High-relief #12: Plant Breeders. Three plant breeders, two women and a man. At the time of the Leningrad Siege all of the plant breeders of the Vavilov Research Institute of Plant Industry starved to death guarding stocks of rice, wheat, corn, beans and potatoes for future generations. The few plant breeders working at the time that the Narvskaya metro station reliefs were sculpted, passed away not long before the time of these photographs taken at the St. Petersburg State Academy of Fine Arts.