as well as loyalty, commitment, and hope. The remaining Plant Institute staff (some were evacuated, with a relatively small portion of the seed collection before the city was encircled), dedicated themselves to the preservation of the inventory against all costs -- including the starvation of of hundreds of thousands of Leningrad residents -- and many of their own number died of starvation at their posts, next to stocks that could have fed them. This story, when it finally began to be told, was inscribed in the story of the besieged city that centered resistance and dedication to the greater cause of survival of the nation, but Parkin struggles with this throughout the whole book, repeatedly asking if that was, truly, the moral choice? (Institute staff had been told by their superiors in exile to use the collection to feed themselves and the city - to spare nothing, but they refused.)

Interspersed with the story of siege are those of Vavilov himself (he is sentenced to death as a traitor (falsely, it should be said) and eventually dies of starvation in a prison in Saratov in 1943, as well of a Nazi SS officer who was also a botanist who desperately wanted to steal Vavilov's famous seed collection from Leningrad and use it to benefit the Third Reich, but was foiled.

Parkin includes an afterword where he describes his journey in finding this story and attempting to connect to and tell this story with fidelity, and I feel this contributed greatly to the overall impact the book had on me. Well done.

[AD · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of a seed library. Not just any old seed library and not just at any old time. This seed library was in Leningrad in 1941, just as the German Army was beginning the longest blockade in recorded history. The winter of 1941 was one of the harshest in living memory and people died of cold and starvation where they slept, sat and stood.

The siege presented Leningrad botanists with the ultimate dilemma: to save the largest collection of seeds which had been diligently collected from around the world for years before, or to use the collection to save themselves and maybe a handful of others? As the cold deepened and colleagues died of starvation around them what were they to do? Use the seeds for the crops that would save them or preserve them for potentially even more catastrophic times in the future (climate breakdown? mass species extinctions?)?

No spoilers here, about either the dilemma or the extraordinary people who built up and cared for the collection. (Apart from the German Army, they also had to contend with the random decision-making and arbitrary cruelty of Josef Stalin. There are enough pointless deaths here to fill a large Leningrad cemetery).

Suffice to say that Simon Parkin tells a compelling story with great verve. We could have lost sight of the wood (the wider war context) or the trees (the individual botanists and their helpers) but Parkin keeps them both in sight throughout. He may sometimes try a little too hard with the literary flourish - I mean I suppose it’s possible that ‘sunlight knifed through the clouds’ above the town of Chernivitsi in the Ukraine on 6th August 1940 - but for me at least these embellishments distract from the story rather than enhance it.

One of the strengths of Parkin’s account is the history lesson he tells, with particular reference to how the motivations and strategies of Adolf Hitler impacted the seed library and led to the excruciating dilemma confronting the Leningrad botanists.

I read this book as the Israeli army was in the midst of its murderous rampage through Gaza (and it still is, as I write). Hitler apparently told SS chief Heinrich Himmler that, ‘to rain fire on a city’s populace requires the suppression of a person’s elemental instincts, a breaking of those fundamental beliefs in the commonality of humankind’. Maybe this is what Benjamin Netanyahu tells himself when he goes to bed at night. How, otherwise could he consent to, encourage, licence and reward the ongoing and incessant maiming of countless blameless women and children just a few kilometres down the road from where he lives?

Or maybe this is his mantra: ‘This war with Russia is a vital part of the German people’s fight for existence … and for this reason it must be conducted with unheard-of harshness’. Change a couple of words here and Israel, Gaza and the ongoing slaughter snap into focus.

The difference between Leningrad and Gaza is that the Palestinian genocide could be stopped tomorrow. The unfathomable and unforgivable tragedy is that governments don’t want to do so. They could be saving seeds but they’d rather see them scattered to the wind.

[Logan Kedzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In no particular order, the scientists of the Plant Institute of Leningrad had to contend with the persistent Nazi attacks on the city, which damaged the building and the scientists themselves; the people of the city, who were starving and wanted to eat the Institute's collection, what we would now call a seed bank; rats and other vermin, who felt likewise; the cold, which threatened to kill the living treasures; their own hunger, as many would die on their watch; their own government, as the leader of the seed bank had fallen into political disfavor, and their own sense of morality, and whether feeding starving people now was more important than preserving natural history and the possibility that some varietal would prevent famine later.

This is an important story, and is is told well. For being at a particularly grim point in history and a de facto genocide on top of a de jure one, it is an uplifting read. One of the things that works structurally well is separating out the stories of Nikolai Valilov and Heinz Brücher (and William Venables). Too often the story of the former becomes more about his enemies, while the later helps triangulate both that of the scientists and of Valilov in showing the plainly evil as opposed to the more venial opposition elsewhere in the book.

The choice to narrativize the events leads to some weak moments. The history of the institute before Valilov is mostly skipped, which makes some of the comments about how some scientists were motivated to make up for the previous institute's failures lack dimension. Since it is also a history of the Siege of Lennigrad there are odd bits of pacing, like how most of '42 is skipped. This list was longer, until I reached the epilogue, where the author explains how the invasion of Ukraine cut his project short.

My thanks to the author, Simon Parkin, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Scribner, for making the ARC available to me.

[Kay Parsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not for everyone, but once started, it is compelling. The citizens of Leningrad not only had the Germans to worry about - the troops encircled the city with the intention of starving them out - but also the lack of support from their own government. No one was expecting that the Germans would invade, and were taken completely by surprise when they did. Stalin was not interested in the city, and especially not in something as mundane as a seed bank.
There were several good photographs in the book, and a map in the front cover. I would have loved more maps, especially to show where the Germans were; where the trains were; and a drawing of the city showing the buildings and, at the end, where the food plots were. There were in fact families in Leningrad who had privileges; where were they in the scheme of things? How had they gained favour?
The writing is impeccable and well-researched. I cannot begin to fathom the horrors of so many deaths - through starvation and the cold. It's a wonder anyone survived at all. But for me the biggest thing to get my head around is the sheer volume of numbers. Thousands of seeds and tubers to be catalogued, labelled, packaged and stored. Tonnes of potatoes. Such numbers of varieties that it's hard to imagine. It's a true credit to the team that they kept thieves and vermin out of the stores, and didn't raid them themselves. A number of the team starved to death, even with the seeds and potatoes right there.
This book has made me realise that the food on our tables today is due to the vigilance and brilliance and passion of the scientists who are dedicated to feeding the world. I imagine there will be a new edition once the Russian invasion into Ukraine has stopped, and the author can get access to more historical evidence.

[Tanya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book about the 1941-44 siege of Leningrad focuses in on a research institute and seed bank led by Nicolai Vavilov. We learn a lot about the years before the war when Vavilov traveled the globe collecting seeds of every variety, in hopes of botanical advances that would solve world hunger. He became a victim of Stalin's purges, largely because he wouldn't fall in line with the state's ridiculously dangerous non-scientific agricultural policies.

The siege of Leningrad is a well-known story. Around 630,000 people starved to death in the city, most during the first winter of the siege. The Forbidden Garden tells the story of the scientists at the seed institute who did all they could to preserve the collection from rats, thieves, bombs, freezing temperatures, and even themselves -- nine scientists died of starvation at their posts while surrounded by edible plant material.

At the core of this book is the dilemma of doing what is best for yourself vs what is best for the larger society. Any of the above scientists could have saved themselves by eating the seeds, tubers, potatoes, etc that were stored at the institute. But that collection was their lives' work, and they believed in its ability to save many more people in the future. At the end of that horrible starving winter of 1941-2, many of those seeds were planted in every imaginable spot in Leningrad, and helped to keep death at bay for the next nearly 2 years of the siege. Descendants of those seeds survive today in the Vasilov Institute and all over Europe.

I particularly enjoyed Parkin's lengthy afterward in which he muses about the larger messages in this story. 4 stars.

[Daniel M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is the story of a truly heroic effort to literally save the seed corn that had been painstakingly collected by Russian botanists, then lovingly preserved in their seed bank. But then Leningrad was besieged by the German army, and their charismatic leader (Nikolai Vavilov) was arrested and put into one of Stalin’s prisons.  

Leaderless and under horrific conditions, the team of botanists swore an oath to never eat the seeds as they were the cultural inheritance ofRussia.  The wheat, the rye, the potatoes…all of it… even as the botanists were dying of starvation, they never broke into the seed reserves to feed themselves. Talk about self-sacrifice!  They knew that after the siege, after the war, the country would have to reboot their agriculture—and they were the keyto doing that.  An interesting and (ultimately) uplifting book—but one that's also full of the horrors meted out to the Leningraders by the Germans through a vicious starvation campaign, and an equal number of self-inflicted horrors as Stalin purged, tortured, and killed millions in his gulags and prisons.  

The book is the starkest contrast between how truly horrible people can be vs. the actions of the botanists who literally gave up their lives so that others in an indefinite future could live.

(But as a read—it’s a text full of sadness and long stretches of a grinding siege. Even though the botanists preserved seeds and succeed in the end, it’s still primarily a terrible story of cruelty and unneeded savagery.) 

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some pretty remarkable stories have come out of Russian archives and I'm glad Parkin wrote this one about the siege of Leningrad after the Germans' sudden betrayal of alliance during World War II. Some of the details of the famine resemble those of the Holodomor inflicted by Stalin upon Ukraine a decade earlier. Stalin's persecution of Vavilov is a stark reminder of what happens to a country that has a paranoid dictator at the head. As a counterpoint, the botanists' refusal to destroy their collection is a testament to their scientific integrity and a concern for their fellows, even though it meant their individual deaths. Though grim, I still had to marvel at the examples of the creative solutions that come from privation - something the Russians have proved to be good at - and the vastness of the Soviet Union that could have agricultural experiment stations in so many types of climate. The saddest story for me was that of the girl volunteer who couldn't deliver a letter, because by the time the Post Office could open, the entire family was dead, nor return it to the Post Office which she found locked up upon her return. The sweetest story was that of Ivanov, offered a drink of water by a child helping her mother and other volunteers weeding cabbage beds in front of the cathedral, giving the girl a carrot he'd gotten earlier in the day. "This is for your kindness,"...Then, catching her hesitation, he added, "A gift from a rabbit."

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting little-known tale about the worlds largest collection of seeds ... accumulated across the world by the geneticist Nikolai Vavilov ... that was trapped in the Siege of Leningrad for over two years. The seeds were stored and cared for in a converted palace, and the employees worked to preserve the collection in order to improve food production through disease-resistant varieties after the war ... which could aid in preventing famine. But as the citizens of Leningrad were slowly starved toward submission, the employees had the choice of using the seeds to feed themselves and others or protecting the collection at the expense of their own lives. This is the story of their choice.

Threatened not only by the approaching Nazis who wanted to steal the collection, the employees had to defend against their own countrymen at times, and even some other scientists who held different beliefs (Lamarckism) in the value of the seeds. So they were besieged from within and without. And all the while, just arranging to have a bit of heat and electricity to prevent everything from freezing was an on-going battle.

So why only three stars: While the tale was interesting, the subject matter didn't seem quite deep enough for a book-length treatment; in fact, at times it seemed like the author was stretching his narrative a bit to make it fit book length. All-to-say, it was an interesting tale of but one small facet of World War II that many probably have never heard of.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow. This was a lot. The author covered a lot of territory and worked it all into an almost thriller like story full of intrigue and suspense. I found myself getting swept along: what will happen to Vavilov? Brucher? Ivanov? The potatoes? The importance of food is a given, but where does that food come from? How does a regime secure enduring food sources for its population, and what is the cost of that goal?

The author covers not just the siege of Leningrad and the military goals of the Germans and Russians, but the broader, darker side of the Soviet system under Stalin and the struggles of the scientific community under that system. The Postscript and Afterward chapters do a nice job of wrapping up the aftermath and legacy of the characters he covers.

The book doesn't get too bogged down in botany or science in general. I almost wish it had gone a little deeper there, but there was already so much to include. I think it is successful in driving home the importance of seed banks, scientific research and cooperation across borders.

To me, Brucher was one of the more interesting characters: a scientist who valued Vavilov's work, but was also a Nazi, working alongside a British POW. His loyalties were all over the place.

A well paced read full of fascinating, horrifying, important information.

[Keila (speedreadstagram) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was quite the interesting read. I listened to the audiobook of this one and followed along in the hardcover. It was really interesting. I never really thought of something like a seed bank, but it makes a lot of sense. If I’m recalling correctly there are a lot of heirloom seeds that are becoming more popular because of places like this. I’m sure that there are seeds that we are using today that originated from this very seed bank, and that is quite the feat. I never really thought of seeds as being part of science, because well, I’d never thought of them that way. This book made me realize that it is quite interesting science, and there is actually a lot to it, more than I ever thought. The scientists in this book went through so much to ensure that the seeds lived on, it’s truly a miraculous thing. The pacing of this book was a little uneven, but in the grand scheme of things it worked. I think because I was able to listen to the slower parts on audio and speed it up a little.

If you are looking for an interesting nonfiction that will make you rethink what you know about seeds, then check this book out.


Thank you so much to @scribnerbooks for sending me a gifted copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must confess I went into this book with low expectations. A seed garden, really? I'm no botanist, so the topic was sure to bore me within a chapter, right? Wrong. Parkin is an exemplar writer who brings life to an old, forgotten tale. His descriptions of hunger, of the effects of starvation, are as riveting as they are revolting. And yet, throughout the book, I was fascinated by the hope which the staff showed. "When the war ends," they all said. Not "if," not even "when we see the war end." It is an optimism that I find myself sorely lacking in the face of current events.

This book does not (nor did it ever seek to) answer whether the scientists were in the moral "right" to save the future at the cost of the present, but you will understand why they chose to do so.

I leave this review with a quote from the Afterword which chilled me to my bones as I ate my lunch in the not-quite-summer-but-getting-there heat of the subtropics.

I know, vaguely, that hunger squats, ever patient, in the empty space on the supermarket shelves behind the tins of soup and boxes of cereal. I know that it waits for the systems to snap, the logistics to fail, when it finally emerges, to move in intimately and, given time, fatally.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are many heartbreaking and compelling stories around the siege of Leningrad, and the tale told here of the agronomists at the great national seed bank who starved to death while guarding tons of seeds that they could have eaten is deeply ironic and heroic. All of this happened while the seed bank was struggling for its existence as the geneticists fought a losing battle against the Lamarkians headed by the notorious Trofim Lysenko. The executive director of the seed bank who had put together a world class treasure trove of seeds had been arrested and sentenced to be shot. His death sentence was ultimately commuted but he died before he could be sent off to serve his time in one of the special Gulag prisons reserved for engineers and scientists.

Still, I thought that there was not enough of a story here for a book this long. It would have been much better at half or even a third of its length.

[Izabella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might now forever think about the botanists of Leningrad who put their entire lives on the line to protect the world's first seed bank amidst rampant and horrific starvation, freezing cold, against Nazi Germany as well as their own duplicitous government who hated them. Their commitment to safeguarding their library of plant matter built to eradicate collective famine is actually so wild. The potato experts especially blew my mind (Olga Voskresenskaya, RIP, queen), but all of them have my deepest respect and admiration for their efforts to both survive and care for their rare, precious seed bank in such dire and unthinkable circumstances. I'm glad to now know of Nikolai Vavilov--he seemed like a pretty chill dude, even if he did fall in love with one of his students while he had a wife and son...--and his devotion to his work to eradicate famine was truly inspirational. World hunger could be such an easy thing to solve, but instead, we have billionaires.

3.5/5

[julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

such an interesting but heartbreaking read. War just keeps taking until there’s nothing left. I cannot begin to imagine the sacrifices or experiences that the people of Leningrad and the Plant Institute faced during these times. the story also underscored how important a strong and connected food supply is, which in present day, i think we take for granted until it is interrupted, and is increasingly going to be discussed as our climate changes.

“What an immense range of possibilities there are in man: soaring flights and plunging falls; geniuses like cosmic stars of the greatest magnitude, and monsters, depraved wretches; those whose names are known to history, and billions of those obscure people, unknown to anyone, who could never be remembered by anyone since nothing is known about them, but who lived and who died.”

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bulk of this book is depressing: heroic Soviet scientists starve (some starve to death) while protecting the world’s largest seedbank – including tons of potatoes and other potential food – during the Siege of Leningrad. Meanwhile, the seedbank’s founder (Nikolai Vavilov) is being abused in prison. There’s also a subplot of an SS officer / scientist, aided by a British POW, who tries to steal the seeds.

Behind this is an ideological battle that’s mentioned only briefly here, the human drama being more relatable. A seedbank’s agricultural value is due to heritability; a diversity of plants will have a diversity of qualities, which, through selective breeding, can create crops with desirable traits, such as disease-, drought-, pest- & cold-resistance. In the heredity vs environment debates, Bolshevism leaned toward the latter.

[The Bauchler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew nothing about the seed bank in Leningrad or the valiant (or excessive?) attempts of its staff to protect it and thought this might be a moderately interesting book.

It's actually an excellent book chronicling a harrowing period which amply illustrates the hardships endured as well as the tenacity and guile that took place at the Plant Institute during the greatest siege in history.

As mentioned in earlier reviews it provides many of the facts but it would have been an even more comprehensively written book had the Russians not decided to make themselves pariahs by invading the Ukraine.

Highly recommended, even so.