In early September of 1929, Nikolai Vavilov, famed Russian plant explorer and botanist, arrived in the central Asian crossroads of Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan. Climbing up the Zailijskei Alatau slopes of the Tian Shan mountains separating Kazakhstan from China, Vavilov found thickets of wild apples stretching in every direction, an extensive forest of fruit coloured russet red, creamy yellow and vibrant pink. Nowhere else in the world do apples grow thickly as a forest or with such incredible diversity. Amazed by what he saw, Vavilov wrote, ‘I could see with my own eyes that I had stumbled upon the centre of origin for the apple.’
With extraordinary prescience and few facts, Vavilov suggested that the wild apples he had seen growing in the Tian Shan were the ancestors of the modern apple. He tracked the whole process of domestication to the mountains near Alma-Ata, where the wild apples looked awfully similar to the apples found at the grocery store. Unfortunately, Vavilov’s theory would remain mostly unknown for decades.