A lot of really excellent chemistry emerged from Russia during the nineteenth century, but one of the most remarkable and original innovations came in the form of an important and unique purification technique known as “chromatography”.  A young botanist by the name of Mikhail Tsvet (1872-1919) developed the technique just before the turn of the century in order to separate the different components of plant pigments.  The man loved plants!  His original work involved the separation and isolation of pigments such as green chlorophyll and orange beta-carotene.  Today there are hundreds of variations on his original technique.