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0:08
Fireheart originals.
0:10
This is an iHeart original.
0:18
In nineteen twenty nine, Joseph
0:20
Stalin ordered the farmers of
0:22
the Soviet Union to start
0:25
a utopia. Back
0:27
then, the USSR was a
0:29
quilt of old school, frankly
0:32
almost medieval farming
0:34
villages. Peasants lived
0:36
simply. They grew their own food
0:39
and if they felt like it, sold the
0:41
surplus. Stalin saw
0:43
that as a problem. The Soviet
0:46
Union was industrializing.
0:49
People were flocking to cities,
0:51
and many of them didn't have garden
0:54
plots to grow their own food. Meanwhile,
0:57
the country's stockpile of grain
1:00
was shrinking by the day. The
1:02
situation was so bad that
1:04
the USSR was importing
1:06
wheat and rye from
1:09
the United States. As
1:11
you can imagine, Stalin hated
1:14
this, so he cooked up a
1:16
strategy to fill every belly
1:18
in the country with locally
1:20
grown food. The plan
1:23
collectivization. The
1:25
state would take over farms
1:28
and all those old school peasants
1:31
would begin growing food for
1:34
everybody
1:36
with the stroke of a pen. The
1:38
government began gobbling up
1:40
farmland. It bought new state
1:43
of the art machinery. It introduced
1:45
new breeds of high yield, disease
1:48
resistant crops, but there
1:50
was one problem. Many of
1:52
the farmers refused to
1:55
join the fight.
1:57
There was sort of a systemic
2:00
depression among farmers. Now they
2:02
were working for Stalin, not for themselves.
2:06
That's Gary Paul Nabhan. He's
2:08
an agricultural ecologist, conservationist,
2:11
and past winner of a MacArthur Genius
2:14
Grant. He describes Stalin's
2:16
push for collectivization this way.
2:19
Imagine you live on a farm that's
2:21
been in your family for generations.
2:24
You know the land inside and
2:27
out.
2:28
Say have a pride in taking care
2:30
of their land. They have motivations
2:33
for working hard to produce crops,
2:35
both for their own food and for others.
2:38
And now suddenly the government is
2:40
handing you seeds and giving you quotas,
2:43
and you can't even keep the spoils.
2:47
Farmers didn't take the news well,
2:49
especially the most powerful peasants,
2:52
a class of farmers called the Kulos.
2:55
They simply ignored Stalin's
2:57
demands. When Stalin
2:59
realized that the Kulaks were resisting,
3:02
he didn't respond with a sternly
3:04
written letter. He responds
3:07
by promising and I quote,
3:10
to liquidate the Kulaks as
3:12
a class. Police
3:16
swooped onto Kulock farms around
3:19
five million would be arrested, deported
3:22
sent to prison camps. Untold
3:25
numbers were killed. Turns
3:28
out, exterminating your
3:30
most successful farmers is
3:33
a bad idea. Productivity
3:36
plummeted, food became even
3:39
more scarce, yields
3:41
failed to improve, and
3:43
the USSR plunged into
3:45
a famine that would lead to the
3:48
deaths of seven million people.
3:51
Not to put too fine a point on
3:53
it, but Stalin had gotten
3:55
himself into a bit of a mess.
3:58
He needed help, and one of the people
4:00
he turned to was a guy
4:03
named Nikolai Vavolov was
4:07
one of the world's leading experts
4:09
in plant genetics. He had
4:12
turned the dusty botanical labs
4:14
of Imperial Russia into the
4:16
world capital for plant science,
4:19
and now his job was
4:21
to resurrect Soviet agriculture,
4:24
to turn the USSR into
4:26
a self sufficient farming
4:29
wonderland with crops sprouting
4:31
from the desolate scrublands of
4:33
the Eurasian step to the craggy
4:36
mountains of Kazakhstan. Vavolov
4:39
would work tirelessly to lift
4:42
his country out of Stalin's man
4:44
made famine, but he was
4:47
also a realist. He told
4:49
the government it would take years
4:51
to recover developing new
4:53
hardy plant breeds took time.
4:57
Stalin didn't want to hear this.
4:59
He wanted a solution fast.
5:03
He needed somebody who would
5:05
make collectivization and work,
5:08
somebody who could engineer seeds
5:10
that could be planted anywhere, anytime
5:13
of the year. So he began searching
5:16
for a hero. The
5:18
search would bring the Soviet Union
5:20
to its knees, and it would
5:23
force Nikolai Vavilov to
5:25
make a fateful choice, one
5:27
between the truth or his
5:30
life. Welcome
5:32
to very special episodes and iHeart
5:34
original podcast. I'm your host,
5:36
Danish Schwartz, and this is seed
5:39
Wars. I
5:44
have to say I was never a botany
5:46
kid. I know some kids are, you know, out
5:48
in the backyard, like looking at leaves, identifying
5:51
trees. That was never a skill
5:53
set of mind. But add a historical
5:55
element and add some characters like Bavolov,
5:57
and then that makes me care about botany.
5:59
My fiance is all about plants
6:02
and trees, like I can, I think, point to any
6:04
tree and say what is that? And she'll know, So for
6:06
her the story would be amazing. For me, I was just wrapped
6:08
up in the Vavilov of it, like just it's so wrong,
6:11
what happens.
6:12
I want to give a shout out before we start
6:14
to Lucas Riley, who wrote
6:17
today's episode, So if you like
6:19
the botany aspects, he wrote
6:21
another show here called Bad Seeds,
6:23
so check that out. If you like the
6:26
repressive dictatorship aspects, he
6:29
worked on a show called
6:31
Big Brother, all about the assassination of
6:33
Kim Jong UN's older brother. So something
6:36
for everybody. And in this episode
6:38
we kind of combine them.
6:40
Yeah, totally. And also the Soviet Union,
6:42
what's up without it always sounds like the worst group
6:44
project in the history of humanity. Like
6:46
nothing is worse than Like I got together with some of my Soviets
6:49
and we came up with a plan.
6:50
One quick spoiler. We have some superb
6:53
voice acting by one of the three of us
6:56
later in this episode, and it's not me.
6:59
It's not me. I have my podcast
7:01
voice and that's it.
7:03
This was showing new new
7:06
talents. I'd have to do an episode about
7:08
Zarin's acting abilities and
7:11
career later on. I don't know if we can get
7:13
into it now.
7:13
And how I draw inspiration from the Hunt for
7:15
the Red October for my Russian accents.
7:18
This is just a fascinating story. We
7:20
get botany, we get seed
7:22
banks, we get politics, we
7:24
get Russian accents. I mean, should we get
7:26
into it?
7:27
Yeah, let's do do it.
7:33
When Nikola I Vovolov was a kid, he
7:35
heard horrific stories from family
7:38
about what it was like to almost
7:40
starve to death.
7:41
Russia I had undergone several
7:44
famines from the eighteen sixties on
7:47
that literally devastated
7:49
the population. There was great
7:52
traumatic stress in his own family
7:54
about the dramatic social
7:57
cost of those famines.
8:00
Hunger was a fact of life in
8:03
the late eighteen hundreds. When
8:05
you went out, you expected to
8:07
see people's bones through their
8:09
clothes. It was like living in
8:11
a world where skeletons walked
8:14
the streets. But this nightmarish
8:17
vision fired up Vavolov.
8:19
He had a dream to create
8:22
a world where nobody would
8:24
starve. As a kid attending
8:26
the Petrovskiya Agricultural Academy,
8:29
he wrote in his diary.
8:31
I want to commit my life to
8:33
understanding nature for
8:36
the betterment of humankind,
8:38
to work for the benefit
8:40
of Zippor.
8:42
Vavolov hit the books and became
8:45
a plant science whiz kid.
8:47
After graduating, he traveled abroad
8:50
to study even more In England,
8:52
he studied evolutionary theory by
8:55
pouring over the original manuscripts
8:58
in Charles Darwin's personal
9:00
library. Along the way, he
9:02
made important contacts.
9:04
Babolov was in contact with
9:07
some of the greatest evolutionary
9:09
geneticist.
9:11
One of those great geneticists was
9:13
William Bateson, the man who
9:16
literally came up with the word genetics.
9:19
He also added people like Reginald
9:21
Punnitt to his rolodex, which
9:24
if you remember doing Punnitt squares
9:26
in high school biology, it's
9:28
well that guy. By
9:31
his late twenties, Vavolov's
9:33
vast network of connections turned
9:35
him into an internationally known
9:38
up and comer. It
9:40
helped that Vavolov was, frankly,
9:42
a really nice guy. He
9:44
was one of those people who seemed to have
9:47
an endless battery, always
9:49
on the go, solving problems at
9:51
every turn. He seemed to never
9:54
sleep, but was always radiating
9:56
energy and enthusiasm. He
9:59
carried a smile everywhere he went,
10:01
and he never forgot the names of people
10:04
he worked with. Simply Vavolov,
10:06
it was a mensch and a
10:09
talented one too. As
10:11
a young scientist, he started connecting
10:13
dots that nobody had ever considered.
10:16
Take for example, this idea
10:18
about plant diversity.
10:20
He was the first one to sell the alarm
10:23
about biodiversity that connected
10:25
it to our food system. Wabolov
10:28
was clear that famines
10:32
were going to occur at
10:34
an increasingly frequent and
10:36
severe level if we didn't diversify
10:39
our food system.
10:40
Weavlov argued that if most
10:43
farms raised the exact
10:45
species of the exact same
10:47
crop, a single disease could
10:50
decimate the region, but plant
10:52
diversity could prevent these
10:54
future calamities.
10:56
It was chafing that against
10:59
quickly evolving question and diseases.
11:02
Vavolov resolved to take this
11:04
knowledge home. He returned to
11:07
Russia and joined the Ministry
11:09
of Agriculture, and
11:11
then his country changed
11:14
for good. The
11:16
Tsar is dethroned, the Winter
11:19
Palace is stormed. Vladimir
11:21
Lenin takes control for
11:26
Vavolov. The new Communist government
11:29
is pretty friendly to his research
11:31
interests. The Bolsheviks were
11:34
pitching themselves as a party of peasants'
11:36
rights. Lenin in particular
11:39
knew the country's poorest needed
11:41
easy access to food. The
11:44
famine to prevent is the next
11:46
one, Lenin said, and the time
11:48
to begin is now. The
11:50
Soviets funneled money into agricultural
11:53
research. Flush with cash,
11:56
Vavlov's tiny botany bureau
11:58
would become a plant breeding
12:01
mecca. Meanwhile, Vavolov was
12:03
doing some cutting edge research.
12:05
When he was thirty three, he presented
12:08
a theory on plant classification
12:10
that turned him into Russia's top
12:13
plant science celebrity. Vavolov
12:16
was becoming hot stuff. Russia's
12:19
leading botanist called him quote
12:22
the future pride of Russian science.
12:25
The Komissar of Agriculture compared
12:27
him to the inventor of the periodic
12:30
table. Biology,
12:32
he said has found its Mendolaev.
12:35
With Vavolov's profile on the rise,
12:38
he had the Soviet government's
12:40
attention, and he made a pitch.
12:43
If the USSR was going to diversify
12:46
its crops, if it was going to breed
12:49
new varieties of plants, then
12:51
the government would need a library
12:54
of sorts, a library
12:57
of seeds.
12:59
It was to be the
13:02
first living collection
13:05
of culture seeds
13:09
from around the world.
13:11
To build this library, Vavolov
13:13
would have to travel and collect
13:16
every seed variety known.
13:18
To man to
13:21
find resistance and
13:23
tolerant strains of those prop
13:26
plants and then to either
13:28
breed them or select them to new
13:31
conditions and uses.
13:33
The government listened to Vavolov's
13:36
pitch and approved
13:38
it. Soon the young
13:40
scientist was hitting the.
13:42
Road horseback, mule
13:44
back, camelback in small
13:46
plains and wrapting
13:48
rivers to get to places where
13:51
he thought he might find seeds that
13:53
had been underappreciated.
13:57
Vavolov's passport grew fat
13:59
with stamps. He traveled to Persia,
14:02
Afghanistan, Syria and Palestine.
14:05
He explored Tunisia, Algeria,
14:07
Morocco and Ethiopia. He
14:09
searched for seeds in Italy and crete
14:12
in China and Japan, In
14:15
Mexico, Peru, Chile and Trinidad.
14:18
Vavolov became the world's top
14:21
seed hunter, bringing tens
14:23
of thousands of specimens
14:25
back to his seed library in Leningrad.
14:28
He didn't just collect seeds,
14:30
though, he collected local
14:32
knowledge.
14:33
Two.
14:35
He was really the first scientist to
14:37
listen deeply to the traditional
14:40
knowledge of farmers.
14:42
He'd ask, where do you grow this crop
14:44
in moist soil, dry soil,
14:46
on the side of a hill in the shade.
14:49
What time of day do you water it? Vavolov
14:52
sponged in all of the knowledge
14:54
he could, and by doing that
14:57
he formed another bombshell
15:00
idea.
15:04
It's nineteen twenty four and Vavolov
15:06
is in Afghanistan. He steps
15:09
into a region called Nuristan
15:11
Province, a place of unspoiled
15:14
beauty. Imagine jagged
15:17
tan mountains carpeted with pine
15:19
trees, valleys of lush
15:21
tall grass, rivers blue
15:24
as a gemstone, all untouched
15:27
by agriculture. Wandering
15:29
the foothills, Vavolov is
15:31
struck by an idea.
15:34
He realized that which diversity
15:36
of plants are distributed in a
15:38
few patches river basins,
15:41
or coastlines
15:43
or mountain ranges, they had been
15:45
maintained in place for thousands
15:47
of years and had diversified
15:50
into all kinds
15:52
of colors and shapes, almost like a rainbow
15:55
of food plant diversity.
15:58
That is, there are a handful of places
16:01
on Earth that preserve a dazzling
16:04
diversity of ancient crumps.
16:06
These regions are like natural
16:09
museums, and they are
16:11
Vavolov suggested the center
16:13
of origin for those plant species.
16:16
In other words, places like this valley
16:19
in Afghanistan was where the
16:21
world's food originated.
16:24
The food crops
16:26
that are the mainstays
16:29
of every country in the world come
16:31
from just a few places.
16:34
This idea, what Vavolov
16:37
called gene centers, would
16:39
turn Vavolov the plant celebrity
16:42
into Vavolov the plant genius.
16:45
Vavolov became the most famous
16:47
plant scientists, not only
16:49
in Russia, but arguably in the
16:52
whole world. Vavolov's
16:54
new theory essentially helped
16:56
create a manual for making new
16:59
breeds of plants, breeds that
17:01
could stand up to drought or heavy
17:03
rain, or disease, even
17:06
the unpredictable seasons of Russia.
17:09
Here's Vavolov again, with an assist
17:11
from Peter Pringle's translations
17:14
in his excellent book on Bablov.
17:16
We have before us is the
17:19
possibility of sculpturing
17:22
organic forms at vil.
17:24
In the near future, men will
17:27
be able by means of crossing,
17:30
to synthesize forms
17:32
such as are absolutely
17:35
unknown in nature.
17:39
When Vavolov came home from his adventures
17:42
with a new collection of seeds, he'd
17:44
mail the specimens out to experimental
17:47
research farms that were scattered across
17:49
the Soviet Union. There,
17:51
groups of scientists would plant the
17:53
seeds and observe how they
17:55
grew in varied soil and climate
17:58
conditions. Vavolov's
18:00
work would launch the USSR
18:03
to the peak of plant science.
18:05
It would also launch his international
18:08
career. He'd be elected vice
18:10
president and later president
18:13
of the International Genetics
18:16
Conference. In the USSR,
18:18
he became leader of eighteen
18:21
different agricultural posts.
18:23
At the Bureau of Applied Botany,
18:26
he managed more than fifteen
18:28
hundred staff members and was
18:30
hiring more by the day. Vavlov
18:33
was assembling an army of scientists,
18:37
and one of the people to join that army
18:40
was a kid named Trophimlesenko.
18:43
Lisenka was a poor kid with little
18:46
formal education. He worked
18:48
at an experimental farm in Azerbaijan,
18:51
where he tended plots of pea plants
18:54
in bear feet. He was a
18:56
nobody, but he was an
18:58
ambitious nobody, and
19:00
soon he would wreck everything
19:03
Vavolov had built.
19:16
Trofim Lisenko was nothing
19:18
like Nikolai Vavlov. Where
19:20
Vavolov was gregarious and
19:22
open, Lisenka was joyless
19:25
and cold. Vavolov had
19:27
an actual twinkle in his eyes.
19:30
Meanwhile, Lisenka was gaunt,
19:32
with shallow eyes and tight
19:34
sunken cheeks. A journalist
19:37
at the newspaper Pravda charitably
19:40
described him as quote stingy
19:42
of words and insignificant
19:44
of face. Unlike Vavolov,
19:47
who trained at universities under
19:49
some of the most famous geneticists
19:51
of his day, Lisenka was mostly
19:54
self taught. The two men's
19:56
educations reflected their backgrounds.
19:59
Vavolov was born to privilege,
20:01
Lisenko born to peasants. Since
20:04
Lisenko grew up farming, he
20:07
knew plants inside and out.
20:10
He often said that he didn't need a
20:12
fancy science degree to understand
20:15
how plants worked. By
20:17
the nineteen twenties, Lisenko was
20:19
working at an experimental plant
20:21
breeding station in Azerbaijan
20:24
where he was growing peas, and
20:26
he was trying something unique.
20:28
Usually peas are grown over
20:31
the spring and summer, but
20:33
Lisenko wanted to try to grow
20:35
them over the winter so that
20:37
the local cattle would have something
20:39
to munch on over the cold months.
20:42
And it worked. Lisenko
20:44
felt exhilarated. It was like
20:47
he had cracked a secret code, a
20:49
way to grow plants any time
20:51
of the year. If this was true,
20:53
it was groundbreaking. It could
20:56
increase yields and save lives.
20:59
He started telling everybody about
21:01
it, including journalists.
21:04
When a reporter with the state run
21:07
newspaper Pravda visited Lisenko's
21:09
farm, the writer took the gardener
21:12
at his word. The
21:14
story, after all, had a good
21:16
hook. A young, uneducated
21:19
scientist who had grown up dirt
21:21
poor was using his common
21:23
sense to make scientific discoveries.
21:26
The writer said that Lisenko didn't
21:29
quote toil in a laboratory
21:31
away from the land. He went
21:33
to the root of things back
21:36
at the seed library in Leningrad.
21:39
Vavolov must have read the article with
21:41
amusement. Lisenko hadn't
21:44
discovered anything. Regular
21:46
farmers had stumbled upon the same trick
21:48
generations ago. In fact,
21:50
Vavolov had created an entire department
21:53
to study the effects of heat,
21:55
light, climate, and season on plant
21:58
growth. But Lisenko didn't
22:00
know this. He didn't read botany
22:02
journals or keep up with the latest science,
22:05
so when he made his so called discovery,
22:08
he was convinced it was news to everybody.
22:12
Vavolov didn't resent Lisenko for
22:14
taking credit for an old idea. The
22:17
kid clearly had talent, so
22:20
he encouraged the young scientists to
22:22
keep at it. In the meantime,
22:24
Vavolov was curious about Lisenko's
22:26
methods, so he sent one of his
22:28
top scientists down to Azerbaijan
22:31
to check on Lisenko's science.
22:34
The report that came back was
22:37
not great. Lisenko had
22:40
little knowledge of scientific literature.
22:42
The report said, he paid no attention
22:45
to pesky things like lab
22:47
practices or control groups.
22:50
Lisenko wasn't tracking any
22:52
data. He was just charting
22:55
vibes up in Leningrad.
22:58
Vavolov was dismayed by the report,
23:01
but remained optimistic that Lisenka
23:03
was just young and arrogant. He
23:06
would grow out of it. But
23:08
Vavolov's optimism was his weakness.
23:11
He didn't know that Lisenko had no interest
23:14
in learning from so called elites
23:17
like him. He didn't know that Lisenko
23:19
thought universities were quote harmful
23:23
nonsense. Lisenko was
23:25
one of those people who was convinced
23:27
he already knew everything,
23:30
which is funny because
23:32
Lisenko believed a lot
23:35
of nonsense.
23:37
Lisenko was stuck in sort
23:39
of a nineteenth century ideology.
23:44
To start, Lisenko did not believe
23:46
in genetics, chromosomes,
23:49
genes, DNA, heredity. All
23:51
of that stuff might as well be fairy
23:53
dust. Meanwhile, he believed
23:56
in things like spontaneous
23:58
generation, the idea that life
24:01
can just appear. He
24:03
even believed that a species could
24:05
transform midlife into
24:08
another species, like wheat
24:11
could transform into rye.
24:13
And then there were his opinions
24:15
about evolution.
24:17
He didn't understand anything about natural
24:19
selection.
24:21
Liseno didn't believe in Darwin's
24:23
theory. Instead, he was
24:26
what you'd call a Lamarkist,
24:28
named after the French naturalist
24:31
Jean Baptiste Lamarque. Lamarkists
24:33
believed that traits aren't acquired
24:36
through genes, they're acquired
24:38
through actions that we take during
24:41
our lifetime. Take a
24:43
giraffe. Lamarkists believed
24:45
that the giraffe got its long
24:47
neck because its ancestors stretched
24:50
their necks reaching for leaves.
24:53
All of that stretching lengthened
24:55
the neck, and over generations,
24:58
they passed this long neck to their
25:00
offspring. To be clear, that
25:03
is not how evolution works.
25:06
Oh couldn't accept the breath
25:09
and I think the wonder and beauty of revolution
25:12
as we understand it today.
25:15
Lisenko didn't accept that you could
25:17
help plants evolve by crossbreeding
25:20
them. Instead, he believed
25:22
you could essentially train a plant
25:24
to transform into something different.
25:28
To be clear, again, that is
25:30
not how evolution works.
25:35
Up in Leningrad, Vavolov knew
25:37
Lisenko harbored some weird ideas,
25:40
that he was a bit sloppy with his
25:42
data, but he never truly understood
25:45
the extent of Lisenko's
25:47
wackiness. Instead, all
25:49
he saw was somebody who, like him,
25:52
loved plants, a kid who
25:54
quote walked by faith and not
25:56
by sight. After all, what
25:58
was so wrong about employing someone who
26:01
thinks outside the box, who
26:03
knows? Vavolov said, maybe Lisenko
26:05
would stumble on a way quote to
26:07
grow bananas in Moscow. He
26:10
believed in Losenko's potential,
26:13
and Lisenko returned
26:15
that goodwill by stabbing
26:18
him in the back. In
26:23
the early nineteen thirties, Lisenko
26:26
was experimenting with planting schedules.
26:29
What if we plant potatoes in the winter
26:32
or in the fall, how would that change
26:34
productivity? He called
26:36
this big idea vernalization.
26:39
The so called journalists at the
26:42
state newspaper.
26:43
Ate it up a Grandmamus. Lisenko's
26:45
discoveries will lead our agriculture onto
26:48
a high road of vast possibilities
26:50
in extraordinary achievements and greatly
26:52
increased the tempo of our social construction.
26:56
Meanwhile, scientists whistled
26:58
a different tune. When Lisenko
27:01
presented his findings at a science
27:03
conference, most colleagues
27:05
ignored his work. Vavolov,
27:08
meanwhile, acted like a good mentor.
27:10
He called Lisenko's work remarkable
27:13
and encouraged the young scientist again
27:15
to keep at it. But each
27:17
time he sent a scientist down
27:19
to check on Lisenko's methods, the
27:22
reports that returned were brutal.
27:26
Lisenko is an experimenter who was fearless
27:28
and undoubtedly talented, but he was also
27:30
an uneducated and extremely egotistical
27:33
person, deeming himself to be a new
27:35
messiah of biological.
27:37
Science, the
27:39
new Messiah of biological
27:42
science. By now, Lisenko
27:44
had become a darling of the Communist
27:47
press, and it was getting to
27:49
his head. In his mind, he
27:51
was just a poor kid coming up with
27:53
great ideas that the elites in Leningrad
27:56
just didn't appreciate, and he
27:58
was getting sick of the fact that they weren't
28:01
validating his efforts. So
28:03
he went out and found somebody
28:06
who would. In the early
28:08
nineteen thirties, Lisenko Medigui
28:11
named Isaac Present, Present
28:14
was not a scientist. He
28:17
was a political philosopher and
28:19
professor, a guy with a deep
28:21
interest in biology, and
28:24
by deep interest, I mean he
28:27
believed that communism and biology
28:30
were incompatible. Take
28:32
genetics here was an idea
28:34
that basically said, your bloodline determines
28:36
your fate. It sounded fascist,
28:39
a scientific way to justify
28:42
racism. To Present, genetics
28:45
was metaphysical bs it
28:47
had no real evidence behind
28:49
it, he said. He and Lisenko
28:51
also took issue with natural selection,
28:54
instead, arguing that plants,
28:57
at least plants within the same species,
28:59
were like good communists and
29:02
didn't compete with other members of their
29:04
species. Now,
29:06
anybody who tends a garden knows
29:09
that beloney plants compete
29:11
for sunlight, soil, water, basically
29:14
everything else. But for Present,
29:17
a guy who taught classes with titles
29:20
like class Struggle on the natural
29:22
science front, that sort of knowledge
29:24
was the old way of doing science.
29:27
It was time to embrace a new
29:30
communist friendly science.
29:33
Now.
29:34
By the early nineteen thirty's
29:36
Present took a shine to the young
29:39
Lisenko. Here was a kid
29:41
whose ideas were being spurned
29:43
by his bourgeois bosses. Lisenko
29:46
in turn looked up to Present. Finally,
29:50
somebody in the upper ranks of academia
29:53
was taking him seriously. They
29:56
began to meet and chat about
29:58
science. After a few meetings,
30:01
Present decided to become Lisenko's
30:03
biggest cheerleader, his publicist,
30:06
his promoter, his spin doctor.
30:09
Together they would concoct a
30:11
quote new biology that
30:14
reflected a communist worldview.
30:17
Take that idea about natural
30:19
cooperation. Lisenko
30:21
would go on to suggest that since
30:24
plants, like good communists,
30:26
don't compete, then a farmer
30:29
could plant seeds as close together
30:31
as possible to achieve a higher
30:33
yield. This is a catastrophically
30:37
bad idea, but Lisenko
30:39
didn't bounce his idea off other scientists.
30:42
He bounced it off Present. Meanwhile,
30:46
he bumped Lisenko's ideas up to
30:48
his friends in the Kremlin, where
30:50
he lauded the young scientist
30:52
as an unsung genius whose
30:55
ideas were being ignored, which
30:57
was true in a way, scientists
31:00
like Vavolov were ignoring him.
31:03
Lisenko kept pushing to bring
31:05
his big idea of vernalization
31:07
to the masses, but Vavolov
31:10
kept shooting him down, telling
31:12
him that the idea was best
31:14
for slow and controlled experimentation,
31:18
not something that should be forced on every
31:21
farm in the USSR. Lisenko
31:24
didn't like getting rejected. Vavolov
31:27
wasn't a real farmer. He was
31:29
a phony who spent most
31:32
of his work here traveling the
31:34
world hunting for seeds.
31:36
He thought that Babolov was
31:38
an elitist that was spending
31:40
a lot of money going around other countries,
31:43
almost on a scientific joy ride.
31:46
By the mid nineteen thirties,
31:49
some people high up in government were
31:51
beginning to feel the same way. After
31:54
Stalin liquidated the Kulux
31:57
and sent the USSR spiraling
31:59
into famine, the government was
32:02
anxious to recover, and
32:04
Vavolov, they believed, was moving
32:07
too slow. The Kremlin
32:09
demanded new varieties of grain
32:12
to be ready in three years.
32:15
Vavolov calmly told his superiors
32:17
that that was not how science
32:20
works. It would take at least
32:22
ten The government did
32:25
not like hearing that, and Lisenko
32:28
saw that as his chance. Lisenko
32:31
argued that he alone knew how
32:33
to save the Soviet Union from
32:36
starvation, but elites like
32:38
Vavolov were holding him and the
32:40
country back.
32:42
Lyshenko laim Babilov and
32:44
said that he could come up with a more cost
32:46
effective solution to avoiding
32:49
famines.
32:51
Lisenko became more and more
32:53
aggressive. In nineteen thirty
32:56
five, he made another speech comparing
32:58
his superiors to the kulaks. His
33:01
bosses, he said were obstructing
33:03
progress. Joseph Stalin
33:05
was in the audience when Lisenko made his speech.
33:08
He didn't know anything about biology, but
33:11
he knew good rhetoric. When he heard
33:13
it, he stood up and began.
33:15
To clap Bravo, comrad
33:18
Lisenko.
33:19
The next year, the Commissariat of Agriculture
33:22
ordered approximately five hundred
33:24
farms to put Lisenko's
33:27
farming techniques to the test.
33:32
After the government ordered farmers
33:34
to try out Lisenko's planting methods,
33:37
the scientist mailed hundreds of questionnaires
33:39
to track the experiment's progress.
33:42
When the envelopes came back, Lisenko
33:44
threw most of the results out.
33:47
He kept only ten percent of
33:49
them, the ones that made his idea
33:51
look correct. His idea
33:54
was a complete failure, but
33:57
because he cherry picked the data and
33:59
tossed anything that made him look wrong.
34:02
All of the news reports made him out
34:04
to be a boy genius. When
34:07
reality on the ground became too
34:09
hard for even the state sponsored
34:12
newspapers to deny, one
34:14
reporter twisted it this way, summer
34:17
plantings are very good, but because
34:20
of poor cultivation of the land, we
34:22
obtained a low harvest. In
34:25
other words, it was the farmer's fault.
34:28
In the nineteen thirties, there was a word
34:30
for people like this, people who
34:32
obstructed the communist revolution,
34:35
wreckers, And as Lisenko
34:38
saw it, the farmers were wreckers,
34:41
and so were scientists like Vavolov,
34:44
who were demanding that he published
34:46
transparent data. Even
34:48
with these silent failures, all
34:51
the press, the government support. The
34:53
momentum was still on Lisenko's
34:56
side, and as his star
34:58
was rising, Vavolov's was
35:00
falling. Vavlov was
35:02
barred from traveling internationally
35:05
and banned from receiving foreign
35:07
science journals. Meanwhile, people
35:09
like Present were writing articles
35:12
lambasting Vavolov for not finding
35:14
fast solutions to the famine. Present
35:17
compared Vavolov's belief in genetics
35:20
to religious devotion. Vavolov
35:22
responded by writing in a journal.
35:25
To those who propose elimination
35:28
of modern genetics, v
35:30
say, first offer a
35:32
substitute of equivalent value.
35:35
Let chromosomal theory be
35:38
replaced by better theory, not
35:41
a theory that sets us back
35:43
seventy years.
35:45
Lisenko replied in the same issue,
35:48
calling Vavalov's beloved genetics.
35:51
A reactionary, idealistic
35:54
absorb falsification
35:56
of science.
35:57
Genetics is undisguised
36:00
metaphysics.
36:02
Up in Leningrad, Vavolov tried
36:04
to tune out all of this rubbish.
36:07
He continued cataloging his seeds,
36:10
expanding the holdings of his vast
36:12
plant library, but it
36:14
was getting harder to stay the course.
36:17
Wavlov was giving lectures as
36:19
usual, but now he
36:22
was getting booed off the stage.
36:25
Lisenko was getting more fiery
36:27
too.
36:28
Comraatesvzre and
36:30
easier.
36:32
Really no class stluggle
36:34
on the vernylization front.
36:37
Instead of helping the collective
36:40
farmers, scientists like
36:42
Vardilov sabotage
36:44
sinks. A class enemy
36:47
is always enemy, even if
36:49
it is scientist.
36:52
Vavolov usually kept his head
36:55
down, but he couldn't help but defend
36:57
the sanctity of science. He
37:00
knew his old protege was cooking
37:02
the books. Lisenka was failing
37:04
upward, and it was plunge the
37:07
Soviet Union closer
37:09
and closer to famine.
37:12
Our magicians do not take
37:14
into accounts the years of
37:16
long experience of warm
37:19
science. They do not want
37:21
to here opinion of
37:24
other researchers. They
37:26
want to live in their
37:28
birthta suits.
37:31
In the old days, criticizing the work of
37:33
a fellow scientist was just part of
37:35
the discourse. It's what made
37:37
science well science. But
37:40
these were new times. Scientific
37:43
criticism wasn't just criticism
37:45
anymore. It was something downright
37:48
unpatriotic. In
37:53
the late nineteen thirties, Stalin
37:55
issued in order to quote fight
37:58
the high priests of science. It
38:05
started when the secret police arrested
38:08
two leaders of the USSR's
38:10
top farm school. The
38:12
school's former president, Alexander
38:14
Murlov, would be charged with sabotage
38:17
and shot dead. The
38:22
school's current president, Georgie Meister,
38:25
would be arrested too. The
38:27
person to take his job would
38:30
be Trophen Lisenko. It's
38:32
unclear exactly what Vavlov
38:34
was thinking when his colleagues began
38:37
disappearing, but he clearly
38:40
assumed that he was next. But
38:43
over the next two years, his
38:45
number never came up. Instead,
38:48
Vavolov watched as dozens
38:50
of the country's leading geneticists,
38:53
all of them his friends, were
38:55
declared enemies of the people
38:57
and rounded up, never to be
39:00
seen again. All the
39:02
while, Lisenko began taking
39:04
jobs that used to be Vavolov's.
39:07
The Kremlin installed Lisenko as
39:10
new director at the Institute
39:12
of Genetics. Vavolov
39:15
was baffled the guy running
39:17
the Institute of Genetics didn't
39:20
even believe in genetics.
39:23
By nineteen thirty nine, he was at
39:25
wits end.
39:26
We shall go to Zipire,
39:29
we shall burn, but
39:32
we shall not retreat
39:35
from our convictions.
39:37
The people in high posts were listening.
39:40
In fact, they were slowly building
39:43
a case against Vavolov. The
39:45
State Security Service concocted
39:48
a conspiracy claiming
39:50
that the USSR's agricultural
39:52
scientists had deliberately
39:54
sabotaged Stalin' push for
39:57
collectivisation. In the report,
40:00
Vavolov was one of the scientists
40:02
named. It said that he and
40:05
the Institute oft had
40:07
provided quote grist to
40:09
the mills of anti scientific
40:12
theories. Lisenko was happy
40:14
to jump onto that narrative.
40:17
He blamed Vavolov for famines
40:21
and other disruptions of
40:23
peasant agriculture that were
40:25
really caused by the Collectivizationlysenko
40:30
manipulated Stalin to think
40:33
that Vabolov's whole point
40:35
of view was a capitalistic
40:38
elitist endeavor.
40:40
The secret police had a lot of phony
40:42
evidence to suspect Vavolov of wrongdoing.
40:46
He received his higher education in the
40:48
West, and he was chummy with
40:50
scientists from capitalist parts
40:52
of the world.
40:53
He was open to dialogue between
40:55
the Western world and Eastern world, sharing
40:58
feedsen knowledge with other scientists.
41:01
Wavolov believed in sharing knowledge
41:03
to push science forward, but
41:06
Lisenko was suspicious of
41:08
his motives.
41:10
Lysenko was xenophobic
41:13
and suggested to Stalin
41:15
that Davilov was both a spy
41:17
for other country and was sharing
41:19
secrets with people in
41:22
other countries.
41:23
In nineteen forty, Vavolov was traveling
41:26
Ukraine doing his usual chatting
41:28
with farmers, examining crops. He
41:31
visited a research institute
41:33
dedicated to propagating sugar
41:35
beets. One day, after exploring
41:38
the grassy valleys of the Carpathian
41:40
Mountains, Vavolov returned
41:43
to his hostel near turnipsy and
41:45
was greeted by four Soviet
41:47
agents. The men said
41:50
he was needed in Moscow.
41:53
Vavolov knew what they really
41:55
meant. Vavolov's
42:07
file contained reports from spies
42:10
and moles who had been tailing him
42:12
for almost a decade. Included
42:15
in the file was a memo struggle
42:18
waged by reactionary scientists
42:21
against academician Lisenko.
42:24
The charges against Vavolov were broad.
42:26
He was accused of political betrayal,
42:29
sabotage, even espionage.
42:31
Secret police turned his lab
42:34
upside down, his apartment
42:36
was searched, and at Lubyanka
42:38
Prison he was interrogated. Thanks
42:41
to archived transcripts of
42:43
his interrogations and Peter Pringle's
42:46
book, we know how the talks
42:48
started.
42:50
You are arrested as an active participant
42:52
of anti Soviet wrecage organization
42:55
and a spy for foreign intelligence
42:57
services. Do you admit your
43:00
guilt?
43:01
No, I do not admit my
43:04
guild. I never was
43:06
a spy or participant
43:08
of anti Soviet organization.
43:12
I always voted honestly
43:15
for the benefit of Soviet
43:17
step You are alive.
43:19
The investigation is aware that during
43:21
a long period of time you headed the anti
43:23
Soviet wreckage organization in
43:25
the field of agriculture, and
43:28
you are a spy for a foreign intelligence
43:30
services. With the man truthful
43:33
information.
43:35
I ctagorically declare
43:37
that I was not involved
43:40
into espionage or any
43:43
anti Soviet activity.
43:46
Over the next two weeks, Vavalov
43:48
was interrogated an average of ten
43:51
hours a day. The questionings
43:54
were always in the middle of the night,
43:56
There was never a break, and Vavolov
43:59
was never allowed to set Looking
44:01
back, it's clear he was being tortured
44:04
into giving a false confession,
44:06
because, almost ten hours
44:09
into his twenty third interrogation,
44:12
Vavalov broke.
44:14
I am guilty of being
44:17
member of a righteous organization
44:20
existing in USSR Commissariat
44:24
of Agri Kurtu.
44:27
In a letter, Vavlov's brother despaired.
44:30
His big, useful life is being
44:32
ruined, his end, the lives
44:34
of his close ones for that this
44:37
is a cruel mistake and an
44:40
injustice, the end of scientific
44:42
work, zeeslanda ruining,
44:44
the lives of family members, the
44:47
threat of it all.
44:52
As Wavolov languished in jail, Lisenko
44:55
assumed the leadership of all
44:57
of the Soviet Union's top
44:59
agricultural departments, installing
45:02
his pseudo scientific followers in
45:04
important posts. More
45:06
than three one thousand mainstream
45:08
biologists would be dismissed
45:10
or imprisoned. Numerous scientists
45:13
were relieved from their jobs
45:16
with a bullet to the head. Meanwhile,
45:21
Lisenko's farming policies
45:23
were failing, but Lisenko
45:25
kept cooking the books and the press
45:28
kept blindly singing his praises.
45:31
He'd earned full support of
45:34
the Communist Party's Central
45:36
Committee, and in nineteen
45:38
forty eight he'd give a speech
45:40
declaring Mendelayan genetics a
45:43
pseudoscience. Teaching
45:45
genetics and cell biology in
45:47
schools was soon banned. Textbooks
45:50
were purged, school teachers
45:53
were re educated. When
45:55
Lisenko and his acolytes traveled
45:58
to international biology conferences,
46:01
scientists from other countries
46:03
were astounded by how
46:05
backward the USA R had
46:07
become.
46:09
The faithful followers of Lysenko prepared
46:11
their scientific results just to support
46:13
its fantastic theories. Listeners
46:16
acquainted with biology were horrified.
46:19
It was simply inconceivable that such
46:22
gibberish could be presented in the guise
46:24
of scientific discoveries.
46:27
Indeed, Lisenko became more
46:29
unhinged with time. Many
46:31
of his followers declared that viruses
46:34
don't exist around
46:36
the world. Scientists were baffled.
46:39
The USSR used to be leading
46:42
the plant race. Now it
46:44
was totally backward, and
46:46
all were wondering what in
46:49
the world happened to Nikolai
46:51
Vavolov. After
46:55
his arrest, Vavlov would be interrogated
46:58
almost four hundred times,
47:01
totaling seventeen hundred
47:03
hours. The interrogations
47:05
were so exhausting that Vavlov
47:08
often returned to his bunk, crawling
47:10
on all fours. But through
47:12
it all he refused to deny
47:15
the legitimacy of his scientific
47:17
work. He also didn't forget
47:19
who helped send him there. According
47:22
to his cellmate, a police informant,
47:25
Vavlov cursed Lisenko as
47:27
a false scientist. Lisenko's
47:31
henchmen would say the same of Vavlov.
47:33
After his interrogations, a
47:36
panel of scientists reviewed
47:38
the scientific merit of Vavlov's
47:41
testimony. Their report
47:43
confirmed that genetics was
47:46
metaphysical and that Vavlov
47:48
was a wrecker. All of
47:50
the scientists on the panel, of course,
47:53
were approved by Lisenko.
47:56
When a judge read the report, he made
47:59
his sentence.
48:00
Nikolay Vavlov must suffer the supreme
48:03
penalty to be shot and for
48:05
all his personal property confiscated.
48:09
Ponn sentencing, Vavalov begged
48:12
for his life. He made an appeal
48:14
for a reduced sentence, which
48:16
miraculously was approved. But
48:19
just as hope appeared on the horizon,
48:22
the Nazis invaded the Soviet
48:24
Union. World War two hit
48:27
the Motherland, and Vavolov
48:29
was evacuated to a new prison,
48:31
and he follow through with his appeal died
48:34
with the advance of World War In
48:39
the city of Saratov, Vavlov lived
48:41
in a dank jail basement holding
48:43
other intellectuals. His cellmates
48:46
were an engineer and a literary
48:48
critic. They had no clothes.
48:51
They wore canvas sacks and shared
48:54
a single bed. They
48:56
barely ate. Vavlov
48:58
grew skinny and weak, but
49:01
in the darkness he found light.
49:04
His cellmates were thinkers. They
49:06
they were intellectually curious, and
49:09
so he passed the time in his cage
49:12
by telling stories of his adventures
49:14
abroad, giving lectures
49:16
on genetics and biology. Three
49:19
years into his sentence January
49:22
nineteen forty three, Vavolov
49:24
would become pale and emaciated.
49:27
Payne shot through his chest
49:30
his breathing was shallow. He
49:33
had become one of those walking
49:35
skeletons he had wished to save
49:37
as a child. When he
49:40
visited the prison hospital, doctors
49:43
diagnosed him with dystrophy
49:45
from prolonged malnutrition. Two
49:48
days later he died. The
49:50
man who had dedicated his life
49:53
to feeding the world had
49:55
died of starvation. Trofumlsenko
50:03
would lead the USSR's Agricultural
50:06
School another two decades,
50:09
but by nineteen sixty five it became
50:11
obvious to everyone that
50:13
Vavolov was right. Lisenko's
50:16
ideas were trash. It
50:18
was a long time coming. In
50:21
nineteen forty nine and nineteen
50:23
fifty, nearly all of Lisenko's
50:26
summer plantings were destroyed
50:28
by drought and disease. His
50:31
belief that seeds, like good communists,
50:34
could be planted close together had
50:36
proven especially disastrous.
50:39
In Communist China, Mao
50:41
Zidong embraced Lisenkoism.
50:44
The result the Great Chinese
50:47
Famine, considered one of the
50:49
worst man made disasters
50:51
in history. Lisenko's methods
50:53
led to the deaths of at least fifteen
50:56
million people in China. According
51:00
to Sam Keene, writer at The Atlantic
51:02
Trophen Losenko probably killed more
51:05
human beings than any individual
51:08
scientist in history.
51:10
After Lisenka was removed from his position,
51:13
the study of genetics became acceptable
51:16
again. Eighty thousand
51:18
biology teachers had to be retrained.
51:21
Officials decided to rename
51:24
the All Union Institute of Plant
51:26
Industry. Coming up with
51:28
a new name was easy. They
51:31
would call it the Vavolov Institute.
51:36
By the late nineteen sixties, Nikolai
51:38
Vavolov's reputation had been resurrected,
51:42
and for good cause, because
51:44
if you eat vegetables, or
51:46
bread or meat from animals
51:48
that eat vegetables, chances
51:50
are high that you've consumed something
51:53
descended from Nikolai Vavolov's
51:55
massive seed collection. This
51:58
was especially true for anybody
52:00
living in the former Soviet Union.
52:04
History bears out that what Russia
52:07
fed for the sixty
52:10
years after Babylov's
52:12
death was in fact the
52:14
plants, the crop plants and
52:17
seeds that he brought in.
52:20
In the nineteen thirties, Vavolov's seed
52:22
collection had totaled at more
52:24
than two hundred and fifty thousand
52:27
samples. It was the world's
52:29
first and largest
52:32
seed bank. It would inspire
52:34
scientists around the world
52:37
to protect the hereditary material
52:39
of their native plants. Today,
52:41
there are hundreds of seed banks all
52:44
over the planet routinely
52:46
coming to our rescue.
52:48
In the early nineteen eighties, for instance,
52:50
when a parasitic worm was attacking
52:53
soybean crops all over the United
52:55
States, scientists stopped
52:57
the attack by crossbreeding
53:00
with beans kept at the Vavolov
53:02
institutes. Vavolov
53:04
knew his science could have that kind
53:07
of impact, and when
53:09
compared to other scientific heretics,
53:12
he remains in a league of his
53:14
own. Take Galileo,
53:17
when he was facing down the inquisition
53:19
for his scientific beliefs, he recanted
53:22
his claims. He caved
53:25
to the political pressure. Vavolov
53:28
never caved. Staring down
53:30
the interrogator, Vavolov chose
53:32
truth. He never denied
53:34
the existence of genetics. He
53:37
never dismissed his life's work.
53:40
He chose to be on the right side
53:42
of science, even if it put
53:44
him on the wrong side of the
53:46
protege who killed him.
53:49
In the end, Vavolov couldn't
53:51
save himself, but he did
53:54
save us. So
54:00
that's it's sort of a downer
54:02
of an episode. But I have to say there's
54:04
a spirit of optimism that I
54:06
do think runs through Bavlov's
54:09
story completely.
54:10
I mean, I can't aworry with a new hero, and like,
54:13
I never expect a story about like a pair of battle and
54:15
Soviet botanists who would rope in my man
54:17
Galileo. But like more than that,
54:19
I also never expect to walk away from the story thinking
54:21
that my Man Galileo was a punk ass, which
54:23
I did. I was like, dude, but Galileo,
54:26
he's not nearly the guy that Vabilov is, because
54:28
Babilov was down to die for science and Socrates
54:31
had that same spirit, but not Galileo.
54:33
He's like, no, I'm going to cop to the charges. I want
54:35
to keep my life. Avolov's like, I'm going down for
54:37
the cause, like new hero. And also
54:39
he dies with the most brutal cosmic irony
54:42
ever.
54:42
Yeah, it would make a very good movie.
54:45
And so if it were a movie, who
54:47
would play Babilov?
54:49
Oh God, we need like a hero. I
54:52
don't know, I like sort of an atom driver type.
54:55
But maybe I would just cast him in anything.
54:57
Okay, I went two ways on this. I went there,
54:59
you could do it as a dark comedy, and I know you're like
55:01
dark comedy with the story we just heard. But seriously, imagine
55:04
this Nikolai Vavlov seth
55:06
Rogen and for trofim Lysenko
55:09
Jeremy Allen White from The Bear Dude
55:11
can nail before right. Also, you need you
55:13
need to Stalins. You need a young Stalin and an old
55:15
Solan For young Stalin. Some will say it's stunt
55:17
casting, but I think it works perfectly because he looks
55:20
like him. Zane Malick from One Direction
55:22
as young Stalin and for Old Stalin
55:25
Javier Bardem, but keeping in the spirit of Sean
55:27
Connery from in The Hunt for the October, he
55:29
does it without a Russian accent, Tavier
55:31
Bardem Spanish accent, but a thick and lush
55:34
mustache.
55:34
What do you say?
55:35
I just respect how quick
55:37
and how well thought out.
55:39
That answer was unbelievable, But okay,
55:41
I also got an Oscar bay one if you want that. This
55:43
one's the more serious one. Now imagine
55:46
the hero Vigo Mortensen as
55:49
Nikolai Bavelov, and then you pair it with
55:51
that cat from Always Sunday in Philadelphia,
55:53
Charlie Day. He does unhinged well, so
55:55
you have him as trophim Lysenko. Then
55:58
for young Stalin it's still Zane Malick
56:00
from one direction. For Old Stalin,
56:02
it's Tom Hardy with an outrageous
56:05
Russian accent and outrageous by stash
56:07
boom oscar bait.
56:08
I'm in I Where do I send the check?
56:10
Right?
56:11
Hollywood?
56:11
Are you listening? Yeah, let's fund this. Let's
56:14
not put this out because someone will steal
56:16
this idea and we got to get a piece
56:18
of this.
56:19
Also, by the way, did you guys notice the High
56:21
Priests of Science bit that one line stuck
56:23
out at me? And I haven't told you the guys this, but I have
56:25
this hobby. I like to collect band names,
56:28
perfect band names. And now I'm going to put on the list right
56:30
below Cruise Ship Magician, the High
56:32
Priests of Science.
56:34
I love it.
56:35
I would listen to them.
56:36
Very special running segment. So
56:40
let me ask you guys this. You've both
56:42
hosted hundreds of episodes of your own
56:44
podcasts, Dana Noble, Blood Zarin,
56:47
Ridiculous Crime and others.
56:50
What's your favorite set in Russia
56:53
episodes that you two have told
56:55
anything come to mind?
56:57
Yeah?
56:57
Absolutely, I would say I have an episode
56:59
on Catherine the Great Coup against
57:02
her husband. And if
57:04
you have any interest in Russian history. I would
57:07
I would go back to listen to that one.
57:09
I think it's called Catherine the Great and her husband
57:11
the Mediocre. They just had a fascinating
57:14
relationship and then a real throwback
57:17
back in like like early early noble
57:19
blood days. So it's like the audio quality
57:22
may not be up to snowf but give give
57:24
it a whirl. I have an episode on the Empress
57:26
Anna Ivanovna, who built an
57:28
ice palace entirely
57:31
to humiliate and ideally
57:34
freeze to death a political enemy.
57:38
Incredible way to do it. That's Russian
57:40
style. That's Russian style. See
57:44
as far as.
57:44
I don't think we have any episodes set in Russia, though,
57:47
we did go and talk about how for a
57:49
while, the Soviet Union was selling their
57:51
battleships and so Pepsi was the
57:53
sixth largest navy in the world thanks to the Soviet
57:56
Navy. They've been buying because the Soviet wanted
57:58
Pepsi cola, so then they traded their
58:00
old defunct ships to Pepsi for cola.
58:03
So eventually, for a while Pepsi had
58:05
the sixth largest navy in the world. So
58:07
we didn cover that.
58:08
Well, that's good further listening.
58:10
If you want to dive into those. I'll
58:12
put the links in the show description
58:15
here so they don't do too much hunting.
58:17
Thanks for listening, Bye.
58:22
Very Special Episodes is made by some very
58:24
special people. This episode
58:26
was written by Lucas Riley. Our
58:29
producer is Josh Fisher. Editing
58:32
and sound design by Chris Childs.
58:35
Additional editing by John Washington,
58:38
Mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser.
58:41
Very Special Episodes is hosted by Danish
58:43
Schwartz, Zaren Burnett and
58:45
me Jason. English. Original
58:48
music by Elise McCoy. Research
58:51
in fact checking by Austin Thompson and
58:53
Lucas Riley. Show logo
58:55
by Lucy Kintonia. Shout
58:58
out to our voiceover crew, especially
59:00
Tom antonellis a total pro
59:02
who did some great work in this episode.
59:04
I hope we get to hear him again soon. I'm
59:07
your executive producer and we'll see
59:09
you back here next Wednesday. Very
59:12
Special Episodes is a production of iHeart
59:14
Podcasts.
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