One of the first known broad-based seed banks was established in Leningrad in what was then the Soviet Union in 1917 by botanist Nikolai Vavilov and his colleagues, who traveled around the world ...

Seed banks preserve plant diversity, ensuring global food security post apocalypse. Staple crops like wheat, rice, cotton, ...

and fruits stored in the world's largest seed bank. So a group of scientists at the Vavilov Institute boxed up a cross section of seeds, moved them to the basement, and took shifts protecting them.