Gary graduated from the Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University in January 1972 and was a candidate for work in the FIAN (Lebedev Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences) as an intern (with a payment of 100 rubles per month, which was lower than the salary of an unskilled worker at the plant). Nata was in the last month of pregnancy and was still on the list of students with a deferred completion of the diploma with a scholarship of 35 rubles a month. Despite the obvious poverty, they were both insanely happy - they loved each other and boldly looked to their future, especially since they had an apartment left to him and grandmother Ducia by their parents Inna and Pavel, who bought a separate apartment in a new house, and AD and Nadia promised to help with food.
However, suddenly there was a huge threat to their plans. At the commission for the distribution of young specialists of Moscow State University, almost all young men were sent to serve in the army for two years. Recruiting into the army was considered a very serious business and a simple bribe would not work, in this case nothing could be done. Even the AD, the deputy minister, and Inna, the secretary of the Politburo member, did not know how to save Gary. Throughout January, Gary, along with his university friends, underwent a thorough medical examination and listened to instructions on how and where to appear to be sent on February 1 to a military unit of an as yet unknown location.
Salvation came quite unexpectedly, academician Nikolai Basov, winner of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of lasers, wrote a letter to the Minister of Defense with a request as an exception to release from recruiting five "most talented" young scientists whom the FIAN had already invited to work (Gary and his friends Victor and Nikolai were among these five lucky ones). To Gary's great surprise, on January 29, He received a call from Serafima Yakovlevna, Basov's secretary, who in strict voice ordered him to appear tomorrow at the FIAN for a personal meeting with Basov, and “you can forget about recruiting into the army”, she said. Gary couldn't believe his ears, but the next morning he timidly entered the academic's office and the Great Basov reached out for a handshake (miracle, how else could you explain all this, although Gary had the idea that this could be the work of AD, but he never confessed).
Thus began Gary's career at the FIAN, where he worked for 21 years in the same laboratory of high-power lasers and their interaction with matter. The first remarkable event in Gary's life after entering the FIAN, just on the forty first day, was the birth of his son Alex. This was the rhythm of life for Gary and Nata, although they did not think about the difficulties, they were together and everything should turn out well for them.
First years were tough for the young family of Gary and Nata and Alex. During the day they were completely absorbed in work, Gary at the FIAN and Nata with her little child. She managed to do several additional tasks in short time periods of his sleep: she did laundry, cooked and even wrote her graduation Diploma. Late evenings, when finally they were together, they did some translation from English of the documents from the Information agency, mostly of scientific content – that provided a little additional earnings. Nata with her neighbor friend learned how to do knitting and they restored old sweaters (which meant to untangle yarn first, then wash it and dry, then knit a basically new garment with quality not inferior to the original) and sold them in the “commission” shops.
Gary proved to be successful experimentalist, which bring him proper respect of his colleagues. He collected data for is PhD thesis pretty fast and the contest to get that degree came to him pretty quick. According the rules in the FIAN its associates after receiving doctorate degree were promoted to the next position in the career ladder with corresponding salary increase, which was incredible necessity for Gary. But there was one condition, to get promotion and become a group leader new PhD scientist must be a communist.
Communism ideas were never popular in the Gary’s family. All knew stories about Grandpa Fedor during October Revolution and his role in establishing the Soviet order in Siberia. But we also knew that his idealistic and even romantic dreams about better society were shuttered during 30s and 40s when he himself could experience the real truth of the Soviet methods for suppression of freedom of people. Nevertheless, Fedor remained to be a party member till his death in 1960. AD also became a party member following pressure from KGB informants, who were monitoring the atomic bomb development in Sarov. They knew that without party ticket their career would not progresse. So, Gary decided to go the same way. To show that he was doing some useful job inside the party he became a member of the party council of their division, accounted to some 80 communists. His job was to keep administrative task in order, like plans of actions and monitoring party group “extracurricular” activity such as weekend “voluntary” work in vegetable storages or two week-long labor trips to village assigned to FIAN, which used best physicists of the country to collect potatoes in the field. That was like mechanical paperwork without any communism ideology, but considered sufficient to get promotion. And soon enough Gary became a group leader (with 5 young associates) and silent approval for attending international conferences abroad.
Scientific international trips were considered as a major monetary bonuses, because scientists sent on government money can save from their daily per due allowance enough currency to buy highly valuated at home merchandise. Among those items were electronics, clothes, cosmetics, etc., which could be sold through second hand shops at prices, sometime exceeding actual values at countries of origin by factor of 10 and even higher. Obviously there was big competition for the inclusion in the Academy plan of foreign trips. The US conferences were the most desirable, so only academics and professors usually attended them.
First trip to Europe (outside socialist countries of East Europe) for Gary was allowed to Triest, Italy to present his recent paper on “Diagnostics of laser-produced plasma” to young scientists from developing countries, the conference being out of major interest of the Soviet scientific management. As for Gary, it was a great success, he finally became a part of traveling abroad people. That conference turned out a very useful for Gary, though he could not collect a lot of profitable merchandise, instead spent most of currency on visit to Venice and souvenirs. The most important for him was making friends with Mike, young perspective scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the one which Gary respected the most. After that meeting Gary several times met Mike at various conferences and was his official Academy guide in Mike’s visit to Moscow in 1989. It turned out that Mike made it possible for Gary’s family to get job in the LLNL and immigrate to the USA in 1992.
There was a remarkable story about Gary’s month-long visit to the USA in frames of scientific exchange between Soviet and American Academies. It was summer of 1983, when Gary and his colleague and friend Vlad, with whom they published a few articles (Vlad was plasma theorist, later became very famous in the field), made it through the FIAN filter for a month travel to a number of American scientific centers, from which they already had invitation. Their papers were sent to the Academy Presidium for the final approval, but both young fellows understood well that their chance are close to zero, too many highly respected in government people had priority. And then came tragedy of September 1, 1983 - Soviets shot the passenger aircraft over USSR territory near Japan. 269 people were dead, whole world stood in fear of new war. But war didn’t happen, though Soviet Union was blamed in inhumanity, many international contacts were stopped, many Scientific societies declared boycott to Soviet Academy.
Terrible tragedy happened, it was quietly accepted in the soviet communities, many were afraid to speak openly because of unavoidable repressions. What did the Academy candidates to the trips to the USA? They rushed to the Presidium and moved their applications to any other country that was still open for Soviets. For Gary and Vlad all this meant the end of the dreams about American trip, they didn’t have enough clout in the high places, therefore were not accepted at the Presidium.
The happy news came in the August of 1984, when American Academy of Sciences stopped their boycott and was ready to receive scientists from the USSR according to the previous schedule. That generated a big push on the officials in the Presidium, they had to fulfill the schedule or their bosses could be punished (they, read KGB, were responsible for the collecting new data from the American science centers). Somebody, just anybody, must be sent to the USA, but the problem was in the time needed for papers processed, usually it took 4 to 6 months, and it was August, time of mass vacations. Clerks rushed to the archive and found that only one valid application, from Gary and Vlad, because they didn’t recalled it. Their papers were in excellent order with all the invitations, just needed to get confirmation for exact dates. Gary and Vlad immediately sent telexes (no email yet at that time) to their hosts, and by the end of September their itinerary was finalized. So, time to buy tickets on the October plane? Not so fast. In 1984 there were the President of the USA elections in November, and Ronald Reagan, an open critic of the Soviet political regime, was to be elected. For some reason Soviet government stopped all trips to America until after November 10, total absurd, but that was the Soviet life, ordinary people couldn’t be sure in the future. How the trip of scientists before the election could help to persuade more electors in the direction of Reagan could not be explained, but the "installation from above" was obtained and all officials had to fulfill it, even though the travel plan for the year had to be completed in two months. Therefore, everyone in the Presidium was pleased that Gary and Vlad had presented all the updated invitations on time.
On November 11, 1984, Gary and Vlad arrived on a Czech plane in New York (Soviet Airlines had not yet received permission to restore flights to the United States due to the Korean jet conflict) for a transfer to Washington, where they were to report their arrival. It was late, around 10 p.m. and Gary offered to spend the night in New York and fly to Washington in the morning. At the same time, he said to Vlad, "Do not be surprised by what you will see now, just follow me and do not lag behind." Gary knew what was to come, namely, his mother-in-law Inna sent through her diplomatic channels (she was also the chief secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR) an order to meet and provide all possible assistance to her son-in-law. At the same time, the son-in-law was to be accompanied by the driver of the Soviet mission to the UN, Sasha, whom she arranged three-year work for the mission for faithful service to her in repairing and maintaining her personal car in Moscow. Indeed, Sasha met Gary and Vlad at the airport and took him on a night tour of New York, and then to a hotel on Broadway, where Gary paid $ 150 per night in a luxury room, so he parted with all the cash that the Academy of Sciences of the USSR provided them only for the most urgent case and strongly recommended to bring them back to the Academy. Sasha promised to come in the morning and take them to the airport, but in the meantime they both first got to the capital of the world and decided to go for a walk on Broadway.
As crazy as it may looks, but two Russian scientists on their first day in America just decided to get an aroma of the capital of the world at night, even without a map of Manhattan. They remembered the 54th street at Broadway was their home for a night, so nothing is easier, just count the street numbers. They just stepped out from the hotel and saw the car fire across the street, firefighters came immediately and extinguished the fire. “Wow! This is America”, both were amazed, “we can’t see anything like that in Moscow”. They went all the way to Times Square, turned to 7th avenue, passed Rockefeller Center with Christmas tree on the edge of a skating rink, turned left on 54th street and get to the hotel at midnight. That was the beginning of their one-month tour of major US Universities and National Labs. Among them were Princeton University, Rochester University, Arizona University in Tucson, a week long Laser conference in San Francisco, University of California in Los Angeles, and finally
Gary and Vlad in America, 1984, Tucson, AZ
Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Los Alamos was mostly remembered because of some incredible meeting with one of the Lab’s chiefs James McNally. He was not in Gary and Vlad program until in the very end their host scientist said, “There is one more person wants to meet with you”, and they answered “OK, but what this is about?”
“This will be just informal introduction talk”, was the answer. And Dr. McNally, who looked very friendly, politely greeted Russian scientists saying it was rare occasion to see visitors from the Soviet Union and kindly presented a talk about the big famous lab activity, some of which was not known for general public, so Gary and Glad paid their best attention to the details. In the end, when everyone was up and ready to leave, Dr.McNally asked quite casually, “Do you know a person with the same last name as Gary, but with initials A.D.?” In a split of a second Gary understood, what was a actual reason for the meeting, at the same time he decided that they were going to be captured be some secret service (Los Alamos was exactly the perfect place for this). So, there was no way out, Americans, of course, knew everything about Gary’s father, no sense to deny that. Gary said, “My father has such initials.” “ Where does he work?” The thought crossed Gary’s mind - Interrogation begins. He knew how to answer to this question, “My father works at Kurchatov Institute” – that was official legend of AD. And then Dr. McNally came closer to Gary and said,” I met your father in 1974 in Moscow at the nuclear weapons ban treaty negotiation. Please, convey my deepest regards, we were the only professionals among bunch of incompetent diplomats and military spies. I really enjoyed his company.” The stone dropped from Gary’s shoulders. “I remember my father mentioned about a highly regarded specialist from LANL. So, it was you! My father keep a present from you, the piece of melted dirt from the site of the very first American atomic bomb, the new mineral was called Trinitite after the code name of the test Trinity”.
Gary met James McNally again many years later in Livermore, when Gary and family just immigrated, James also participated in bringing them to the USA. At that time they met in the restaurant and talked like a good old friends. James told Gary that he visited Moscow once again in 1988 and asked Soviet authorities to let him meet with AD, but his request was denied, because AD was seriously ill, in condition not suitable for visitors. But they didn’t tell him that AD got overdose of radiation being in Chernobyl as a head of the government rescue commission.