The Food That Could Las 2,000 Years | BBC Future

“Even in their emaciated condition, the botanists at the institute defended the stores with their lives. They feared desperate people would storm the gene bank and eat their way through their life’s work, or invading forces would destroy the building to prevent its contents being used.

When the Red Army of the Soviet Union finally managed to lift the siege on 18 January 1943, almost two and a half years after it began, the seed bank was still intact.”