[lionhearted]

Oh man, I'm happy to see this here — I've been slowly working my way through various science and engineering done in the Soviet Union since there was some incredible work done that's very poorly known in the West.

Vavilov is definitely a first-class scientist who seemed to have an incredible personality. In some alternative better timeline, Vavilov would probably be as well-known and had inspired as many people as, say, Feynman. Alas.

Anyway, while we're on the topic of Soviet scientists, the whole silver fox domestication research program is infinitely fascinating —

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

Highly highly recommended.

Edit: Soviet pharmacology also very interesting — and even more surprising it hasn't been studied and imported since, like, humans are humans and it works. Probably an unfortunate secondary effect of how trials/licensing/patenting work. Not a bad starting point: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-de...