The Seeds That Outlasted the Siege

During the 900-day Siege of Leningrad, twelve scientists at the Vavilov Institute of Plant Genetic Resources starved to death — surrounded by tons of edible seeds. Botanist Dmitri Ivanov died at his desk, packets of rice still in his hands. Alexander Stchukin collapsed among thousands of peanut samples. Each one refused to eat the collection they guarded, because they understood something the starving city could not: those small, dry, seemingly dead seeds held within them the future of feeding entire nations.…