How Russia Became the New Homeland of Potatoes

It is known that potatoes came to Europe from America, and for a long time, American potatoes were considered the best in the world. However, in 1908, a request was made from the USA to the estate of Kostino in the Ryazan province for the purchase of 15 thousand poods of seed potatoes at any price. This happened because a local nobleman, Nikolai Yakovlevich Nikitinsky, was sending the best samples of his potatoes to America, which yielded an extraordinarily rich harvest and surpassed local varieties in taste. Nikitinsky refused this request, explaining his unwillingness to leave Russian consumers without seed potatoes. But how did Russian potatoes become the best in the world?

Nikolai Yakovlevich was driven to engage in agriculture by the terrible famine that struck the Volga region in the 1890s. At that time, there was a shortage of grain, and people were dying by the thousands. Nikitinsky thought about the "second bread," and perhaps he was the one who introduced this expression into common use. He began to collect a variety of potato breeds from America, Germany, Japan, France, and even Australia. His daughter Natalia recalled that her father had experimental plots where he crossed varieties and obtained new ones. Ultimately, these samples yielded incredible harvests. For example, the Mikado variety produced 50 potatoes from one bush, while the usual yield for peasants across Russia was 3-6 potatoes.

Moreover, Nikitinsky developed varieties for different climatic zones of Russia, considering that it is not always warm and sunny everywhere. He also provided local peasants with opportunities to earn, for which they valued him. During the First Russian Revolution, when many noble estates were burning, Kostino was untouched. With the arrival of the new authorities, the estate's economy declined, and the seed stock was exported, but it became the foundation for the young breeding and seed-growing science of the USSR.