FROM ISOLATED COLD WAR OUTPOST TO NATIONAL LEAD-EDGE PLANT PATHOLOGY RESEARCH CENTRE: THE 'REDISCOVERY' OF GEORGIA’S SOVIET-ERA TIME CAPSULE

On 31 October 2000 the author attended a seminar organised by the Georgian Academy of Sciences which focused on the country’s latest achievements in the biosciences. The event was hosted in Tbilisi by the Academy’s Institute of Physiology and a distinguished list of talented scientists made keynote presentations. One of the most interesting talks was presented by Dr Paata Imnadze, director of the National Centre for Disease Control (the former Georgian Anti-Plague Centre). It focused on the fate of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences’ Scientific-Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy in Sukhumi, Abkhazia, Georgia, which was the Soviet Union’s principal centre for the breeding of primates for BW testing. A number of newspaper and journal articles published around this time had reported on armed attacks that were subsequently conducted during the civil war in Abkhazia against the institute and its attached primate colony. It had been alleged that in one of a number of such raids the facility’s collection of pathogenic cultures was seized. However, perhaps the most worrying aspect of the whole affair were reports that the armed band had also had access to a building which had been utilised in the past by military biologists. Imnadze reported that a special team had been despatched from Tbilisi to investigate the situation with regard to the Sukhumi culture collection. They found that the collection was in fact both intact and safe and that, despite extremely difficult circumstances, a skeleton crew of scientists still working in the institute had successfully maintained the cultures.

The revelations concerning events in Sukhumi had naturally aroused much interest among the participants of the Tbilisi seminar but a more significant disclosure was about to be made during discussions held in the margins of the meeting between the author and two scientists who headed up a secret anti-crop facility based at the seaside resort of Kobuleti in the Adjara Autonomous Republic (Georgia). The more senior scientist, Georgette Naskidashvili, revealed that since 1986 she had been director of the Georgian Branch of VNIIF which had subsequently been renamed as the Plant Immunity Research Institute. Her deputy, who had served in this position since 1984, also participated in the presentation. The two scientists confirmed that their branch had been created in 1959 and that through to 1986, Ushanqi Meparishvili had headed up the facility. It was located at a remote site on the Black Sea coast, close to Kobuleti railway station, and this site had been selected because of its isolation from the main cereal-producing regions in the east of the country. Bounded by the sea and mountains, Kobuleti was particularly well-suited to experiments where a high degree of isolation was required. Meanwhile, Georgia as a whole was considered to be of pivotal importance with regard to its highly diverse wheat species. Simultaneously it was known to be an especially rich source of wheat phytopathogens both because of the ready availability of host reservoirs and favourable agro-ecological conditions for infection. The Georgian wheat leaf (brown) rust, for example, is characterised by rapid spreading and high virulence.

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the meeting in Tbilisi in November 2000 was the disclosure by the Georgian anti-crop scientists that their facility in Kobuleti remained in complete isolation from the outside world with no access to telephone, email or fax facilities. In addition, no salaries had been received from the Georgian authorities in the past 12 months. Somehow, this highly significant facility had not engaged with the international cooperative threat reduction programmes which had been led by a plethora of United States agencies. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union these had sought to provide targeted funding to nuclear, chemical and biological facilities to prevent former weapons scientists being recruited for WMD programmes being pursued by rogue states. However, like the lone Japanese soldiers continuing to believe the war had not ended, it appeared that the Kobuleti facility had, quite remarkably, remained locked and unnoticed, in a Cold War time capsule.

The identification of the Kobuleti anti-crop facility led to a decision late in 2000 by a small UK group incorporating both academics and plant pathologists to undertake a fact-finding mission to this remote part of Georgia. A short time later, on 3 May 2001, the UK group, accompanied by researchers and support staff from the Eliava Institute of Bacteriophage, departed Tbilisi in a minibus for the long journey to Kobuleti. The first major obstacle to be overcome by the mission was a security checkpoint which had been put in place on the border with the Autonomous Republic of Adjara. It was already dark when the minibus was ordered to halt by armed militia under the control of the regional leader, Aslan Abashidze, and the documents of the British party were carefully examined. After some nervous moments the minibus was eventually allowed to proceed and shortly reached its final destination, the small Alik Hotel in the port of Batumi. Here, in an episode reminiscent of scenes from Casablanca, the UK group was met by Alik, a larger-than-life character wearing a fez, who was inordinately proud of his establishment, which offered what were considered luxurious facilities in the economically devastated post-Soviet landscape. Later, during that evening of 3 May, Georgette Naskidashvili and her deputy joined the UK visitors at the hotel for dinner and informal discussions. The splendid isolation of the Kobuleti branch of VNIIF was finally at an end.

View of main building, Georgian Branch of the All-Union Scientific-Research Institute of Phytopathology, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

The Role of Kobuleti in Soviet Military Programmes

What makes the Kobuleti branch of VNIIF so significant is the fact that it remained largely in a state of full preservation from the Soviet period with no major organisational or structural changes. During the Soviet era, because of the secret nature of its work, it had remained in a state of internal isolation and there was no interaction with local Georgian institutes. After the collapse of the USSR, the Georgian Academy of Sciences had no interest in integrating the facility within its network because they believed they already had institutes which could duplicate its work. The only major change therefore, which had occurred since the break-up of the Soviet Union, had been the evacuation of Russian plant pathologists but other than that, the scientific staff and site were fully intact. The British group had stumbled upon the Soviet-era equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb and there was much to learn about the Soviet Union's biological warfare programmes at the site.

View of concentric rings of security walls in place at anti-crop BW facility, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)

The UK visitors arrived at the facility on the morning of 4 May. During her first presentation, Naskidashvili reported that around 160–170 personnel had been employed at the site but numbers were swelled by the arrival of large numbers of researchers from Bol’shie Vyazemy during the growing season. VNIIF’s branch incorporated an administration building, main building incorporating laboratories, two greenhouse complexes and a secure greenhouse. The whole complex was protected by three concentric rings of security walls with associated guard posts, security wiring and floodlights and so on. The inner perimeter wall was topped by triple-stranded barbed wire. Internally, there were also elaborate security systems with extensive alarm wiring of all doors and pressure-sensitive pads on windows. The Kobuleti facility was also the site of VNIIF’s main proving ground for the testing of chemical herbicides which occupied an area of 40 hectares.

Elaborate security system preventing unauthorised access to offices and laboratories at Georgian Branch of VNIIF, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington

In 1970 a sub-branch of the Kobuleti facility was also established in the mountains at Tsagveri to the south-east of Borjomi where field trials of pathogens on cereals growing in cooler climates were undertaken. Experiments on rice were also undertaken at this site. This sub-branch remains operational and affiliated to the Kobuleti facility today. A senior plant pathologist formerly employed within the Ekologiya network reported that the Tsagveri site was ideally suited for conducting field trials of plant pathogens. According to him this was 'one of the best places in the world for testing virulent pathogens with no cross-contamination from insects'. The personnel at the site were very experienced and it was used by the whole anti-crop network.

The greenhouse complexes at the Kobuleti site occupied an area of 1 hectare. They incorporated humidity chambers for the germination of fungal spores and a triple system of containment but did not appear to have possessed filter systems. One greenhouse facility of unorthodox construction was isolated behind high security fencing and barbed wire. Possibly this had some role connected with production of pathogenic agents but this remains a matter of pure speculation.

The researchers at Kobuleti did not appear to have been engaged in any work on molecular biology and reported that sophisticated technology was not employed for their work. For instance, only a light microscope was used for morphological studies of fungal spores. The facility possessed a very large autoclave capacity for sterilisation. Phytotrons, imported from China, had been installed in the facility in 1980. Seed banks were maintained in small refrigerators but there was nothing of a similar scale to the specialised seed storage facilities maintained at Gvardeiskii in Kazakhstan. A very large pond ensured that an adequate water supply was available during the summer months. Rabbits were bred at the facility and utilised in serological tests.

Georgette Naskidashvili, Director of Institute of Plant Immunity, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)

In the first instance Naskidashvili was reluctant to divulge much information to her UK guests and consistently refused to acknowledge that any offensive BW research had been carried out in the past at her facility. She also offered a highly inadequate and implausible explanation of the very high level of security which was in evidence at the Kobuleti facility ('prevention of theft of crops, fire prevention and protection of intellectual property'). However, Naskidashvili later reported that 'ninety per cent' of research undertaken by VNIIF’s Georgian Branch during the Soviet era was focused on targets determined by the military as part of the anti-crop programme. The facility, she revealed, was engaged in an intensive effort aimed at the isolation of highly virulent (mainly fungal) plant pathogens. Samples of plant pathogens were collected in both Georgia and other regions of the Soviet Union and were then screened at Kobuleti against a wide range of host varieties, local and international, with the most virulent strains being deposited in central Soviet collections. Scientists from the Kobuleti facility were also engaged in a global search for new plant pathogens and research visits were made to Australia, the Philippines, Vietnam and China. The facility focused on diseases which produced losses in harvests of 80 per cent or more in strategically important crops such as wheat, rice and potatoes.

View of containment system employed within Georgian Branch of VNIIF’s greenhouse, Kobuleti, Georgia, 4 May 2001. Photographer: Anthony Rimmington (Note: Date stamp on this photograph is incorrect)

Work was conducted on the following plant pathogens at Kobuleti:
• Puccinia graminis (causal agent of stem rust)
• Puccinia striiformis (causal agent of yellow rust)
• Puccinia recondita (causal agent of brown rust)
• Phytophthora infestans (causal agent of late blight disease in potatoes)
• Magnaporthe grisea (causal agent of rice blast)
• Xanthomonas oryzae (causal agent of rice bacteriosis)

The work on M. grisea at Kobuleti was part of a much larger Soviet research effort which appears to have been aimed at the weaponisation of this agent (see pp. 140–141). In addition to the work on anti-crop agents, a range of fungicides, herbicides and organic substances were screened at the facility. The chemical programme was, however, only a small part of overall research activity at Kobuleti.

Addressing the recent history of her institute, Naskidashvili reported that following the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, Anatolii Makarov, the then director of VNIIF (Bol’shie Vyazemy), had personally intervened and organised the transfer of the Kobuleti anti-crop BW facility to local control within the Georgian Ministry of Science and Technology. As an indicator of its new status, the facility was renamed the Institute of Plant Immunity (IPI). No equipment was removed by the Russians from Kobuleti. However, of the 176 scientists employed at the facility during the Soviet period, 116 (including most of the heads of the research laboratories who were Russian and most of the younger researchers) were evacuated to the Central Russian Branch of the All-Russian Scientific-­Research Institute of Phytopathology located in Tambov. The total number of staff remaining at Kobuleti was reduced to 54, which included 22 scientists.

At the time of the UK visit, the Kobuleti institute maintained four laboratories engaged in research on the virulence structure of wheat pathogens, diseases in rice, herbicides and biological control. It also was maintaining a substantive culture collection of wheat rusts (200 strains) and viral plant pathogens. The senior management at Kobuleti had been seeking to find a niche outlet for their R&D which did not duplicate or compete with programmes being implemented at other Georgian plant health institutes. The main focus of research at this time in Kobuleti was on diseases in commercial plants and crops (such as kiwi and ochra) which were being newly introduced into Georgian agriculture. The facility had also developed links to the Georgian Tea Institute, also based in Kobuleti. IPI was also under threat at this time from the local Adjarian authorities who wished to utilise its extensive territory for development of local tourism. The facility occupied a prime site close to Georgia’s major resort town of Kobuleti. The shortages of suitable land in the area for tourist accommodation and so on made the institute a highly attractive target for local planners and developers.