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In the summer of 1941 German troops surrounded the Russian city of Leningrad with a plan to besiege the city and starve its citizens into submission. So began the longest blockade in recorded human history. By the most conservative estimates, the siege would claim the lives of three-quarters of a million people. Most died of starvation. A converted palace building in the city centre housed the world''s largest collection of seeds and plants. Hand-collected during the previous two decades by botanists under the leadership of world-famous explorer Nikolai Vavilov, it was the greatest living library of plant matter ever amassed. As the siege ring closed, attempts to evacuate this priceless collection failed. Trapped in the city with dwindling supplies, the botanists faced a terrible decision: should they distribute the seeds to the city''s starving population, or preserve them in the hope that, one day, scientists might use them to breed hardy crops and end global famine. Drawing on previously unseen sources, The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad tells, for the first time, the remarkable story of the botanists who remained at the Plant Institute during the darkest days of the blockade, many of whom gave their lives in service of their mission.
About the author
Simon Parkin
is an award-winning British writer and journalist. He is a contributing writer for the
New Yorker and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS), and is the author of
A Game of Birds and Wolves and
The Island of Extraordinary Captives, which was a
New Yorker Book of the Year and won the Wingate Literary Prize. He lives in West Sussex.
