THE FORBIDDEN GARDEN OF LENINGRAD BOOK TALK

With author Simon Parkin

Thu 14 May 2026, 2-3pm

At the Museum and Online

This event takes place in-person in the Headley Lecture Theatre and online via Zoom

Tickets are £8 each. Booking is essential

Tickets available soon

With Simon Parkin, author and journalist

In this talk, Simon recounts the story of the people who defended the world's first seedbank during the siege of Leningrad, which began in 1941 and lasted for 872 days.

As Leningrad starved, the botanists chose to protect a collection of quarter of a million seeds, gathered across decades to combat famine, rather than to plant and consume them to save their own lives and many others.

Their sacrifice preserved genetic material that went on to transform Russian agriculture and remains unparalleled in global science.

Black and white picture of a woman tending to cabbages

Black and white picture of a men sitting at his desk in a library or study, letters atop a newspaper

Left: The cabbage patch in front of St Isaac’s Cathedral, Leningrad, in 1942. Right: The seed bank founder, Nikolai Vavilov, circa 1933. Photographs courtesy of the VIR (as featured in Simon's book).

Simon will explore this tale of courage and conviction, and reflect on its urgent contemporary resonance in an era of climate crisis, political distortion of science, and the rise of authoritarianism.

Find out more about the author here.

Copies of the book will be on sale at the event. More information to follow.