Pavlovsk Experimental Station

[3][4] In 2010 the experimental station faced an uncertain future, because the land it sits on was being sold to a developer who planned to build private homes on the site.

[7] Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had not yet responded to public calls to save the experimental station and its collection by the end of 2010.

[8] However, in April 2012 the Russian government took formal action to preserve this important genetic repository and stop the land from being conveyed to private interests for development.

[9] Hunger by American writer Elise Blackwell, is a fictionalized retelling of the plight of the scientists who starved to death while protecting the gene bank's edible seed and tuber collection during the Siege of Leningrad.

[citation needed] The song "When the War Came," by the band The Decemberists, tells the story of these scientists, with one verse saying "We made our oath to Vavilov / We'd not betray the Solanum / The acres of asteraceae / To our own pangs of starvation.

"A picture taken through the gate at the Pavlovsk station headquarters."
One of the Pavlovsk Station buildings. Many of the varieties at Pavlovsk are stored not as seeds in a vault but as plants in a field.