Fruits of pomegranate labor live

Sue Fishkoff
JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY

SAN FRANCISCO Gregory Moiseyevich Levin spent 40 years building his pomegranate paradise in the Kopet Dag mountains of rural Turkmenistan. Levin, a Leningrad-trained agronomist who became chairman of the subtropical fruit project at the remote Garrigala Turkmen Experimental Agricultural Station, amassed the world's largest collection of pomegranates 1117 varieties from 27 countries. The blue pomegranate. The black pomegranate. The pink-petaled pomegranate. The small-fruit pomegranate. The dwarf pomegranate. Collecting the exotic fruit frequently used on Rosh Hashanah was a labor of love and devotion for only a certain kind of research scientist. Levin collected many varieties himself on dangerous yearly treks through the mountain gorges of Turkmenistan, a Central Asian region that is the birthplace of the pomegranate and one of the last places on earth where it still grows wild. But the Soviet Union collapsed and state funding for research dried up, so Levin was forced to abandon his agricultural station in 2002 and immigrate to Israel. He lives there quietly with his wife in a small apartment in Petach Tikvah. "It was unbearably painful to witness the collections perishing, dying," he wrote in "Pomegranate Roads," his memoir published last year by Floreant Press, a small California publishing house. "In wake of the collapse, the Soviet Union and the agricultural institutes abandoned their scientists and researchers. We were assigned to the emergent sovereign states, left without any protection, without any possibility of continuing to work." Soon after Levin's aliyah, the Turkmen government ordered his research station bulldozed to the ground. Levin's tale is not unfamiliar. He is one of many former Soviet scientists, artists, doctors and intellectuals who were ripped from their culture and their work who now live in Israel, their contributions forgotten, their world a close-knit circle of Russian-speaking colleagues. One thing, however, sets Levin's story apart. Before he left Turkmenistan, he sent cuttings of

Virtually all the pomegranates sold in the United States today are one variety, called "Wonderful" the familiar large, red fruit with semi-soft seeds. ground, Levin's life soared once he "They're all in our orchard," arrived at the Garrigala station. said Jeff Moersfelder, greenhouse manager at the U.S. Department His stories of following peasof Agriculture's Wolfskill ants through treacherous mounExperimental Orchard, which sits tain passes in search of a single on University of California, Davis, thicket of wild pomegranates land. Levin sent 90 varieties of are riveting. His description of pomegranates to Davis, most of Stalin's destruction of Soviet scithem between 1999 and 2000. ence, its eventual rebuilding and Those pomegranates have a final dismantling in the 1990s is rich future, Moersfelder predicts. heartbreaking. Virtually all the pomegranates The book was written for a lay sold in the United States today are audience at the request of Barbara one variety, called "Wonderful" Baer of Floreant Press, an editor the familiar large, red fruit and amateur fruit enthusiast who with semi-soft Seeds. Some of had been enthralled with Levin's Levin's varieties have soft, edible story since hearing him on public seeds that have great commercial radio in 2001. Baer finally located potential. Levin through the help of the "Big growers are certainly Israeli Embassy in Washington looking at Levin's material," and began an e-mail corresponMoersfelder said. "It will become dence that continues to this day. a big part of what people are "Gregory has nothing but his growing." reputation," Baer said. "He is a Others have unusual flavors, true exile." while still others are being eyed Baer has become a hard-core for their hardiness or pharmaceupomegranate fan, traveling to fruit tical uses. festivals and bookstores, reading from Levin's book and offerings Each fall, Moersfelder holds a tastings of his pomegranates from private tasting of Levin's pomeDavis. She says popular interest in granates for researchers, growers the fruit has skyrocketed among and other industry insiders. "The backyard growers and the scienopportunity to taste all these tific community. different varieties is very exciting," he said. At a conference in Turkey last Along with "Pomegranate year, where Baer delivered Levin's Roads: A Soviet Botanist's Exile keynote address because he was from Eden," Levin wrote another too ill to travel, she said Israeli book about his work a highly researchers told her "the pometechnical botanical study pubgranate is not a trend, it's a tsulished in 2006. nami." Israel leads the world "in everything pomegranate," Baer said, "Pomegranate Roads," intellifrom horticultural methods to gent and highly readable, is filled pharmaceutical research. with historical and literary refThe pomegranate supposedly erences, pomegranate lore and has 613 seeds the same number inspiring adventures. From early of commandments, or mitztragedies, including his father's death as a soldier in World War II, his childhood survival of the German siege of Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and his refused admission to academic institutions because of his Jewish back-

vot and thus is eaten on Rosh Hashanah as Jews at the New Year figuratively show their hope to fulfill the commandments. Levin is glad his work is living on, although at 74 he makes only nominal contributions to it. For a few years he maintained a test site in Bet Shemesh, just outside Jerusalem, and published three articles on succulents. Promises of other collaborative efforts have come to naught, he said. He and his wife live on a monthly pension of about $1,000, supplemented by contributions from his son, who lives nearby. They buy most of what they need, including the Russian-language weekly Vyesty, from two Russianowned shops. Like most immigrants his age, Levin hasn't managed to learn Hebrew. Reached by phone, Levin said he and his wife are hunting for a new apartment, as their landlord just sold the one they were renting. "This is the price of capitalism," he joked. Living in Israel is "a rather expensive experience for a 100-percent Soviet person." JTA correspondent Igor Serebryany contributed to this story from Moscow.

The Jewish State 8/31/07 www.thejewishstate.net