1 00:00:06,267 --> 00:00:11,750 [wind] 2 00:00:23,762 --> 00:00:28,289 ♪ ♪ 3 00:00:28,463 --> 00:00:33,033 TYSON: To be human has been to know the torment of hunger. 4 00:00:36,253 --> 00:00:39,300 There was once a man who dreamed that through science, 5 00:00:39,778 --> 00:00:42,955 we could make a world where no one would ever perish from hunger. 6 00:00:43,130 --> 00:00:45,610 And famine would be no more. 7 00:00:45,784 --> 00:00:48,613 He gave us a treasure to fulfil that promise, 8 00:00:48,787 --> 00:00:51,660 but he faced a terrible choice at a moment of reckoning. 9 00:00:52,313 --> 00:00:54,837 To lie about science and live, 10 00:00:55,011 --> 00:00:58,623 or to tell the truth and face certain death. 11 00:01:00,060 --> 00:01:05,543 [theme music plays] 12 00:01:24,867 --> 00:01:31,265 ♪ ♪ 13 00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:55,898 ♪ ♪ 14 00:02:10,217 --> 00:02:12,828 TYSON: For the first couple of hundred thousand years that 15 00:02:13,002 --> 00:02:16,440 we were human, we were wanderers living beneath the stars. 16 00:02:17,702 --> 00:02:20,052 We gathered plant life and hunted animals. 17 00:02:20,749 --> 00:02:23,534 Until about ten or 12,000 years ago, 18 00:02:24,013 --> 00:02:26,885 when our ancestors invented a new way to live. 19 00:02:27,886 --> 00:02:31,194 Think of those geniuses who were the first to realize that 20 00:02:31,368 --> 00:02:33,762 inside the plants they foraged, 21 00:02:33,936 --> 00:02:36,025 was a means to make another plant. 22 00:02:37,069 --> 00:02:39,246 A seed. 23 00:02:40,769 --> 00:02:43,554 [thunder] 24 00:02:43,728 --> 00:02:46,122 [rain] 25 00:02:46,862 --> 00:02:51,171 That discovery led to the single most fateful choice our species ever made. 26 00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:55,218 They could continue to wander in small bands, 27 00:02:55,697 --> 00:02:58,743 or they could settle down to grow and raise their food. 28 00:02:59,570 --> 00:03:03,705 This required sacrifices for rewards that would not come until much later. 29 00:03:05,141 --> 00:03:08,449 For the first time, we were thinking about the future. 30 00:03:12,453 --> 00:03:14,629 Of course, these decisions weren't made in an instant. 31 00:03:15,412 --> 00:03:17,849 They unfolded over generations. 32 00:03:18,154 --> 00:03:20,765 That seems like a long time ago in human terms, 33 00:03:21,331 --> 00:03:23,638 but in the great sweep of cosmic time, 34 00:03:23,812 --> 00:03:26,206 it was less than a half a minute ago. 35 00:03:27,598 --> 00:03:31,820 This Cosmic Calendar compresses all of the last 13.8 billion years 36 00:03:32,690 --> 00:03:35,780 since the big bang into a single calendar Earth year. 37 00:03:36,433 --> 00:03:39,958 Midnight on December 31 is right now. 38 00:03:40,785 --> 00:03:44,354 Every month is a little more than a billion years. 39 00:03:45,225 --> 00:03:48,402 Every day, a little less than 40 million years. 40 00:03:49,011 --> 00:03:52,754 And all of humanity's proudest achievements unfold 41 00:03:52,928 --> 00:03:55,974 in the last couple of minutes of cosmic time. 42 00:03:56,758 --> 00:03:59,326 That's how new we are to the universe. 43 00:04:01,284 --> 00:04:04,026 Our ancestors began to domesticate animals and 44 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:07,638 plants less than 30 seconds ago on the Cosmic Calendar. 45 00:04:08,683 --> 00:04:11,773 For the first time, the wanderers were settling down. 46 00:04:12,774 --> 00:04:15,907 And building things to last for more than a single season. 47 00:04:16,821 --> 00:04:19,215 They dared to touch the future. 48 00:04:20,347 --> 00:04:23,175 Their tower of Jericho still stands. 49 00:04:23,611 --> 00:04:26,178 Was it a watchtower for protecting the city from invaders? 50 00:04:27,049 --> 00:04:29,399 Or just a way to get closer to the stars? 51 00:04:31,053 --> 00:04:34,143 It took 11,000 work days to build. 52 00:04:35,057 --> 00:04:36,798 Something that could only be possible with the 53 00:04:36,972 --> 00:04:39,844 food surpluses that agriculture provided. 54 00:04:42,064 --> 00:04:44,719 This is the world's oldest stairway. 55 00:04:45,807 --> 00:04:51,987 It was already 5,000 years old before the first Egyptian pyramid was built. 56 00:04:52,161 --> 00:04:56,339 To climb it is to follow in the footsteps of 300 generations. 57 00:04:58,428 --> 00:05:02,432 Isn't it astonishing that people who had barely ceased wandering, 58 00:05:02,606 --> 00:05:05,479 we're able to create something of such permanence? 59 00:05:13,617 --> 00:05:16,272 The rich and varied hunter-gatherer diet, 60 00:05:16,446 --> 00:05:19,449 of plants, insects, birds and other animals, was replaced. 61 00:05:21,190 --> 00:05:25,150 City dwellers largely subsisted on a few carbohydrate crops. 62 00:05:25,977 --> 00:05:28,937 And when the rains didn't come or a fungus afflicted the grain, 63 00:05:29,894 --> 00:05:32,375 there was hunger on a massive scale. 64 00:05:32,549 --> 00:05:34,377 Famine. 65 00:05:36,640 --> 00:05:40,818 Famines caused by drought and British colonial mismanagement 66 00:05:41,341 --> 00:05:45,257 in India in the 18th century killed ten million people. 67 00:05:46,433 --> 00:05:48,913 In China, during the famines of the 19th century, 68 00:05:49,784 --> 00:05:52,656 more than 100 million people perished. 69 00:05:53,831 --> 00:05:55,920 The great hunger in Ireland, 70 00:05:56,094 --> 00:05:58,445 also a result of British imperial policy, 71 00:05:58,619 --> 00:06:00,751 starved a million to death and 72 00:06:00,925 --> 00:06:04,407 forced another two million to flee the country in search of a living. 73 00:06:05,408 --> 00:06:10,152 The Brazilian drought and pestilence of 1877 was comparable. 74 00:06:10,500 --> 00:06:14,374 In a single province, more than half died of starvation. 75 00:06:14,939 --> 00:06:18,247 The dead remain uncounted from the famines that wracked 76 00:06:18,421 --> 00:06:22,382 Ethiopia, Rwanda and the Sahel in Africa. 77 00:06:23,731 --> 00:06:25,907 For a couple of thousand years, 78 00:06:26,081 --> 00:06:29,954 ever since records were kept, somewhere on Earth, 79 00:06:30,128 --> 00:06:32,914 people in great numbers have starved. 80 00:06:37,353 --> 00:06:41,879 Could agriculture become a science with a predictive theory as reliable as gravity? 81 00:06:43,141 --> 00:06:47,842 One that could consistently produce breeds able to stand up to drought and disease? 82 00:06:49,104 --> 00:06:52,368 Farmers and herders knew the advantages of preferentially 83 00:06:52,542 --> 00:06:55,632 selecting the hardiest specimens for crossbreeding, 84 00:06:55,806 --> 00:06:58,330 to produce a more successful hybrid. 85 00:06:58,505 --> 00:07:00,811 This was known as artificial selection. 86 00:07:01,812 --> 00:07:04,380 But the mechanism of how those traits were passed on to 87 00:07:04,554 --> 00:07:07,949 succeeding generations remained a complete mystery. 88 00:07:09,646 --> 00:07:12,040 This is Down House. 89 00:07:12,344 --> 00:07:14,608 Charles Darwin's home, where he lived with his wife 90 00:07:14,782 --> 00:07:17,175 Emma and their ten children. 91 00:07:17,349 --> 00:07:20,352 He was hardly the authoritarian Victorian patriarch. 92 00:07:20,918 --> 00:07:24,008 But instead a tender, loving father who delighted 93 00:07:24,182 --> 00:07:25,967 in his children's ridicule. 94 00:07:27,969 --> 00:07:30,275 This is the garden he planted. 95 00:07:31,102 --> 00:07:34,454 This place is a strangely pastoral setting for the most 96 00:07:34,628 --> 00:07:37,457 influential revolutionary in the history of thought. 97 00:07:39,067 --> 00:07:43,201 Even now, there are people who are afraid of his idea. 98 00:07:48,293 --> 00:07:51,427 Charles Darwin discovered that species, including ours, 99 00:07:52,254 --> 00:07:55,605 evolve over time through a process of natural selection. 100 00:07:56,388 --> 00:07:59,174 The environment rewards those best adapted to its changing 101 00:07:59,348 --> 00:08:03,831 realities with survival and with new generations of offspring. 102 00:08:04,353 --> 00:08:08,052 Darwin demystified the external reality of life, 103 00:08:08,836 --> 00:08:12,970 but no one had any idea what the inner mechanisms of evolution were. 104 00:08:15,538 --> 00:08:17,975 At that same moment, an abbot at a rural monastery 105 00:08:18,933 --> 00:08:23,372 in what is now the Czech Republic was trying to become a science professor. 106 00:08:24,068 --> 00:08:27,681 Gregor Mendel flunked his qualifying exam both times. 107 00:08:28,551 --> 00:08:32,163 The only career path open to him was to become a substitute teacher. 108 00:08:32,990 --> 00:08:34,339 So in his spare time, 109 00:08:34,514 --> 00:08:36,690 he took up the study of pea plants. 110 00:08:38,213 --> 00:08:40,432 He bred tens of thousands of them, 111 00:08:40,607 --> 00:08:43,000 carefully scrutinizing their height and their shape 112 00:08:43,653 --> 00:08:46,395 and the color of their pods, their seeds and flowers. 113 00:08:48,571 --> 00:08:51,835 Mendel was searching for a predictive theory of breeding. 114 00:08:52,009 --> 00:08:54,795 So that you could know in advance exactly what you would 115 00:08:54,969 --> 00:08:58,059 get when you crossed a tall plant with a short one, 116 00:08:58,233 --> 00:09:00,278 and a green pea with a yellow one. 117 00:09:03,455 --> 00:09:06,676 Mendel found that you would get a yellow pea every time. 118 00:09:10,158 --> 00:09:12,247 We didn't have a word for the power of the yellow over 119 00:09:12,421 --> 00:09:14,162 the green until Mendel coined it. 120 00:09:14,989 --> 00:09:17,600 He called that quality "dominant." 121 00:09:17,992 --> 00:09:20,821 And to his delight, he found that he could predict what would 122 00:09:20,995 --> 00:09:23,693 happen in the next generation of peas after that. 123 00:09:26,348 --> 00:09:29,133 One in four pea plants would be green. 124 00:09:30,526 --> 00:09:34,748 Mendel named the hidden trait that popped up in the next crop, "recessive." 125 00:09:35,792 --> 00:09:38,099 There was something he called "factors," 126 00:09:38,447 --> 00:09:42,277 hidden inside the plants that caused particular characteristics. 127 00:09:42,930 --> 00:09:45,846 And they operated by a law that Mendel could describe 128 00:09:46,020 --> 00:09:48,588 with a simple equation, like gravity. 129 00:09:51,286 --> 00:09:53,810 Charles Darwin and Gregor Mendel didn't know it, 130 00:09:53,984 --> 00:09:56,378 but the two scientists were deciphering the mysterious 131 00:09:56,552 --> 00:09:59,686 workings of life at the very same moment. 132 00:10:02,210 --> 00:10:05,517 [barking] 133 00:10:05,692 --> 00:10:08,564 Darwin presented the evidence for a oneness with all life. 134 00:10:09,434 --> 00:10:12,089 That despite our pretensions to a mystical higher birth, 135 00:10:13,047 --> 00:10:16,528 we were actually relatives to the other beasts and vegetables. 136 00:10:17,181 --> 00:10:20,620 As much a part of the natural world as any other living thing. 137 00:10:24,058 --> 00:10:26,626 Mendel discovered that there were laws governing the 138 00:10:26,800 --> 00:10:29,498 way life's messages were passed on. 139 00:10:29,846 --> 00:10:33,023 The substitute teacher had invented a whole new field of science. 140 00:10:34,938 --> 00:10:37,898 But nobody noticed for 35 years. 141 00:10:39,900 --> 00:10:42,642 He died never knowing that the world would come to see him 142 00:10:42,816 --> 00:10:45,166 as a giant in the history of science. 143 00:10:46,907 --> 00:10:48,865 Mendel's work was resurrected at the beginning of 144 00:10:49,039 --> 00:10:52,782 the 20th century and he had no more vigorous defender 145 00:10:52,956 --> 00:10:55,742 than the British zoologist William Bateson. 146 00:10:56,612 --> 00:10:59,659 It was Bateson who named the new field of science devoted 147 00:10:59,833 --> 00:11:02,139 to studying these factors. 148 00:11:02,313 --> 00:11:04,141 Genetics. 149 00:11:05,099 --> 00:11:06,840 Bateson and his colleagues worked on developing 150 00:11:07,014 --> 00:11:09,843 new breeds of plants and animals. 151 00:11:10,713 --> 00:11:14,456 He believed that science and freedom were indivisible 152 00:11:14,717 --> 00:11:17,241 and that's how he ran his laboratory. 153 00:11:18,416 --> 00:11:19,896 [inaudible chatter]. 154 00:11:20,070 --> 00:11:21,811 TYSON: Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, 155 00:11:21,985 --> 00:11:23,639 a visiting botanist from Russia, 156 00:11:23,813 --> 00:11:26,120 took Bateson's credo deeply to heart. 157 00:11:26,294 --> 00:11:28,775 He wanted to use the new field of genetics to learn 158 00:11:28,949 --> 00:11:31,386 how to feed the world. 159 00:11:32,343 --> 00:11:35,912 He was on his honeymoon but science was his passion. 160 00:11:36,173 --> 00:11:39,176 Even as a child, Vavilov had a sense of urgency. 161 00:11:40,177 --> 00:11:43,920 "Too little time, too much to do," was his lifelong refrain. 162 00:11:45,095 --> 00:11:47,489 [panting]. 163 00:11:51,145 --> 00:11:52,624 [grunts]. 164 00:11:55,671 --> 00:11:57,978 TYSON: How could he have known what was coming? 165 00:12:06,682 --> 00:12:09,816 TYSON: The idea that our planet is a single organism, 166 00:12:09,990 --> 00:12:13,602 a unity, has a ring of hollow sentimentality for many people. 167 00:12:14,995 --> 00:12:17,475 But it's just a scientific fact. 168 00:12:19,521 --> 00:12:22,872 Something is about to happen here, in remote Southern Peru, 169 00:12:24,004 --> 00:12:28,617 in the year 1600 on February 19 at 5:00 PM. 170 00:12:30,532 --> 00:12:33,753 Unsuspecting multitudes and distant foreign capitals 171 00:12:33,927 --> 00:12:37,191 will never know how this event reached around the world 172 00:12:37,365 --> 00:12:39,497 to torment and kill them. 173 00:12:40,194 --> 00:12:41,630 [explosion] 174 00:12:50,900 --> 00:12:54,469 This nasty mixture of sulfuric acid and volcanic ash 175 00:12:54,643 --> 00:12:57,602 will block the sun's rays from reaching Earth. 176 00:12:58,125 --> 00:13:01,519 Some of the sunlight will be absorbed here in the stratosphere. 177 00:13:02,738 --> 00:13:06,742 The eruption of Huaynaputina volcano remains to this day 178 00:13:06,916 --> 00:13:10,267 the largest explosion in South America in recorded history. 179 00:13:14,576 --> 00:13:16,491 Winter is coming. 180 00:13:17,622 --> 00:13:19,842 Volcanic winter. 181 00:13:25,021 --> 00:13:26,457 For the people of Russia, 182 00:13:26,631 --> 00:13:29,591 it brought the worst winter in six centuries. 183 00:13:29,852 --> 00:13:32,333 For two years, even the summer temperatures would fall 184 00:13:32,507 --> 00:13:34,422 below freezing at night. 185 00:13:34,726 --> 00:13:37,599 Two million people, a third of Russia's population, 186 00:13:37,773 --> 00:13:39,949 would die from the resulting famine. 187 00:13:40,210 --> 00:13:43,300 It led to the downfall of the Tsar Boris Godunov and 188 00:13:43,474 --> 00:13:47,652 all because of a volcano that erupted 8,000 miles away in Peru. 189 00:13:49,132 --> 00:13:52,266 This was not the last famine in Russian history. 190 00:13:52,527 --> 00:13:54,659 Drought and famines occur frequently. 191 00:13:54,834 --> 00:13:57,445 But it wasn't until nearly three centuries later, 192 00:13:57,619 --> 00:14:01,710 in 1891, that the magnitude of suffering was again as ghastly. 193 00:14:03,668 --> 00:14:06,802 Winter came early that year and the crops failed. 194 00:14:07,890 --> 00:14:11,067 Tsar Alexander III was slow to respond. 195 00:14:11,459 --> 00:14:14,592 Wealthy Russian merchants continued to export grain at 196 00:14:14,766 --> 00:14:17,682 a profit even as millions went hungry. 197 00:14:18,466 --> 00:14:21,991 All the Tsar had to offer his starving subjects was "famine bread." 198 00:14:23,297 --> 00:14:27,823 A miserable mixture of moss, weeds, bark and husks. 199 00:14:30,304 --> 00:14:32,697 Half a million Russians perished, 200 00:14:32,872 --> 00:14:35,004 while the aristocracy and the wealthy feasted on fresh 201 00:14:35,178 --> 00:14:38,747 strawberries from the south of France and clotted cream from England. 202 00:14:39,879 --> 00:14:43,839 The Russian Revolution would not explode for another 30 years, 203 00:14:44,013 --> 00:14:47,103 but many historians believe that this famine 204 00:14:47,277 --> 00:14:50,846 was the spark that ignited the long fuse. 205 00:14:51,673 --> 00:14:54,328 It was to make a lasting impression on the hero of 206 00:14:54,502 --> 00:14:58,027 our story, Nikolai Vavilov. 207 00:15:01,335 --> 00:15:03,511 This is the Vavilov family. 208 00:15:03,685 --> 00:15:05,992 The parents were born into poverty but had worked their 209 00:15:06,166 --> 00:15:07,994 way up into the upper middle class. 210 00:15:08,777 --> 00:15:11,475 All four of the children would grow up to become scientists. 211 00:15:12,215 --> 00:15:13,825 [gasping]. 212 00:15:16,567 --> 00:15:18,918 TYSON: Sergey became a physicist. 213 00:15:25,533 --> 00:15:27,622 Nikolai grew up to be a botanist. 214 00:15:28,188 --> 00:15:30,364 [screams]. 215 00:15:35,978 --> 00:15:37,806 NIKOLAI: Don't come near me. 216 00:15:37,980 --> 00:15:40,287 If you touch me, I'll jump. 217 00:15:41,070 --> 00:15:44,769 TYSON: Even as a boy, Vavilov was never one to back down. 218 00:15:46,336 --> 00:15:49,731 In 1911, Russia was the largest grain exporter on Earth, 219 00:15:50,471 --> 00:15:53,300 despite the fact that its farming methods were antiquated. 220 00:15:53,778 --> 00:15:56,477 The Petrovsky Institute was the only place in Russia where 221 00:15:56,651 --> 00:15:59,349 scientists could hope to modernize food production 222 00:15:59,523 --> 00:16:01,221 through the new science of genetics. 223 00:16:02,439 --> 00:16:05,486 But it was still a matter of controversy. 224 00:16:05,660 --> 00:16:07,227 YELENA: Debate topic for today, 225 00:16:07,401 --> 00:16:10,273 is plant selection a science or not? 226 00:16:10,839 --> 00:16:11,971 MAN: It is not a science. 227 00:16:12,145 --> 00:16:13,711 A farmer knows best. 228 00:16:13,885 --> 00:16:16,192 He's been sowing the larger seeds and crossbreeding 229 00:16:16,366 --> 00:16:18,586 the fattest animals for thousands of years. 230 00:16:19,717 --> 00:16:21,806 What do we scientists have to offer them? 231 00:16:22,285 --> 00:16:24,940 Except fancy equations to confuse the peasants. 232 00:16:25,854 --> 00:16:28,813 They don't want that. They want bread. 233 00:16:28,988 --> 00:16:32,295 VAVILOV: The farmer has wisdom and is worthy of our respect. 234 00:16:32,469 --> 00:16:35,864 But tragically, he lacks the predictive powers of science. 235 00:16:36,386 --> 00:16:38,388 They cannot foretell which traits will dominate 236 00:16:38,562 --> 00:16:40,303 or which will be recessive. 237 00:16:40,912 --> 00:16:43,915 The farmer plays roulette and he's about as successful 238 00:16:44,090 --> 00:16:45,700 as the average gambler. 239 00:16:51,445 --> 00:16:54,491 Gregor Mendel made it possible for him to know the odds. 240 00:16:54,796 --> 00:16:57,755 To know what number the ball will land on. 241 00:16:58,147 --> 00:17:01,063 The moment Mendel expressed his ideas mathematically, 242 00:17:01,629 --> 00:17:04,719 agriculture became a science and our only hope 243 00:17:04,893 --> 00:17:07,200 to efficiently feed ourselves. 244 00:17:07,548 --> 00:17:09,506 And feed the world. 245 00:17:13,641 --> 00:17:16,165 TYSON: In 1914, during the First World War, 246 00:17:17,253 --> 00:17:19,908 Vavilov began to wonder. 247 00:17:20,082 --> 00:17:22,258 Where did the domesticated plants come from? 248 00:17:23,433 --> 00:17:25,957 Who were their ancestors? 249 00:17:26,654 --> 00:17:28,569 In a love letter he wrote... 250 00:17:28,743 --> 00:17:31,354 VAVILOV: I really believe deeply in science. 251 00:17:31,615 --> 00:17:34,531 It is my life and the purpose of my life. 252 00:17:35,489 --> 00:17:38,187 [gunfire and explosions] 253 00:17:39,058 --> 00:17:43,627 I do not hesitate to give my life even for the smallest bit of science. 254 00:17:45,847 --> 00:17:48,284 TYSON: The First World War revealed the deep cracks in 255 00:17:48,458 --> 00:17:52,636 Russian society and spurred the outbreak of revolution and civil war. 256 00:17:54,203 --> 00:17:56,945 Vavilov established the first of his 400 scientific 257 00:17:57,119 --> 00:17:59,513 institutes where the children of peasants and 258 00:17:59,687 --> 00:18:01,863 laborers became scientists. 259 00:18:02,342 --> 00:18:06,172 All in the service of Vavilov's dream of ending famine. 260 00:18:07,129 --> 00:18:11,307 In 1920, Vavilov dared to propose a new law of nature. 261 00:18:13,570 --> 00:18:16,399 VAVILOV: Comrades, the same genes perform the 262 00:18:16,573 --> 00:18:19,663 same functions in different species of plants. 263 00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:23,450 This is because they share a common ancestor. 264 00:18:24,190 --> 00:18:27,410 In order to understand evolution and to guide our 265 00:18:27,584 --> 00:18:30,935 breeding work scientifically, we must go to the oldest 266 00:18:31,110 --> 00:18:35,549 agricultural countries where these common ancestors may still live. 267 00:18:36,550 --> 00:18:38,291 KRIYER: Russia shall not perish as long as there are 268 00:18:38,465 --> 00:18:40,423 people like Nikolai Vavilov! 269 00:18:40,597 --> 00:18:42,121 [cheering]. 270 00:18:42,295 --> 00:18:44,253 TYSON: Vavilov was now world famous. 271 00:18:44,427 --> 00:18:46,081 VAVILOV: Me, I'm nothing special. 272 00:18:46,255 --> 00:18:48,562 It's my brother Sergey, the physicist, 273 00:18:48,736 --> 00:18:51,086 who's the brilliant one. 274 00:18:51,347 --> 00:18:55,656 TYSON: Vavilov knew that every seedling contains its species' unique message. 275 00:18:56,613 --> 00:18:58,224 The content's different, 276 00:18:58,398 --> 00:19:00,704 but they were all written in a mysterious language. 277 00:19:00,878 --> 00:19:03,838 One that would not be deciphered for decades. 278 00:19:04,230 --> 00:19:08,147 Vavilov wanted to preserve every phrase of life's ancient scripture, 279 00:19:08,886 --> 00:19:11,498 to ensure its safe passage to the future. 280 00:19:12,281 --> 00:19:15,937 He was among the first to grasp the critical importance of biodiversity. 281 00:19:17,243 --> 00:19:20,289 Vavilov came up with an entirely new concept. 282 00:19:20,463 --> 00:19:23,553 A world seed bank that he hoped would be impervious 283 00:19:23,727 --> 00:19:26,034 to war and natural catastrophe. 284 00:19:26,861 --> 00:19:30,212 And there was a scientific underpinning to this humanitarian goal. 285 00:19:31,474 --> 00:19:34,999 If you could find the earliest living specimens of the plants we eat, 286 00:19:35,435 --> 00:19:39,352 you could parse its sentences and decipher life's language. 287 00:19:39,613 --> 00:19:42,355 You could know how it changed over time. 288 00:19:42,529 --> 00:19:46,446 This decryption would make it possible to write new messages. 289 00:19:46,794 --> 00:19:48,578 To grow food immune to disease, 290 00:19:48,752 --> 00:19:51,625 fungus and insects and resistant to drought. 291 00:19:52,103 --> 00:19:56,107 Vavilov would become a hunter of plants on five continents, 292 00:19:56,282 --> 00:20:00,111 venturing to places no scientist dared go before him. 293 00:20:04,855 --> 00:20:08,032 Without maps or roads, Vavilov was the first European 294 00:20:08,207 --> 00:20:11,340 in modern times to venture into the mountainous regions of Afghanistan. 295 00:20:12,950 --> 00:20:16,127 Riddled with tribal clashes and other dangers, 296 00:20:16,302 --> 00:20:19,522 Vavilov was suspicious of the prevalent hypothesis that 297 00:20:19,696 --> 00:20:22,482 humans invented agriculture in the river deltas. 298 00:20:23,526 --> 00:20:26,225 He reasoned that remote mountain strongholds would 299 00:20:26,399 --> 00:20:28,705 be a much safer place to farm. 300 00:20:28,879 --> 00:20:31,839 Far from the casual plundering of passersby. 301 00:20:32,318 --> 00:20:34,145 As Vavilov risked life and limb, 302 00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:36,800 searching for seeds on five continents, 303 00:20:36,974 --> 00:20:40,804 his legend as a daredevil equalled his reputation for scientific genius. 304 00:20:45,983 --> 00:20:49,987 In 1927, in what was then Abyssinia, now Ethiopia, 305 00:20:51,032 --> 00:20:53,991 Vavilov discovered the mother of all coffee. 306 00:20:54,165 --> 00:20:55,906 It was a good thing too. 307 00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,822 Because he needed to stay awake all night guarding the camp. 308 00:21:08,745 --> 00:21:11,270 [yelling]. 309 00:21:28,417 --> 00:21:31,986 TYSON: As Vavilov waited for permission to travel into the interior, 310 00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:34,380 he was surprised to receive an invitation from 311 00:21:34,554 --> 00:21:38,949 the regent and future emperor of Ethiopia, Rastafari. 312 00:21:39,689 --> 00:21:43,302 Or as the world would come to know him, Haile Selassie. 313 00:21:44,215 --> 00:21:46,043 Vavilov later recalled... 314 00:21:46,217 --> 00:21:47,741 VAVILOV: It was just the two of us. 315 00:21:47,915 --> 00:21:50,570 He questioned me with great interest about my country 316 00:21:50,744 --> 00:21:52,441 and its revolution. 317 00:21:52,615 --> 00:21:56,053 I informed him that Lenin, our founder, had died, 318 00:21:56,227 --> 00:21:58,360 and Joseph Stalin now ruled. 319 00:21:58,534 --> 00:22:02,669 I told Rastafari how Stalin's armed robbery of a bank had 320 00:22:02,843 --> 00:22:05,672 raised $3 million for the revolution and made him 321 00:22:05,846 --> 00:22:08,805 a folk hero in Russia 20 years before. 322 00:22:10,329 --> 00:22:13,941 TYSON: As Vavilov continued his global quest for seeds and knowledge, 323 00:22:14,420 --> 00:22:17,031 Trofim Lysenko, one of Vavilov's numerous 324 00:22:17,205 --> 00:22:20,164 protégé's was beginning to make a name for himself. 325 00:22:22,645 --> 00:22:24,952 ANNOUNCER: Fresh green peas in the wintertime? 326 00:22:25,344 --> 00:22:27,607 Sound too good to be true? 327 00:22:27,781 --> 00:22:31,262 Not if barefoot plant expert Trofim Lysenko has anything to say about it. 328 00:22:31,872 --> 00:22:36,529 No universities or staring at the hairy legs of flies in laboratories for him. 329 00:22:37,268 --> 00:22:40,707 No lavish trips to foreign lands in pursuit of ancient asparagus. 330 00:22:41,664 --> 00:22:44,885 He does it the peasant way in the fields of Mother Russia. 331 00:22:45,451 --> 00:22:48,976 And there'll be green peas on the table this January thanks to him. 332 00:22:50,847 --> 00:22:52,980 TYSON: As Joseph Stalin was having all his political 333 00:22:53,154 --> 00:22:55,374 rivals systematically murdered, 334 00:22:55,678 --> 00:22:58,681 he began to slash away at the structure of Russian agriculture. 335 00:22:59,465 --> 00:23:03,294 His stated goal was to modernize Soviet agriculture. 336 00:23:03,469 --> 00:23:05,514 But the result was catastrophic. 337 00:23:07,081 --> 00:23:08,822 Stalin ordered the Kulaks, 338 00:23:09,300 --> 00:23:11,128 as the more prosperous peasants were known, 339 00:23:11,302 --> 00:23:13,522 to be liquidated as a class. 340 00:23:13,914 --> 00:23:16,743 Between five and ten million people perished of famine. 341 00:23:18,048 --> 00:23:22,662 But to Trofim Lysenko, this massive tragedy was an opportunity. 342 00:23:23,358 --> 00:23:26,579 Lysenko hated Vavilov for his knowledge and fame, 343 00:23:27,318 --> 00:23:29,146 and like the snake that he was; 344 00:23:29,320 --> 00:23:31,366 he knew exactly when to strike. 345 00:23:32,193 --> 00:23:35,152 And ultimately, his venom would be fatal. 346 00:23:42,508 --> 00:23:45,336 VAVILOV: The Garden of Eden must have been somewhere near 347 00:23:45,511 --> 00:23:49,689 here in central Asia because this is where the first apples grow. 348 00:23:51,255 --> 00:23:54,171 TYSON: Vavilov traveled the world identifying the first 349 00:23:54,345 --> 00:23:56,913 places on Earth to bear these seeds. 350 00:23:57,610 --> 00:24:00,874 Collecting samples of each for safekeeping. 351 00:24:01,048 --> 00:24:05,052 All in all, Vavilov brought back a quarter of a million varieties of seeds. 352 00:24:12,363 --> 00:24:15,802 The Russia Vavilov returned to was a different country. 353 00:24:16,150 --> 00:24:18,892 One in the grip of the most vicious famine it had ever known. 354 00:24:20,328 --> 00:24:24,637 The heady optimism of the revolution had been replaced with dread and despair. 355 00:24:26,552 --> 00:24:28,815 Vavilov's institute of plant industry, 356 00:24:28,989 --> 00:24:31,513 in the city that was then called Leningrad, 357 00:24:31,687 --> 00:24:34,777 was now the largest collection of genetic information on Earth. 358 00:24:37,432 --> 00:24:40,957 His team began to sort and catalogue every precious seed. 359 00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:43,090 They worked tirelessly, 360 00:24:43,264 --> 00:24:46,006 as if the life of every hungry Russian depended on them. 361 00:24:51,011 --> 00:24:54,144 [inaudible chatter]. 362 00:24:54,580 --> 00:24:56,843 LYSENKO: Comrade Stalin. 363 00:24:57,017 --> 00:24:59,672 I have something of vital importance to our nation's security to tell you. 364 00:25:05,895 --> 00:25:08,811 I know why the country starves and I know how to turn famine 365 00:25:08,985 --> 00:25:11,684 into plenty so that you may triumph over all those who 366 00:25:11,858 --> 00:25:14,034 seek to undermine you. 367 00:25:14,295 --> 00:25:16,036 STALIN: Well then, Comrade Lysenko, 368 00:25:16,210 --> 00:25:18,386 you must be a very powerful man. 369 00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,780 LYSENKO: The scientists are lying to you. 370 00:25:20,954 --> 00:25:24,871 Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Nikolai Vavilov, all liars. 371 00:25:26,742 --> 00:25:30,311 Comrade, why do you think the giraffe has a long neck? 372 00:25:31,138 --> 00:25:32,313 STALIN: A giraffe? 373 00:25:32,487 --> 00:25:34,707 Why are you wasting my time? 374 00:25:34,881 --> 00:25:37,623 So it can nibble on leaves at the top of the trees? 375 00:25:37,797 --> 00:25:39,407 LYSENKO: Exactly. 376 00:25:39,581 --> 00:25:41,627 But the scientists say no. 377 00:25:41,801 --> 00:25:44,325 They believe in imaginary, invisible entities called 378 00:25:44,499 --> 00:25:48,677 genes that somehow get changed by equally invisible forces 379 00:25:48,851 --> 00:25:50,810 that tell the giraffe to have a long neck 380 00:25:50,984 --> 00:25:53,464 and a chicken to have a short one. 381 00:25:53,639 --> 00:25:56,511 I don't believe in imaginary things. 382 00:25:56,859 --> 00:26:00,341 But Vavilov does and that's why our people starve. 383 00:26:00,820 --> 00:26:03,605 While he's been off collecting souvenirs, 384 00:26:03,910 --> 00:26:08,088 I've been devising a way to give Mother Russia the thing she needs most. 385 00:26:08,262 --> 00:26:10,960 A harvest of wheat in the dead of winter. 386 00:26:12,788 --> 00:26:15,617 STALIN: If this is true, if you really have this power... 387 00:26:15,835 --> 00:26:17,488 LYSENKO: I do, Comrade. I do. 388 00:26:17,663 --> 00:26:20,013 But I must have a free hand. 389 00:26:20,361 --> 00:26:23,494 No more interference from the bourgeois geneticists. 390 00:26:23,973 --> 00:26:26,106 They are agents of our enemies. 391 00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:30,458 They want to starve Russia into submission. 392 00:26:33,548 --> 00:26:36,116 TYSON: That's not why the giraffe's neck is long. 393 00:26:36,290 --> 00:26:38,771 How could Stalin have fallen for that one? 394 00:26:38,945 --> 00:26:40,337 It was easy. 395 00:26:40,511 --> 00:26:43,210 He desperately wanted to believe it. 396 00:26:43,732 --> 00:26:47,693 Lysenko was peddling the long discredited theory of an early 397 00:26:47,867 --> 00:26:51,261 19th century naturalist named Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. 398 00:26:52,349 --> 00:26:54,743 He believed that acquired characteristics, 399 00:26:54,917 --> 00:26:57,311 let's say the length of a giraffe's neck from straining 400 00:26:57,485 --> 00:26:59,182 to get at those leaves up high, 401 00:26:59,356 --> 00:27:02,664 could be inherited by the next generation. 402 00:27:02,838 --> 00:27:05,841 He failed to grasp that it took millions of years of 403 00:27:06,015 --> 00:27:09,802 evolution and higher survival rates among the generations of 404 00:27:09,976 --> 00:27:13,501 giraffes with even slightly longer necks to result 405 00:27:13,675 --> 00:27:16,373 in a tall modern giraffe. 406 00:27:16,547 --> 00:27:20,160 This increasingly long neck of the giraffe was due to random 407 00:27:20,334 --> 00:27:24,077 mutations in the genes that happened to lead to a more successful giraffe. 408 00:27:25,208 --> 00:27:28,081 Not their neck stretching exertions. 409 00:27:28,255 --> 00:27:31,954 This had been Charles Darwin's revolutionary insight. 410 00:27:32,128 --> 00:27:34,914 Evolution by natural selection. 411 00:27:36,306 --> 00:27:39,179 Lysenko whispered in Stalin's ear that he could fulfill 412 00:27:39,353 --> 00:27:42,878 a centuries old Russian dream and end the famine that 413 00:27:43,052 --> 00:27:45,446 threatened Stalin's grip on the country. 414 00:27:45,620 --> 00:27:49,145 Lysenko would soak the wheat seeds in ice water 415 00:27:49,319 --> 00:27:52,627 so that they could still thrive in the ice and snow. 416 00:27:52,801 --> 00:27:55,935 A process he called vernalization. 417 00:27:56,413 --> 00:27:59,329 Lysenko falsely claimed that the plants offspring 418 00:27:59,503 --> 00:28:02,071 would inherit the resistance to cold. 419 00:28:02,245 --> 00:28:06,293 No time-consuming painstaking crossbreeding required. 420 00:28:06,467 --> 00:28:09,035 Only one thing stood in his way. 421 00:28:09,513 --> 00:28:13,561 Vavilov and his stubborn adherence to genetics. 422 00:28:14,954 --> 00:28:17,608 The bitter irony was that while Lysenko was spinning 423 00:28:17,783 --> 00:28:19,959 fantasies of abundance for Stalin, 424 00:28:20,655 --> 00:28:23,440 Vavilov and his team were crossing wheat species from 425 00:28:23,614 --> 00:28:26,313 higher altitudes that actually would've resulted 426 00:28:26,487 --> 00:28:29,925 in heightened food production in Russia. 427 00:28:30,534 --> 00:28:32,841 As Vavilov rushed to the Kremlin, 428 00:28:33,015 --> 00:28:36,236 all he could think about was the work that needed to be done. 429 00:28:36,671 --> 00:28:39,413 He was on a collision course that would doom him 430 00:28:39,587 --> 00:28:41,502 and countless others to starvation. 431 00:28:42,503 --> 00:28:46,333 [grunts]. 432 00:28:51,033 --> 00:28:53,688 TYSON: Vavilov knew that no man could witness 433 00:28:53,862 --> 00:28:56,735 Stalin's fear and expect to live long. 434 00:29:05,874 --> 00:29:08,050 LILIYA: Nikolai Ivanovich, I tell you, we are in 435 00:29:08,224 --> 00:29:10,096 the gravest danger. 436 00:29:10,270 --> 00:29:13,882 Three days ago, the secret police came for Yevgeny and Leonid. 437 00:29:14,535 --> 00:29:16,755 They haven't been heard from since. 438 00:29:16,929 --> 00:29:19,192 Their wives are frantic. 439 00:29:19,366 --> 00:29:21,498 Lysenko takes every opportunity to blame you 440 00:29:21,672 --> 00:29:23,326 for the famine. 441 00:29:23,500 --> 00:29:26,416 I tell you, we must stop the experiments in genetics. 442 00:29:28,984 --> 00:29:31,334 VAVILOV: Carry on quietly with your work. 443 00:29:31,508 --> 00:29:33,119 No matter what happens. 444 00:29:33,293 --> 00:29:34,598 We must hurry. 445 00:29:34,773 --> 00:29:37,079 We must be like Michael Faraday, 446 00:29:37,253 --> 00:29:39,908 working hard and keeping accurate notes of the results. 447 00:29:41,301 --> 00:29:44,565 If I disappear, then you must take my place. 448 00:29:44,739 --> 00:29:47,916 The only thing that matters is getting the science right. 449 00:29:48,090 --> 00:29:50,832 It is the only hope of ending this famine 450 00:29:51,006 --> 00:29:53,095 and all the others to come. 451 00:29:53,269 --> 00:29:57,578 LILIYA: Comrade, they're going to arrest you and all of us. 452 00:29:57,752 --> 00:30:00,624 VAVILOV: Then we better work that much faster. 453 00:30:01,887 --> 00:30:04,454 TYSON: Stalin's forced collectivization of farms 454 00:30:04,628 --> 00:30:08,328 in the Ukraine led to one of the darkest chapters in human history. 455 00:30:09,982 --> 00:30:13,507 It was a famine so severe and widespread that instead of 456 00:30:13,681 --> 00:30:16,118 being known by a year and a place, 457 00:30:16,292 --> 00:30:18,729 it was given a name all its own. 458 00:30:19,426 --> 00:30:23,604 Holodomor, meaning the extermination by hunger. 459 00:30:26,433 --> 00:30:29,566 Stalin's zeal to push the kulak peasants off their farms 460 00:30:29,740 --> 00:30:32,918 and into factories had become a policy of genocide. 461 00:30:34,267 --> 00:30:37,792 LYSENKO: Vavilov and his geneticists continue to speak against you. 462 00:30:38,445 --> 00:30:40,142 I cannot bear it. 463 00:30:40,316 --> 00:30:43,276 TYSON: Stalin knew that getting rid of Vavilov might be trouble. 464 00:30:43,754 --> 00:30:46,496 The global scientific community admired Vavilov for 465 00:30:46,670 --> 00:30:48,934 his ideas and his courage. 466 00:30:49,108 --> 00:30:51,632 They had even been willing to move their international 467 00:30:51,806 --> 00:30:55,766 genetics congress to Moscow when Stalin wouldn't let him travel outside the country. 468 00:30:56,985 --> 00:30:59,466 STALIN: Discredit Vavilov first, 469 00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:01,990 then you can do with him as you wish. 470 00:31:03,731 --> 00:31:06,342 VAVILOV: I regret to report that the biochemists 471 00:31:06,516 --> 00:31:09,476 are not yet able to distinguish the lentil from the pea by 472 00:31:09,650 --> 00:31:11,826 analyzing their proteins. 473 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,785 LYSENKO: I reckon that anyone who tries them on their tongue 474 00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:17,005 can tell a lentil from a pea. 475 00:31:17,788 --> 00:31:19,529 [laughter]. 476 00:31:19,703 --> 00:31:22,489 VAVILOV: Comrade, we are unable to distinguish them chemically. 477 00:31:22,663 --> 00:31:24,752 LYSENKO: What's the point of being able to distinguish them 478 00:31:24,926 --> 00:31:27,276 chemically if you can try them on your tongue? 479 00:31:27,581 --> 00:31:30,236 [laughter]. 480 00:31:30,627 --> 00:31:33,326 TYSON: Lysenko now mounted a relentless campaign against 481 00:31:33,500 --> 00:31:36,024 Vavilov and science. 482 00:31:36,503 --> 00:31:39,114 It came to a head at a two-day conference. 483 00:31:39,462 --> 00:31:42,422 All the scientists and enemies of science gathered to 484 00:31:42,596 --> 00:31:45,773 debate the future of Soviet agricultural policy. 485 00:31:48,384 --> 00:31:51,126 LYSENKO [over PA]: And so we shall soon see how my method of soaking 486 00:31:51,300 --> 00:31:57,045 seeds of all kinds in ice water shall lead to a better fed Motherland. 487 00:31:59,308 --> 00:32:02,181 VAVILOV: What? No experiments? No data? 488 00:32:02,790 --> 00:32:04,618 LYSENKO [over PA]: Perhaps you haven't noticed. 489 00:32:04,792 --> 00:32:06,663 Your ranks are thinning. 490 00:32:06,837 --> 00:32:10,102 Vernalization is going to provide a huge winter harvest. 491 00:32:10,711 --> 00:32:12,147 You are either with our plan or... 492 00:32:12,321 --> 00:32:13,975 VAVILOV: You can take me to the stake. 493 00:32:14,149 --> 00:32:15,629 You can set me on fire. 494 00:32:15,803 --> 00:32:17,936 But you can't make me lie about science! 495 00:32:18,588 --> 00:32:20,155 [gasps]. 496 00:32:21,983 --> 00:32:24,725 MAN: We've just witnessed a man committing suicide. 497 00:32:24,899 --> 00:32:26,379 He's going to be arrested. 498 00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:28,207 MAN 2: Arrested? For what? 499 00:32:28,381 --> 00:32:30,035 MAN: You just wait. 500 00:32:30,209 --> 00:32:32,341 That's the last you'll see of this poor brilliant fool. 501 00:32:33,081 --> 00:32:35,214 TYSON: But Vavilov was no fool. 502 00:32:35,388 --> 00:32:37,129 In preparation for what was coming, 503 00:32:37,303 --> 00:32:39,914 he had warned his colleagues that they must ask 504 00:32:40,088 --> 00:32:43,178 for transfers to other institutes to save themselves. 505 00:32:44,092 --> 00:32:46,660 His closest colleagues valiantly refused to distance 506 00:32:46,834 --> 00:32:48,967 themselves from Vavilov. 507 00:32:51,273 --> 00:32:54,798 MAN: Comrade Vavilov, you are needed back in Moscow. 508 00:32:55,060 --> 00:32:58,802 It seems you took some papers that didn't belong to you. 509 00:32:58,977 --> 00:33:03,068 VAVILOV: Just let me use the last of the light to finish my work, please. 510 00:33:19,301 --> 00:33:22,739 KHVAT: This looks bad, Comrade. Really bad. 511 00:33:23,914 --> 00:33:26,178 You've been up to some serious mischief. 512 00:33:26,482 --> 00:33:28,789 You must've known you would be found out soon or later. 513 00:33:29,094 --> 00:33:31,183 VAVILOV: What can you possibly be talking about? 514 00:33:31,357 --> 00:33:32,662 KHVAT: Yes, yes. 515 00:33:32,836 --> 00:33:34,882 I'm sure you're completely mystified. 516 00:33:35,056 --> 00:33:36,275 Don't be cute with me. 517 00:33:36,449 --> 00:33:38,016 You know why you are here. 518 00:33:38,190 --> 00:33:39,713 You have been arrested as an active participant in 519 00:33:39,887 --> 00:33:43,195 a subversive anti-Soviet organization and a spy for 520 00:33:43,369 --> 00:33:45,545 foreign intelligence services. 521 00:33:45,806 --> 00:33:46,720 Do you admit your guilt? 522 00:33:46,894 --> 00:33:48,896 VAVILOV: No. I do not. 523 00:33:49,070 --> 00:33:52,117 I declare categorically that I have never engaged in 524 00:33:52,291 --> 00:33:55,424 espionage or any other anti-Soviet activity. 525 00:33:56,425 --> 00:33:59,254 The testimony you cite are of witnesses whom the state 526 00:33:59,428 --> 00:34:01,256 has already murdered. 527 00:34:01,430 --> 00:34:03,476 You know I am not a spy. 528 00:34:03,650 --> 00:34:06,087 You know I love my country. 529 00:34:06,392 --> 00:34:10,135 My real crime, my only crime is a profound difference 530 00:34:10,309 --> 00:34:12,006 of scientific opinion. 531 00:34:16,402 --> 00:34:18,926 TYSON: Vavilov's tormentor had plenty of experience 532 00:34:19,100 --> 00:34:21,711 softening up such stubborn subjects. 533 00:34:22,190 --> 00:34:24,062 He started interrogating Vavilov for ten, 534 00:34:24,236 --> 00:34:25,976 12 hours at a time. 535 00:34:26,151 --> 00:34:29,241 Usually rousing him out of his bed in the middle of the night. 536 00:34:30,459 --> 00:34:32,157 He must've been tortured, 537 00:34:32,331 --> 00:34:35,334 because his legs were so swollen, 538 00:34:35,508 --> 00:34:37,292 he was unable to walk. 539 00:34:38,641 --> 00:34:41,122 Vavilov would be dragged back to his cell and crawl to 540 00:34:41,296 --> 00:34:44,908 a place on the floor and just lie there, unable to move. 541 00:34:45,692 --> 00:34:49,652 It kept on for 1,700 hours, more than 400 sessions. 542 00:34:50,610 --> 00:34:53,134 Until Vavilov finally broke. 543 00:34:54,396 --> 00:34:57,791 A year after his arrest, he was sentenced to be shot. 544 00:34:59,532 --> 00:35:01,751 He was taken to the place of his execution where 545 00:35:01,925 --> 00:35:04,102 he languished for months. 546 00:35:08,454 --> 00:35:11,152 Just when things couldn't get any darker, 547 00:35:11,326 --> 00:35:13,981 an even greater darkness descended. 548 00:35:17,202 --> 00:35:19,595 Hitler had broken his nonaggression pact with 549 00:35:19,769 --> 00:35:23,033 Stalin, sending millions of German troops and thousands 550 00:35:23,208 --> 00:35:24,948 of tanks to invade Russia. 551 00:35:26,385 --> 00:35:28,735 But the siege of Leningrad was, by any metric, 552 00:35:29,518 --> 00:35:31,564 the most ghastly of all. 553 00:35:38,701 --> 00:35:42,531 This was the world's genetic inheritance. 554 00:35:42,705 --> 00:35:44,881 The seeds of the plants that had sustained us since 555 00:35:45,055 --> 00:35:47,188 the invention of agriculture. 556 00:35:47,362 --> 00:35:50,757 And Hitler, unlike Stalin, knew that it was priceless. 557 00:35:57,024 --> 00:36:01,028 [explosions and heavy artillery] 558 00:36:12,082 --> 00:36:15,782 [explosions] 559 00:36:32,364 --> 00:36:34,844 DMITRI: We don't even know if he's alive. 560 00:36:35,018 --> 00:36:38,805 LILIYA: Until we do, we must find it within ourselves to 561 00:36:38,979 --> 00:36:41,808 do as Nikolai Ivanovich would. 562 00:36:42,591 --> 00:36:46,639 If the siege lasts, our fellow citizens will get very hungry. 563 00:36:47,944 --> 00:36:51,861 This building contains several tons of edible material. 564 00:36:53,167 --> 00:36:56,866 We must figure out how to protect every last seed 565 00:36:57,824 --> 00:37:01,175 for the time when the world returns to its senses. 566 00:37:02,394 --> 00:37:07,225 TYSON: In all of history, no team of scientists has ever been tested so cruelly. 567 00:37:08,487 --> 00:37:13,492 They were pushed beyond the breaking point and yet they did not break. 568 00:37:19,498 --> 00:37:22,283 TYSON: On Christmas Day alone in 1941, 569 00:37:22,457 --> 00:37:25,591 4,000 people starved to death in Leningrad. 570 00:37:26,592 --> 00:37:30,160 The city had been under siege by Hitler's army for more than 100 days. 571 00:37:31,423 --> 00:37:36,036 The temperature was -40 degrees and the city's entire infrastructure had collapsed. 572 00:37:37,994 --> 00:37:40,997 It was only a matter of time, Hitler thought to himself, 573 00:37:41,171 --> 00:37:44,305 before Leningrad succumbed to his will. 574 00:37:44,479 --> 00:37:48,831 No city could endure such suffering for very long. 575 00:37:50,616 --> 00:37:52,400 TYSON: While Stalin fretted over the safety of the 576 00:37:52,574 --> 00:37:54,707 artworks at the Hermitage Museum, 577 00:37:54,881 --> 00:37:57,579 he never gave a single thought to Vavilov's seed bank. 578 00:37:58,972 --> 00:38:02,671 But Hitler had already taken the Louvre art museum of Paris. 579 00:38:02,845 --> 00:38:05,370 He coveted something much more precious. 580 00:38:05,544 --> 00:38:07,372 Vavilov's treasure. 581 00:38:08,155 --> 00:38:11,201 Hitler had established a special tactical unit of the SS, 582 00:38:11,376 --> 00:38:15,728 Russland-Sammelcommando, the Russian collector commandos, 583 00:38:15,902 --> 00:38:17,947 to take control of the seed bank and retrieve 584 00:38:18,121 --> 00:38:20,994 its living riches for future use by the Third Reich. 585 00:38:21,647 --> 00:38:24,084 They waited at the ready, like a pack of Dobermans, 586 00:38:24,258 --> 00:38:26,608 straining to be unleashed on the institute. 587 00:38:27,348 --> 00:38:30,133 The botanists were now down to a ration of two slices 588 00:38:30,308 --> 00:38:32,092 of bread per day. 589 00:38:32,266 --> 00:38:34,573 But still, they continued their work. 590 00:38:34,921 --> 00:38:39,273 In a way, the German army was the least of their worries. 591 00:38:39,447 --> 00:38:42,450 [yelling]. 592 00:38:46,019 --> 00:38:48,064 KRIYER: If only Vavilov were here. 593 00:38:48,238 --> 00:38:50,328 I feel so lost without him. 594 00:38:50,502 --> 00:38:54,201 STCHUKIN: Dear comrade, as painful as it is, 595 00:38:54,375 --> 00:38:57,683 we must accept that he's gone forever. 596 00:38:58,074 --> 00:39:00,990 TYSON: But Vavilov was alive... barely. 597 00:39:02,383 --> 00:39:06,561 He had been moved to another prison in another city. 598 00:39:06,822 --> 00:39:10,565 VAVILOV: I am 54 years old, with a vast experience and 599 00:39:10,739 --> 00:39:13,916 knowledge in the field of plant breeding. 600 00:39:14,743 --> 00:39:17,485 I would be happy to devote myself entirely to 601 00:39:17,659 --> 00:39:19,879 the service of my country. 602 00:39:20,053 --> 00:39:24,797 I request and beg you to allow me to work in my special field, 603 00:39:24,971 --> 00:39:27,626 even at the lowest level. 604 00:39:27,800 --> 00:39:29,802 TYSON: But no answer ever came. 605 00:39:29,976 --> 00:39:32,413 The state had decided not to shoot him. 606 00:39:32,587 --> 00:39:34,894 They had a crueler fate in mind for the man who did 607 00:39:35,068 --> 00:39:38,941 more than any other to eliminate famine and hunger, 608 00:39:39,115 --> 00:39:42,467 he would be deliberately and slowly starved to death. 609 00:39:47,472 --> 00:39:52,868 TYSON: 800,000 other human beings had starved to death in Leningrad. 610 00:39:53,129 --> 00:39:57,133 Besieged by the German forced from September of 1941 until 611 00:39:57,307 --> 00:40:01,573 January of 1944, the city somehow still managed 612 00:40:02,269 --> 00:40:05,533 to hold out against the relentless assault. 613 00:40:06,012 --> 00:40:09,232 The meager rations of two slices of bread a day had 614 00:40:09,407 --> 00:40:12,627 run out long before, and the protectors of Vavilov's 615 00:40:12,801 --> 00:40:16,805 treasure began to succumb to hunger amidst the plenty that 616 00:40:16,979 --> 00:40:20,330 their sacred honor prevented them from consuming. 617 00:40:23,203 --> 00:40:26,728 Botanist Alexander Stchukin, specialist in groundnuts. 618 00:40:45,051 --> 00:40:49,751 Liliya Rodina, expert on oats. 619 00:40:56,062 --> 00:41:01,241 Dimitry Ivanov, world authority on rice. 620 00:41:06,072 --> 00:41:09,554 The botanists perished from hunger, 621 00:41:09,728 --> 00:41:13,775 and yet not a grain of rice in the collection was unaccounted for. 622 00:41:33,403 --> 00:41:36,581 And what of Vavilov's nemesis, Trofim Lysenko? 623 00:41:37,146 --> 00:41:39,453 He maintained his death grip on Soviet agriculture 624 00:41:39,627 --> 00:41:42,674 and biology for another two decades, 625 00:41:42,848 --> 00:41:45,459 until three of Russia's most distinguished scientists 626 00:41:45,633 --> 00:41:49,681 publicly denounced him for his pseudoscience and his other crimes. 627 00:41:51,987 --> 00:41:55,338 And what of Vavilov's brother, Sergey, the physicist? 628 00:41:56,339 --> 00:42:00,169 Stalin made him chairman of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. 629 00:42:02,476 --> 00:42:05,697 After Stalin's death and the recognition of the damage 630 00:42:05,871 --> 00:42:08,656 he and Lysenko had done to the Soviet Union, 631 00:42:08,830 --> 00:42:13,052 Nikolai Vavilov could once again be talked about in public. 632 00:42:13,313 --> 00:42:16,882 The Institute of Plant Industry was renamed after him, 633 00:42:17,056 --> 00:42:20,102 and it still thrives. 634 00:42:20,363 --> 00:42:23,584 And this is here because of his life and work. 635 00:42:23,758 --> 00:42:26,456 This Svalbard Global Seed Vault is buried deep beneath 636 00:42:26,631 --> 00:42:28,850 the Earth at the top of the world. 637 00:42:29,024 --> 00:42:34,247 It can hold four and a half million kinds of seeds underground. 638 00:42:34,639 --> 00:42:39,382 So why didn't the botanists at the Institute eat a single grain of rice? 639 00:42:39,774 --> 00:42:42,864 Why didn't they distribute the seeds and nuts and potatoes 640 00:42:43,038 --> 00:42:46,085 to the people of Leningrad who were dying of starvation 641 00:42:46,259 --> 00:42:48,174 every day for more than two years? 642 00:42:50,263 --> 00:42:53,005 Did you eat today? 643 00:42:53,179 --> 00:42:56,443 If the answer is yes, then you probably ate something that 644 00:42:56,617 --> 00:43:00,055 descended from the seeds that the botanists died to protect. 645 00:43:01,491 --> 00:43:05,234 They gave their lives for us. 646 00:43:08,107 --> 00:43:14,417 If only our future was as real and precious to us as it was to them. 647 00:43:55,110 --> 00:43:57,460 Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.