The Death of Nikolai Vavilov

After 872 days, the siege finally lifted in the spring of 1944 when the battered Nazi army withdrew. The Soviets threw Nikolai Vavilov into the Gulag and interrogated him mercilessly for 12 hours at a stretch. They fed him nothing but mashed cabbage and moldy flour day after day after day. He was reduced to eating flavorless mush and a very little of it. His muscles wasted away, turning his arms and legs to stems. In all 700,000 people starved in Leningrad during the siege.