Author's retreat

The documents I have studied, and they are publications in the press, recollections of eyewitnesses, the books by V. Novoselov and V. Tolstikov – “Mysteries of Sorokovka 40th)", P. Zhuravlev – "My Atomic Age", the documentary book of V. Brokhovich "The "Mayak" Chemical Plant", a collective jubilee collection, "The Creators of the Atomic Shield", dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the city of Ozersk (the former Chelyabinsk-40 with the famous "Mayak") created a picture of a difficult and heroic time. The picture, frankly speaking, of not the bright tone…

After the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hirosima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and the world first learned about the consequences of this terrible monster, Stalin immediately responded to this alarming event: Americans need what we are made of.

This meant that the Soviet development of a nuclear project, begun in 1943 and interrupted by urgent military concerns, should be promptly restored. And naturally, it was necessary to mobilize the Soviet scientists involved in this problem: physicists, chemists, workers of small and medium special engineering to implement the task.

We needed a sensible scientific project manager.

In the Kremlin, the Politburo considered two candidates – Igor Vasilyevich KURCHATOV and Abram Isaakovich ALIKHANOV, a highly educated person who was a student of the famous physicist Ioffe. It was Alikhanov who in 1943 during the elections to the Academy of Sciences became academician, beating Kurchatov. Now it is Kurchatov's turn to go around Alikhanov by half a length.

Lavrentiy Beria, ingratiating and deliberating, turned to Stalin, "Maybe after all Kurchatov?"

"Kurchatov, let it be Kurchatov," Stalin agreed meekly, obviously pleased.

Igor Vasilyevich was assigned officer in both the Kremlin and the Lubyanka under the watchful eye of the KGB! There he studied the drawings, diagrams, documents, delivered to Moscow from abroad.

What kind of documents were they? Where from and who had got them? How many more undeciphered stirlitz are waiting for a date with our curiosity and ignorance? At what a cost and ingenuity, what savvy, how many lives of our intelligence officers had lost obtaining these secret documents, we, obviously, will never know. The truth can be learnt by our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Probably…

But the "feat of our intelligence officers” is the subject of a special conversation, true heroes of the invisible front, and, of course, the dream of cinematographists and writers.

Igor Vasilyevich appreciated the significance of these documents: these were well-known guidelines for scientific research on the uranium problem, enabling our scientists to avoid many mistakes and reduce the time to create their own nuclear bomb.

Do I have to say that all this was kept as top secret?!

Alikhanov was not just famous in the country at that time, but all over the world. But the preference given by the highest party leadership to Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov had no effect on their friendly relations. There were never any disagreements, envy and offenses between academicians, they remained friends and likeminded people.

In those years, secret laboratory № 3, which was headed by Alikhanov, was later transformed into the Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP), dealt with the same uranium problems as Laboratory No. 2, which became Kurchatov atomic center.

The difference is that the first atomic bomb told the world about the Soviet Union's nuclear viability in 1949, and the first test of the hydrogen bomb – the even more terrifying creation of the human mind (or – madness?) – happened in 1955.

It was then that academicians Alikhanov, Kurchatov, Alexandrov and Vinogradov appealed to the country's party leadership with a letter in which they warned the Central Committee against using this super-weapon, which threatens the world with complete destruction:

“We need to resolve all the differences between world powers only by political methods. We need new international policy. The new war is simply impossible.”

Our politicians accepted and understood the meaning of this document in their own way. Malenkov supported the pacifist concern of scientists. Khrushchev held the letter and at the right moment used it “political myopia” against Georgiy Maksimilianovich Malenkov and overthrew the party comrade without pity.

Let us mentally return to the meeting of the Politburo, where the candidacy of the scientific director of the atomic project was approved. I imagine that “sacred” horror on the faces and in the eyes of the members of the Stalinist Politburo when Alikhanov's name and patronymic were spoken aloud: Abram Isaakovich. Readers of the new democratic society cannot understand that horror: what of it that Alikhanov has the face of “Caucasian nationality”?

What of the fact that his name and patronymic, on the contrary, are clearly of not “Caucasian origin”? But in those distant years everything had the meaning – down to the shape of the nose and ears. And during the interview Alikhanov behaved too independently, he was non-partisan, which was generally considered unacceptable for a Soviet scientist of such a rank.

There was no subordination at the institute, which was headed by Alikhanov: it was possible to communicate with colleagues at any time. Such a “rampant democracy” in the Soviet institution was almost a challenge to the existing order and the state system itself.

And another significant, almost criminal touch – Yuriy Orlov, one of the most seditious Soviet dissidents, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, worked at the institute of Alikhanov. Endless “cleansing” didn't help, Alikhanov knew how to take a punch.

He was “forgiven” everything – his name and patronymic, and his Caucasian appearance, and independence, and non-partisanship, and Yuriy Orlov (for the time being, of course). The main thing that Alikhanov was a brilliant scientist. And the development of more distant prospects for the creation of the hydrogen bomb was entrusted to him. More precisely, – to his institute – ITEP, named after him. But it would happen much later.

And in that post-war period he had enough recognition and secret glory. He had enough of his work absorbing and responsible. He was valued and respected by colleagues and friends, among whom were “physicists” and world-famous “lyricists”.

It is said that when a dispute broke out among the intelligentsia who is more important – supporters of the rational world (physics) or its sentimental perception – through art (lyrics), the first one to discredit in the press the stupidity of such a division was Academician Alikhanov.

He himself was a man with a stunningly beautiful and significant face, thoughtful eyes and all the bright signs of “artistic appearance” – was more like an artist. This drove the women crazy who were lucky enough to be in his company and even more so to talk with him, which sometimes they failed to do.

The power of his intellect, knowledge, impeccable and subtle taste of the true connoisseur of art attracted to him people equal in value of the spiritual potential.

“There are two “Slavas” in our company,” Alikhanov joked. “Slava Otechestva and my wife, Slava Roshal… Well, if Rostropovich drops by, there will be three “Slavas”!”

“And where do we belong?!” Aram Khachaturian and Martiros Saryan playfully “boiled up”, cooled, however, by complacent Dmitriy Borisovich Kabalevsky.

Music was played in the Alikhanov's house in Cheryomushki. Perhaps, under the portrait of Alikhanov, written by Saryan's talented hand, Slava Roshal, laureate of the International Violin Contest, and Aram Khachaturian, a man of hot temper and an author of incendiary music, gave a concert. The music was most likely sublime, sophisticated, classical, from Mozart, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev to Shostakovich, who was sitting right there and dying from fear while waiting for a sound musical typo in his own opuses.

This state was in any hall where his music was played (which is confirmed by many documentarists who wrote about Shostakovich, and his acquaintances, his friends, his wife Irina Antonovna): he, the genius of the musical Olympus, was as a schoolboy afraid of others' mistakes in own compositions.

As a rule were no typos. But there was a bewilderment from something else… Shostakovich was telling Alikhanov, “Abram Isaakovich, you have a beautiful house. But how can you live so far away from the conservatory?” The phrase, which later became popular, was replicated in a musical society in the famous datchas (summer cottages) of Leningrad and Moscow elite beau monde – in Repino and Komarovo, Peredelkino, Zhukovka and Barvikha. Childishly naive in life, Dmitri Dmitriyevitch thought that the Cheryomushki village near Moscow was in the “far away kingdom” almost at the edge of the world.

Exactly with the following “A true physicist should live closer to the conservatory”, the newspaper Izvestia, on April 17, 2004, published an article by Sergey Leskov, timed to the centenary of academician Abram Alikhanov.

Golden Stars of Heroes of Socialist Labor, the title of laureate of Lenin, Stalin, State Awards, orders of various iconic virtues rained down on nuclear scientists after a successful trial test near Semipalatinsk.

Ivan Nikiforovich Medyanik was also awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

“All the people mentioned in the list are famous in their own way,” Ivan Nikiforovich returns to the conversation. “You can write books about each. Well, they have, in fact, already been written. Some of them and they are in majority have fame with a “positive” sign, others with a “minus” sign. But then we did not know anything negative. We were children of our time: Communists, Komsomol members, all brought up in one ideology, committed to the high idea of building communism. It turned out we were hostages of a false idea.

“Would anyone even try to give a hint about it!” The Great October Revolution was a reality, Lenin's covenants were a reality, the party congresses with kilometer long newspaper resolutions and reports were a reality, and everything seemed to be for the good of the common people.

And we believed. And we worked without looking at the rouble. And it was necessary to look around, this is the current understanding.

I remember Boris Glebovich Muzrukov with a kind word. He was the director of “Mayak” which was called Mendeleev Chemical Plant. Machine builder by profession. And before that he was in charge of “Uralmash”! When I was taken to “Mayak”, he personally talked to me and asked to draw up a schedule for the restoration of the car fleet.

And the fleet, in essence, didn’t exist. The cars stood in any place, the so-called repair shops were only just sheds above the pits, and the cars, as we called them by the status of a large enterprise as “rolling stock”, were almost missing.

I told him about my plans. He listened respectfully as a friend though was already in the rank of major general. A serious and fair man. He was able to admit his mistakes. Honestly spoke about it. Did not raise the voice. But even in a quiet voice, one can be cut to pieces so that he won't find it funny.

Just as it happened to me. As winter was approaching, and in the Urals they are extremely severe, the cars urgently needed heated rooms. I have had the experience of circumstances of this kind. Well, I started doing things in a big way: we put in order the workplaces and began to build a real repair zone, a parking garage. We also needed our own gas stations, as we brought fuel in barrels. I sorted out this thing, too. Then I traveled around the area and proposed transport workers to create, well, let's say, a production repair line – something is being repaired on some stands, something on others.

In a word, everything went according to the approved plan. But then I thought up to build on the garage a room for an office, as a second floor. Convenient? Convenient. In general, this case itself suggested a rational solution.

When Muzrukov saw the finished product, the building itself, he said sternly that it was violation of financial discipline, although we had built it at the expense of profits. He reprimanded me, as they say, without raising his voice. And it was a real reprimand, like a real scolding. But only before the holiday. By November 7, the reprimand was lifted. And for the same “violation”, just formulated differently, namely: “For good preparation of the garage for winter conditions,” I was thanked. Even more, I was given bonus.

Muzrukov worked hard, although he had considerable problems with his health: he had one lung. And he never complained. He was excellent leader, skillful. He decided everything, as they say, on the go. He did not stay in the office and swirled around the construction site, was aware of all the successes. And never humiliated the dignity of subordinates.

Imagine, Volodya, we builtthe warm garage, equipped repair parking. Everything seemed to be normal. But “Mayak” was expanding. There were needed more and more cars. And even more so there were not enough specialists like repairmen, road builders, qualified electricians, car mechanics, drivers of truck cranes, motor grader and bulldozer operators, engineering and technical personnel.

New premises for the repair and parking of rolling stock were required. Again, we did not need amateurs, not just practitioners, though with solid experience, but professionals with good institute training. All more or less important posts were hold by ex-drivers. It was necessary to expand the scientific approach to this site.

And then Boris Glebovich said, “We won’t be able to do without you, Ivan Nikiforovich, you are needed here. But specialists are also needed. So, come on, let’s send personnel managers to let them look for people, bring them here, negotiate. Just give them the direction of where to search.” And our messengers went to all ends! To cities and villages.

A couple of years later we gathered auto specialists, engineers and technicians from Ivanovo, Samara, Kurgan, Moscow, Omsk, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk (not classified!), Leningrad. In short, the team became knowledgeable.

And the economy grew and grew. Freight and passenger cars, buses, maintenance vehicles, warmed repair shops which were no longer afraid of a snowstorm, blizzard or snow drifts, although no one “canceled” them and they didn’t ask anyone permission for their winter outrage.

I also took care of the friendship with the paramilitary teams of firefighters: all their equipment was on the balance of my economy.

So Kurchatov who gave the word to help us, transport workers, and Muzrukov kept their word.”