Modern history of Ukraine local elite. Many members of the Soviet leadership came from Ukraine, most notably Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev a Soviet leader from 1964 to 1982, as well as many prominent Soviet sportsmen, scientists and artists. In 1954, the Russian-populated oblast of Crimea was transferred from the Russian to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. However, the relatively underdeveloped industrial branches such as coal- and iron ore mining, metallurgy, chemical and energy industry dominated the republic's economy. Once a Cossack steppe, the southern oblasts of Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia were turned into a highly industrialised area with rapidly increasing impact on its environment and
Nikita Khrushchev Khrushchev had risen to power. Since the 1940s, Khrushchev had advocated the cultivation of corn (maize) in the Soviet Union. He established a corn institute in Ukraine and ordered thousands of acres to be planted with corn in the Virgin Lands. In February 1955, Khrushchev gave a speech in which he advocated an Iowa-style corn belt in the Soviet Union, and a Soviet delegation visited the U.S. state that summer. While their intent was to visit only small farms, the delegation chief was approached by farmer and corn salesman Roswell Garst, who persuaded him to insist on visiting Garst's large