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.