In the end of year 1957 Gary’s Dad came home and told that in two months all the family was going to move to the brand new town, also secret as Arzamas-16, which was in the Ural mountains, on the border of Europe and Asia, actually where Siberia begins. AD was promoted to the position of head of devision, which was quite a high in their business ladder, his salary and bonuses gave him ability to buy a car. Since the first atomic bomb test in 1949 he participated in many following tests, including big hydrogen bombs on a new remote test site on the island of New Land in the North Polar ocean. Everyone in the family was excited about move.
Government decided to move almost a third of personnel from Arzamas-16 to Ural, later called Chelyabinsk-70, and in 1990s when they open the secret they named it Snezhinsk (Snowy town in English). AD's family arrived there in March 1958, that was time of rising of N.S.Khruschev in the Soviet Union. He wanted to compete with the USA, especially in the field of nuclear weapons, so the development of the new bigger and bigger bombs was always favorite in his national budget.
Gary loved his new place to live, there was large lake just a hundred meters from the house, in which was their apartment, school was just next building, in the spacious yard between several same looking multi-family four stories buildings the skating rink was build for all kids pleasure. March was still a winter month with temperatures around – 10F. Lake was frozen with ice thickness up to 5 feet. It was paradise for skiing in the forest and surrounding hills (Cherry Hills), playing hockey. All that was forbidden for Gary due to his heart condition. At least, now he could walk outside by himself and he started little by little cheating his mom. She worried a lot about him, being suspicious, but couldn’t stop Gary to increase intensity of his physical exercises. In May she complained to a doctor on Gary being too active, but doctor to the great joy of him, said that it looked like the heart can manage sport behavior of Gary. That was beginning of the new life with personal freedom for Gary. In June he was sent to the prestige national pioneer camp in Crimea, where he met kids from all the Soviet Union. In September Gary enrolled in the basketball section. It was just all fun, even more when his Dad bought a boat with the gas motor and they could streak through the large lake to the places with fish and lake lobsters.
Life was good for Gary, his Dad became a very respected person in the Soviet nuclear weapons program, received many government awards, including the highest one – the Hero of the Socialistic Labor, and also title of doctor of technical sciences, his position was the Chief Designers of nuclear weapons for Navy and Air Force. Gary played basketball, spending six afternoons a week in the stadium, by fourteen he was tall and strong, good looking guy. Father gave him a movie camera and he took it everywhere they went, to the long journey around Baltics states and Belarus by car, to the regular weekend picnics by the one of beautiful lakes, to the journey to great Siberian lake Baikal and Kazakhstan.
Girls at school always attracted attention of Gary, not just his, of course, girls was the most favorite topic among his friends. When he was fourteen his big brother Vlad got married and soon there was little nephew Dmitry around. Nadia was against Vlad's marriage at 19 and especially to the older woman, but with the birth of her first grandson she forgave her beloved son and took a lot of care with the baby on herself, she even called for backup from her mother Lena, now great grandmother. After the death of Fedor in 1960, who lost his long and painful struggle to cancer, Lena was delighted to come to the snow buried Ural and gladly took a part in the babysitter job. For Gary it was happy time with his grandma, she could endlessly talk about the stories happened in her life, and Gary could listen and listen, imagining various places and events, Warsaw before WWI , Civil War in Siberia, various fronts during WWII.
Gary found his first love in the stadium, of course, where he spent most of his after school time. She was a track and field athlete, long jumps and sprint run were her favorite sports. She had impressive long legs, Gary always enjoyed to watch. They used to walk together in the park outside the stadium, went to the movie theater, or just wandered along the streets of small town. Gary unexpectedly opened that he enjoyed talking with Lucy. She had her own opinions on various things in life and could strongly defend herself. He remembered their first kiss, it was something he never felt before.
When they both were 16, Lucy's parents were transferred to the some other secret town. They talk about their future plans, hoping to meet again after school graduation, but both knew that they were going to part forever. Lucy wanted continue her sports career and Gary told her that he decided to become a physicist, so best place to do this was Moscow State University. She said: “ do you know how many people usually applied for each open position there? More than ten!” And Gary answered: “ this doesn’t bother me, I am special! I will pass exams!” That wasn’t just a boast, he really knew somehow he will accomplish his dream. He also understood that he must study above school program and practice a lot in math tasks solving. Lucy's departure actually helped Gary to concentrate on his studies, everyday he was done with the school homework by 6pm and after dinner came to the thick text book with previous years exam tasks. He calculated that solving five tasks a day he would solve all the tasks in book by the time of graduation. So, he usually started at 7pm and at 10-11pm when five tasks were solved, he went to bed.
High school graduation party was in June 1966, by tradition new graduates walked around the town whole night together and went home at the dawn. Gary had only a couple hours to sleep that day, he was leaving to Moscow to be on time with application to Physics Department of MGU. He flew from Sverdlovsk, city in the Ural mountains, with the famous physicist, who many years later became his boss in the Lebedev Physical Institute, the most prestigious research center in Soviet Union. Lev Feoktistov worked in Snezhinsk theoretical division and his trip to Moscow was a pleasant one for him, he was going to get the highest government award, as a recognition of his achievements in designing the nuclear weapons. During a two-hour flight Lev Feoktistov being in an obvious good mood decided to tell Gary the story of his own qualification exams at Moscow State University in 1949. He said: “At that time the first exam at Physics Department was the written essay in Russian literature, and I wrote almost ten pages expressing my understanding of the crisis of the main character in the last century novel. I was happy with my work, but only for a day, because next day I found that my test was evaluated as failed due to many grammar errors. I was completely devastated, I considered myself as very talented guy, deserving to study at the best Russian University. So, I took my essay with a lot of red marks and rushed directly to the Dean of the Department. I told him that physics is my only dream and that I am very good at it and that I will do anything to prove this, just give me second chance. And Dean gave me my second chance, provided that I get excellence grades in all other exams. I was so delighted that rewrote my essay right in his office, this time on just one and a half page I used only simple grammar construction, forgetting about nice literature language. And, Yes! – no grammar errors! So, my advice to you, Gary, don’t sweat on the literature quality, check twice grammar, and be short, the less text you write, the less chance you made an error!” It was a great advice, and Gary really used it, my essay was on a free topic about importance of science in modern society, just shy of two pages with references to the communist slogans, popped up everywhere in those years. Nobody worried about the content, it had no grammar errors, result – highest grade!
Life in MGU (Russian abbreviation for the Moscow State University) was absolutely amazing for Gary, he didn’t even thought that he can be so free to do anything he wants. He lived with his grandparents Maria and Mitri in a small apartment at the edge of Moscow (the end of subway station called River Terminal), most of the day spending in the University, attending lectures, classes, laboratory works – all these were absolutely different from the high school routine. He was picked out to the University basketball team (what was more delighted for Gary!) to practice with the really good players, the thing he never did before. Somehow, freshman students attracted to Gary and soon enough four of them became a kind of core of leadership in their group. Evenings in University were filled with a lot of events, which never being available for Gary, such as concerts and theatrical performances of the leading and most popular theaters, just student’s parties in the dorm…. It was freedom, Gary never dreamed of before and he loved it.
Some people, including last president of the USSR, consider Chernobyl catastrophe as a beginning of the crash of the Soviet system. It was 1986, five years before the end of the USSR. I don’t much care, when was the start, I just decided that this is not the country for me and my family even earlier, like in 1981 after my visit to Poland emerging out of devastating political and economic crisis and my first trip to capitalist Italy. I could see the difference in people life, their freedom, their understanding of life values.
But Chernobyl made a huge impact on my conscience, without doubt. And that impact I felt through the story of my dad, who was sent there as a deputy chairman of the government commission for liquidation of the catastrophe. He spent a month there and, when he returned, he said: “If there is a hell, I saw it”. Official data on died number of people was 31, just immediate losses during the day of meltdown, but real numbers of those, who got radiation overdose and died later comes to the dozens of thousands, my dad was among them.
By the time of Chernobyl tragedy AD was a member of Soviet government, in his position of Deputy Minister, responsible for the research and development and production of nuclear weapons. He was already 19 years at this position and was recognized as one, who kept the industry on the level high enough to compete in the race of nuclear armament with Americans during the Cold War. In 1974 AD was a key participant at the US-USSR conference in Moscow on developing the Threshold Test ban Treaty. Roland Timerbaev of USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in his memories “The Soviet delegation was headed by Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building (Minsredmash) Igor Morokhov, a very energetic and dynamic individual, and included another deputy minister from the same agency who was in charge of the nuclear weapons complex— Aleksandr Zakharenkov—as well as General Aleksandr Osin from the Ministry of Defense and myself, representing the Foreign Ministry, as well as many specialists from a variety of organizations, including the head of the State Committee on Hydro and Meteorology (Goskomgidromet), Yuriy Izrael. In a naive attempt to hide his actual role, Zakharenkov was introduced as a Kurchatov Institute professor, but he was seated next to the head of the delegation and it was clear to all that he held a very influential post. During the sessions, which took place in the Minsredmash building on Staromonetnyy Lane, Zakharenkov was fairly stern and observed the proceedings with some distrust, but in everyday life he was a very nice person; I got to know him and sometimes took walks with him together on Sundays as we lived in the same part of the city.”
AD, first from left, in the bus to Chernobyl ground zero, May 1986
AD was not a specialist in the Atomic Power Stations, but he was chosen to lead the government commission because of his outstanding managing capabilities.
Being in Chernobyl AD as always wanted to see with his own eyes what was the damage, he flew on board of helicopter over blown up reactor, took rides to the contaminated areas with cleaners of radioactive debris, even went to the underground channel, which was dug out to pour concrete for the enforcement of the bottom of the reactor. It was exhausting job starting at 6am through 8pm when commission (read mostly AD) reported over video channel to Michael Gorbachev. After a month of such work it was difficult to recognize him. And he never recovered since then.
Gary met AD in his first day back in Moscow asking him about condition of destroyed Chernobyl, but AD didn’t want to go into details, just in a few words describing general chaos and that the only timely help came from their ministry, where people used to work in fast moving schedule.
Now, many years later, I think that Chernobyl was a symbol of the USSR as a whole entity. That country possess a huge treasure in its people, talented and resourceful in both new ideas and innovative implementation technologies, enabling the state to be among the world leaders. And yet, the government structure is so rotten by the corruption and unintelligent officials (called apparatchiks), that many bright brains and masters in know-how fled to the free countries, where their talents are truly appreciated.
Yes, crash of the USSR was similar to Chernobyl tragedy, mostly unexpected, result of abusing human rights, overconfidence in central power and capabilities of high-tech technology.