KERNELS OF HOPE

During the siege of Leningrad, botanists in charge of an irreplaceable seed collection, the first of its kind, had to protect it from fire, rodents-and hunger

- Simon Parkin

SINCE ABRAM KAMERAZ HAD BEGUN to commute by train from Leningrad (now St Petersburg) to the suburban town of Pavlovsk in the summer of 1941, attacks by enemy planes had become a frequent cause of delay. Through the carriage window, Kameraz saw the road was littered with bodies.

These men, women and children had been killed by German planes, which had strafed and bombed the crowds of refugees as they fled towards the city. As Kameraz caught the silhouette of a German Stuka cresting the horizon, the driver stopped the train and ordered the passengers to run to a nearby ditch for cover.

Kameraz, 36, was a potato specialist, one of about 50 botanists who worked at the Plant Institute, the world's first seed bank, situated off St Isaac's Square in the centre of Leningrad. The institute's potato collection contained 6,000 varieties, including many rare cultivars -the largest, most diverse potato collection yet gathered in history, a crop of inestimable scientific importance. And right now, hundreds of delicate South American specimens were planted in sheds in the fields on the outskirts of the city, in the path of the advancing German army.

Throughout August, Kameraz and his colleague Olga Voskresenskaya had made regular trips back and forth between Leningrad and Pavlovsk. But after the enemy planes fired on the trucks carrying potatoes near the Pulkovo Heights, the military drivers had refused to take them. So, Kameraz had decided to stage today's reckless final rescue attempt alone. Every potato he could save and return to the seed bank in the city centre increased the chances of preserving his important work.