Roald Sagdeev - about how Niels Bohr did not fit into Leninism, why Landau did not honor Lomonosov, about innovations behind barbed wire, the Chinese trousers of Academician Kurchatov, about his relationship with Dwight Eisenhower, as well as about who actually won the world space race.
We met with Academician Sagdeev on the campus of the University of Maryland, in College Park, in the vicinity of Greater Washington. Roald Zinnurovich has been teaching here for many years, Professor Emeritus, Director of the East-West Center for Space Sciences. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He still has many titles and regalia, as befits a venerable scientist of the highest world status. But in communication, Mr. Sagdeev is democratic, as I became convinced over ten years of acquaintance. And how briskly he runs around a huge campus in his serious 77 years - by God, he can't keep up. “How do you keep fit, Roald Zinnurovich? - I asked, somewhat out of breath, when he met me at the parking lot and led me to the building. “I have always loved an active lifestyle. I jog in the morning. Only when I leave somewhere for a long time does it unsettle. It takes a long time to recover."
- Let's look at the very beginning of your career. You graduated from the Physics Department of Moscow State University. With whom of the future luminaries of science, as the Americans say, rubbed their elbows?
- We lived in a hostel on Stromynka, where we had to get by tram from the Sokolniki metro station. A peculiar place. There are ten people in one room. One of the closest friends at the university was my classmate Alexander Alekseevich Vedenov, in the future a remarkable theoretical physicist, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. By the way, a number of members of the Academy of Sciences have graduated from our course. Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov studied two years younger. Together with him - also became prominent scientists Boris Tverskoy and Georgy Golitsyn, with whom I have developed long-term friendly relations. However, it is not necessary to have high-profile titles, there were and are wonderful scientists without titles.
The early 1950s were not easy years for Soviet physics. She was on the verge of the same interference of the party and government circles as biology.
- Did you find your own Lysenko in physics too?
- If there was a need to find a candidate for the role of Lysenko, there would be no problems. The center of antiscientific views was located in our faculty. The largest physicists were removed from teaching at Moscow State University - Landau, Tamm, Artsimovich, Leontovich. A galaxy of careerists seeking to politicize physics accused Landau and his colleagues of ignoring Marxist-Leninist philosophy. It turns out that quantum physics and the theory of relativity are philosophically misinterpreted by their founders - Bohr and Einstein. The witch hunt lasted for some time, physics would have been waiting for the fate of biological science, destroyed by Lysenko and others like him. Fortunately, this did not happen. Stalin needed an atomic bomb. Kurchatov and Khariton managed to defend the purity of science. The development of nuclear weapons actually saved physics from an ideological pogrom. Stalin and Beria submitted to the instinct of self-preservation. Pragmatism has won.
- How did all this whistling affect you, the students of that time?
- I entered Moscow State University in 1950, Stalin dies in March 1953, and in the same autumn we start our fourth year in a new building on the Lenin Hills. We knew very well about the split in the circles of scientists, about the fact that the leadership of the physics department tends to ideologize science. Yes, there were wonderful teachers, but the party instructors set the tone. And so the annual Komsomol conference of the faculty gathered. The question is posed: why are we being taught physics incorrectly? Why are there no Professors Landau, Tamm, Leontovich? Dean Sokolov, who was sitting on the podium, answers the last question: because Landau does not refer to Lomonosov in his writings. Homeric laughter of the audience. Emotional intensity reaches its peak. The meeting adopts a resolution demanding that teaching be brought up to date.
Of course, repressions began against the troublemaker activists. They were carried out by local forces. I, a Komsomol member, was also summoned to the party committee. In fact, they interrogated: "Have you met with Landau?", "Did he incite you?" And the fact is that shortly before these events I was introduced to Landau, and he explained how to enter his graduate school, to pass his famous "minimum". But then something happened. Above they ordered to change the situation at the Physics Department. It is known that the top party leadership handed over materials about the turmoil to Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov in order to find out his opinion, and he supported the theses of our student revolution. So, at the end of 53 - beginning of 54, the first, albeit tiny, but very important victory of common sense over ideological devilry was won. A new dean, Fursov, recommended by Kurchatov, was sent to us, and lectures were given by Leontovich and Landau. The atmosphere has changed completely.
- It is known that the most gifted students were recruited to work in secret laboratories and "mailboxes". How did this happen?
- A number of specialties at the faculty were classified as classified. Let's say some sections of radiophysics and radio electronics. And "The structure of matter", where I ended up - here it was about nuclear affairs. The selection was based on personal data. There were no enemies of the people among the closest relatives. My father, Zinnur Sagdeev, then worked in the Council of Ministers of Tataria. So I ended up in a regime group. It suited me - after all, the level of the scholarship depended on the degree of regime. I was given a personal scholarship, first named after Morozov …
- Not Pavlik?
- No. In the name of the famous People's Will Nikolai Morozov, who spent 20 years in the Shlisselburg Fortress. I did well on the exams, almost one A. In the last year, they were given a Stalin scholarship. A huge amount - almost 700 rubles.
- What did you spend them on? Did you go out to restaurants?
- No, in theaters. Since my youth, I am not indifferent to music. Sometimes he even slept in line at the ticket office of the Bolshoi Theater. Revised the entire opera repertoire. Then Lemeshev and Kozlovsky were still singing. And we had a concert hall on Stromynka, where opera and pop celebrities performed.
- Youth, blood boils. Or the excellent student was not up to novels?
- Of course, there were hobbies … But I, a provincial, came to Moscow from Kazan and felt a certain embarrassment. In general, love was postponed until later. The main thing is study. At the beginning of the fifth year, according to the order, I and several children from our course were sent to prepare theses in the closed city of Arzamas-16 - now the old name of Sarov has been returned to it. This place, with a town, forests and lakes, was surrounded by several rows of barbed wire and figured for the uninitiated under the innocent name "Privolzhskaya office". My plans collapsed: after all, I had already passed several exams of the "Landau minimum", which should have given me the right to enter the postgraduate course of the Institute of Physical Problems, where he worked. But according to the order, I ended up in the most secret "box", where I first saw Khariton, Sakharov, Zeldovich. Arzamas-16 was the think tank for the Soviet atomic bomb program. I was lucky: as I wanted, I got into a group of theoreticians. The outstanding physicist David Albertovich Frank-Kamenetsky became my supervisor. A truly creative atmosphere reigned in his department …
-… behind the barbed wire.
- A real scientist in any situation will not miss the opportunity to engage in serious science. The topic proposed to me had nothing to do with bombs. Properties of matter at high temperatures under astrophysical conditions. For example, in the central zone of our Sun. And all the same, notebooks with formulas had to be handed over in the evening and taken again in the morning. The behavior of matter at high temperatures is similar to what happens in a thermonuclear explosion. So theory turned out to be connected with practice.
… When the first Soviet nuclear bomb was detonated in Kazakhstan in 1949, I was overwhelmed with admiration and at the same time fear. By the time I arrived in Sarov, the mysticism had disappeared, and I firmly understood that I did not want to deal with the bomb. He defended his diploma under the guidance of Frank-Kamenetsky. He knew that I wanted to study in graduate school with Landau, and he supported me in every possible way. Lev Davidovich wrote an application for me. At the same time, the top management made a decision to build another nuclear "box" in the Chelyabinsk region. Now this town is called Snezhinsky. A resolution of the Council of Ministers was issued, signed, it seems, by Kosygin, according to which it was decided to send all our group of graduates, theoreticians in the closed specialty "Structure of Matter" to Snezhinsk. I was upset, I told Landau everything. He promised to investigate, but for now he advised not to sign the distribution order. All my classmates left, and I was left alone in the hostel and waited for the conflict to end. Landau turned to Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, who said that he could not cancel the resolution, but he could take me to his institute - he now bears his name. The disappointment that I didn’t get to Landau was somewhat mitigated by the fact that I ended up in the sector of my former diploma supervisor Frank-Kamenetsky, whom Kurchatov had invited from Sarov. You know, even in those days in the scientific community there were oases with a real creative atmosphere and respect for colleagues and students.
- How did Kurchatov treat you?
- Apparently, he noticed me at the seminars. After two or three years, he began to invite him to his place, consulted. His assistant called. And I rushed to Igor Vasilyevich, ran to his cottage along the diagonal park path. Once I run, I see he is walking near the cottage. "Comrade Sagdeev," he says suddenly, "you have the same trousers as mine." These were blue Chinese Druzhba trousers, the Soviet version of today's jeans. And in my everyday work, I spent almost all the time with Evgeny Velikhov and Alexander Vedenov. I am still proud of what we managed to do … In 61st I left Moscow. I have developed a good relationship with Academician Andrei Mikhailovich Budker, who offered to move to Akademgorodok.
- Romance carried away …
- And romance, and the promised freedom of scientific studies. Akademgorodok is a real kingdom of youth. Nearby is the Novosibirsk University. For some reason, in the Soviet Union, and even now in Russia, a watershed has been drawn between universities and academic institutes. Akademgorodok was a rare example of free exchange between the spheres of science and higher education. Only now they are proposing to introduce a system of research universities, as in America. This idea was then implemented precisely in the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences.
By the way, the engineer Igor Poletaev, who invented the division into physicists and lyricists, lived in Akademgorodok. Contrary to popular belief, we physicists loved lyricists. All the bards came to us, from Galich and Okudzhava to Kim, actors, writers. Major international conferences have been held.
- Does Academgorodok look like the University of Maryland campus?
- Looks like it. The same low-rise buildings. I moved there with my wife and son, and a daughter was born there. My first wife is a humanitarian. Life was arranged beautifully. In Moscow, the three of us huddled in a communal apartment, which was obtained only thanks to the intervention of Kurchatov, before that I lived in a hostel. And in Akademgorodok they gave me an apartment, and then I moved to a cottage. Essentially a Western standard. Amazing nature, pine forest, reservoir. Motorboat for fishing, skiing in winter. Luxurious special distributor. Akademgorodok was better supplied than Novosibirsk. They fed scientists … I lived there for ten years. I remember they organized an English club, I was its president. Once a week they gathered at the House of Scientists. Rule: Speak only English. In the famous cafe "Under the Integral", disputes were held. Once the district committee forbade us to celebrate Christmas with an English apple pie. I had to call the secretary of the district committee Yanovsky - he later worked in the science sector of the Central Committee - and, oddly enough, I persuaded him to remove the ban, they say, we are not planning anything religious, a purely cultural action. But then it got worse and worse. The authorities decided that the most notorious opposition was flourishing in Akademgorodok, and especially after the events in Prague, they began to tighten the screws. And from the discussion club "Under the Integral" in the end, only memories remained (its founder and president, my old friend Anatoly Burshtein, many years later wrote an essay about that time entitled "Communism - Our Bright Past"). But what saved me from depression was an exciting job. I was in charge of the Laboratory of Plasma Theory. Small team, 10-15 people. No administration whatsoever. We studied the properties of plasma as a nonlinear medium. I got carried away by the theory of chaos.
- Excuse me, but what is it?
- Processes in nature and technology that cannot be accurately described, when only a probabilistic approach is possible, well, like a weather forecast. You can narrow the range of predictions, find the laws by which events are supposed to develop. The science of chaos is constantly expanding its field of application. Rather, it is a methodological approach to describing complex systems in the absence of a well-defined development scenario.
- Another absolutely amateurish question: does the plasma TV have anything to do with the plasma that you studied?
- It has, but very distant. It is like a down-to-earth plasma. But you touched upon an important topic - fundamental sciences and their practical applications. Setting a challenge for science to produce such useful applications for people is completely counterproductive. The progress of pure science itself creates a fertile ground on which, I repeat, the sprouts of applications can emerge. When the great Maxwell in the 60s of the XIX century wrote his famous equations, everyone believed that this was some kind of abstraction. And now Maxwell's equations are used as the basis for the activity of electronic devices. We open access to the Universe for mankind thanks to his electromagnetic theory. But narrow-minded people demand immediate benefit from science: take it out and put it down. Last year, President Obama attended the annual meeting of the US Academy of Sciences and gave a speech on the importance of basic science. He recalled the brilliant Einstein, his theory of relativity, that this theory gave impetus to the theory of the Big Bang and the expanding Universe. And today, Obama stressed, without Einstein's theory, it would be impossible to make a navigator, which is used by millions of motorists. Americans understand this dialectic well, therefore they do not spare funds for fundamental science. Alas, in Russia these amounts are still orders of magnitude less than in the United States.
- You received both the Hero of Socialist Labor and the Lenin Prize?
- I was given a hero as part of a large group of scientists and researchers for the Vega project, that is, for preparing a descent vehicle to fly to Venus and dropping a balloon into its orbit, and for studying Halley's comet. Vega is the first two syllables of Venus and Halley. And he received the Lenin Prize for his research in plasma physics.
- When I lived in Moscow, I often drove past a long parallelepiped near the Profsoyuznaya metro station. Years later, I learned that the Space Research Institute, which you headed for fifteen years, is located there.
- The curious people like you were told: look, here is a children's toy factory. It was located next to us. So, they make toys for children, here they make toys for adults. In the USSR, the space program was in full swing, there was launch after launch of ships with astronauts on board. In parallel, it was necessary to study the cosmos itself, these endless spaces filled with very rarefied plasma, the Moon, stars, planets, small bodies, giant flares in the depths of the Universe. This has become our main task. The institute had no direct relation to military equipment. This was done by a huge number of missile design bureaus, "mailboxes". We at IKI were supposed to conduct scientific research and experiments in the course of space exploration. Everything went with a creak, there were a lot of bureaucratic delays. To begin with, the industry was controlled by the defense industry, everything was regulated by the government's military-industrial commission. We were not a priority organization, we patiently stood in line, waiting for the ordered instruments and equipment. Over time, we learned to make them ourselves, attracted foreign scientific teams from the countries of the socialist camp. Our interests were in the open field. We did not hide anything from our foreign colleagues. Let's say a scientist makes a discovery. It is in his interests, in the interests of his department and institute, to quickly notify the scientific world about this, because this efficiency helped to establish the priority. Where we depended on the West was in computer technology. At the time, these were such gigantic wardrobes. Whoever had currency could buy them. We came to the Ministry of Foreign Trade, there was a special unit that was engaged in the production of Western technologies and equipment for Soviet customers, including those prohibited for export to the Soviet Union. I don’t know how they did it, but we got the computers we needed. When a scandal broke out in the West and the supplying firms were caught by the hand, we had to open the doors of IKI for foreign colleagues and show that we use computers in the interests of pure science.
- How productive was the space race with America?
- It can be divided into three stages. First, who will be the first to launch a satellite into orbit? We won. Second - who will be the first to launch a person into space? Again we won. But the third one - who will be the first to land on the moon? - the Americans won. Here their general economic advantage affected, because landing on the Moon is a complex task, requiring a huge concentration of technological resources, engineering thought, and a powerful testing base. We made our entire bet on launching space rockets, which were essentially modified versions of the original P-7 ICBM. The lunar rover was not taken seriously, for the Politburo it was just an advanced toy. However, the hope of competing with the Americans did not leave us for some time, but a number of troubles happened, and most importantly, Korolev died at the height of the race. Immediately, conflicting proposals arose from prominent representatives of the rocket and space elite. As a result, we lost the moon race and left this competition site with America. We started looking for a niche where we could raise the Soviet flag, and we found it. Orbital stations have become such a niche, and we have been very successful in this area. But this hardly helped real science. Kind of winning the consolation race. True, some designers believed that it was necessary to return to the lunar project and try to bypass the Americans. Valentin Petrovich Glushko, an outstanding designer of rocket engines, dreamed of a permanent inhabited station on the Moon. I opposed this extremely costly program. At one time, the Americans switched to shuttles. Today it is obvious what a big mistake they made. Despite the beauty of the concept of crossing an airplane and a rocket, the practical cost of launching a unit of weight into space turned out to be higher for shuttles than for disposable rockets. For the airplane stage of the flight, you need to haul fuel all the way. And the risks were prohibitively high. It is no coincidence that NASA now has only two shuttles. The Americans are returning to the old parachute landing pattern. It was developed in due time by Korolev and Glushko and brought to perfection in the current "Soyuz". Yes, the Americans won the moon race. But what trophy did they get for this? The right to order Soyuz from Russia? By the way, at IKI we opposed the Soviet version of the shuttle - "Buran". But when the dispute reached Marshal Ustinov, he said: "Do you think that the Americans are fools ?!" And the Buranov program was accepted.
- That is, your institute did not have a decisive word?
- Of course not. Although we have always had bright minds, outstanding scientists. During the years of my directorship, a brilliant astrophysicist Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky worked for us. Academician Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich came, a true legend in physics and cosmology. Some of his students became prominent astrophysicists, for example, Rashid Alievich Sunyaev, one of the leaders of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics near Munich. And my student Albert Galeev became the director of IKI after my departure. And now his student Lev Matveyevich Zeleny is the director.
Now I talk on the phone with my colleagues almost every day. There, next to the director's office, there is also an office with my name on a plate. We are actively cooperating on a new lunar project. The fact is that under George W. Bush, NASA decided to return to the moon. An orbital scout flies around the moon. An international competition was announced, and the laboratory of Igor Mitrofanov from IKI proposed a very interesting option. My group is also involved in this project. Today, IKI is doing well, not like in the 90s, when the state gave up on serious science.
- A question that you have been asked endlessly many times: why did you decide to leave for America?
- I was not going to move at all. There were bright hopes that the Soviet Union would turn into a normal democratic country. And I thought that it would be possible to live both there and here. I was planning to marry a foreigner - Susan Eisenhower - and we were planning to spend half the time in one country and the other half in another.
We met at a conference in 1987, in the state of New York, to which two hundred people came from the Union. I knew that she was interested in space projects, not as a scientist, of course, but rather as a public figure. The opportunity presented itself. On the first evening, everyone was gathered for a barbecue. A musical band was playing. I thought I could invite her to dance and have a serious conversation. We talked for a long time about the Cold War, about the history of relations between our countries since the presidency of her grandfather, Dwight Eisenhower.
The first dance was the only thing they talked about. Susan then wrote a book (it is called Breaking Free. A Memoir of Love and Revolution. 1995. - OS). The day after that memorable evening, the New York Times comes out with an article on the conference. And it says about me: this Soviet delegate, who is especially zealous against the strategic defense initiative of President Reagan, invited the granddaughter of another president to dance. We continued to talk about serious topics. Susan had a small think tank in Washington, and I was going to hold a conference in Moscow to mark the 30th anniversary of the launch of the first Soviet satellite. She came as part of a large delegation of Americans.
- And the cold war has warmed up?
- Susan felt that the turning point happened when I asked her a question about the military-industrial complex. Her grandfather once admitted that there is a military-industrial complex in the United States. And I asked Susan: was your grandfather serious or joking? To which she said: yes, he spoke seriously, but we are now waiting for you to admit that you also have your own military industrial complex. The barrier was broken when I confirmed that there is a military-industrial complex in the Soviet Union and I myself, to some extent, am its representative.
- When did you finally confess your love? Who took the first step?
- Everything went gradually. We met at various conferences and summits. I was then on the team of Gorbachev's advisers along with Primakov, Arbatov, Velikhov. Take Susan's book. (Smiling slyly.) I agree with her version …
(And the version, to summarize, is as follows. "Sagdeev and I fully understood the absolutely forbidden nature of our deepening rapprochement, which was then exclusively platonic in nature, but some very strong thread began to tie us," writes Susan Eisenhower. The first romantic date happened, of course, in Paris - that's a city that does not tolerate intimate understatement … - "Results".)
At the time of our acquaintance with Susan, my family was already nominal. I have a son and a daughter from a previous marriage. Son Igor now works in Great Britain, daughter Anna in America, in Virginia, works at NASA, by the way, they arrived independently of me. Both are computer scientists. Both the daughter and the son have two children.
… When Susan and I realized that we were connected by something more than political problems, we began to think together whether there was any organizational solution to our situation. It was then impossible for me to obtain official permission for private travel to the United States. On the other hand, I would never have gone to become a defector. For Susan, there was no such problem: for the Americans, you know, the road back is always open. We discussed various options, including the option of a visiting wife.
- Interesting status - visiting wife.
- As soon as the Berlin Wall was dismantled in the fall of 1989, we realized that the window had opened for us too. Of course, our relationship was noticed by others, and I wanted to warn Gorbachev before people from the KGB would do it. Yevgeny Maksimovich Primakov helped a lot, taking on the mission of a mediator. He told me later: "Your message has been met with understanding, but don't expect applause." We did not ask Gorbachev for permission to marry. We just informed him about it. By the way, we did not know Mikhail Sergeevich during our university years, although we studied at the same time and lived in the same hostel on Stromynka. The wedding was in Moscow, and an ecumenical one. The then US Ambassador to the USSR Jack Matlock helped us a lot. The hall in Spaso House (the ambassador's residence in Moscow - "Itogi") was converted into a chapel. The ambassadorial pastor presided over the ceremony. Susan and her family are Anglican Protestants. Without me, it was agreed that the choir of the Orthodox diocese would come. I tell Susan, “My ancestors are Muslims. How to be? " They invited and sat in the first row of the then imam Ravil Gainutdin. A handsome man in a turban.
- But what about the secrecy regime? He probably touched you directly as the head of the space institute?
- From the moment I entered the institute, I tried to refuse contracts with the military-industrial complex on a closed line … I had a deputy for the regime. He somehow gently says to me: "Roald Zinnurovich, your security form is expired, you need to fill out the questionnaire again." I say: “Why? If you don't trust me, then don't send me secret documents. " This was the end of the conversation. Every time I went abroad, permission was given with a special paper. That was the practice. I have always tried to take my institute away from military tasks. In the USSR, even without us, there were many "mailboxes". IKI was a kind of civil outlet, which made it possible to engage in pure science and actively cooperate in the international arena. Even in the defense department of the Central Committee there were people who sympathized with this position. True, after my departure, as I was later told, a special commission was created to assess the potential damage from information leakage. The conclusion is this: once I was aware, but today, after the remoteness of the years, the damage has been reduced to zero. So I remained the chief researcher at IKI.
- In those years, you became famous as an activist of perestroika …
- Yes, I got carried away with politics, I believed in reforms. Published in Moscow News on the themes of perestroika, detente and disarmament. There is a version that socialism was broken by the CIA. No no! We ourselves defeated the Soviet system. Remember, people took to the streets. What grandiose manifestations were! When Susan and her friends and relatives came to our wedding in Moscow in early February 1990, they were amazed to see the scale of events, to feel their drama.
But disappointments still could not be avoided. At the famous 19th party conference, I spoke out against the automatic appointment of party leaders of various levels to symmetrical positions in the administrative bodies, and the leadership clearly did not like my speech. Gorbachev proposed a vote: who is for the proposal of the Politburo, and who is "for the wording of Comrade Sagdeev" - he said so. 200-odd people voted for my formulation, and several thousand voted for the Politburo resolution. They made it clear to me very quickly that I was considered the opposition. I was supposed to go with Gorbachev to Poland after the party conference, but I was struck out of the delegation. Soon I became a People's Deputy of the USSR. At the congress he voted against the draft anti-democratic law on rallies and demonstrations. The vote was open and I held my hand for a long time. Reporters ran up and took pictures. It turned out that I was almost the only one who voted against. The position of Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov was very close to me. For him, a difficult question was - how to relate to Yeltsin? After all, his populism was so obvious. Still, the democrats moved away from Gorbachev and staked on Yeltsin. And I believed in Yeltsin for a while. We even drank to brotherhood with him …
- Roald Zinnurovich, while I was walking along the corridor to your office, heard Russian speech. Are there students from Russia here?
- Interns come according to my scientific program - from Russia, other republics of the CIS. Young students, graduate students, candidates of science.
- You left in 1990. What is your current status?
- I have an American green card and a Russian passport. To travel to Europe, you have to obtain a Schengen visa once a year. But he is relieved of the need to sit on the jury (laughs). Once Askar Akayev offered me a Kyrgyz passport. I answered him like this: "I will wait when I get a Tatar passport."
- Dangerous statement …
- Joke. Remember Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev promised that the current generation of Soviet people will live under communism? Now half of his family members live here. Everything happened almost as Nikita Sergeevich promised. We live here and in Russia - even under post-communism (laughs).
- Can you go down from space to everyday life? Where do you live?
- We parted with Susan two years ago, we live separately. But we still have a good relationship, we exchange emails, have dinner together. I live in Chevy Chase, on the border of the metropolitan area of Columbia and Maryland. Previously, Susan and I lived outside the city, in a large private house. After all, as a former scoop, I first got hold of the property, and then I realized that I didn't need any of this. When I came to America, Susan had a big family. Three daughters. Before my very eyes, they went to colleges, universities, got families, children. We still have a shared dacha in the Appalachians. This is where I experience a wonderful sense of privacy. Sounds created by man are completely inaudible. Wilderness, dacha stands in the middle of the forest. I like to fix something, do carpentry, cut down trees when they die. I like to do flowers. My passion is jazz music. Americans themselves underestimate the contribution of jazz to their victory in the Cold War. I remember my first shortwave receiver in Kazan. Then the Voice of America had a wonderful Jazz Hour program, hosted by Willis Conover, a man with a surprisingly thick, mesmerizing voice.
When I come to Moscow, I try to use every free evening, I go to amazing concerts of classical music in the Tchaikovsky Hall and the Conservatory, to Bashmet and Tretyakov, to December Evenings. Liked it in the Jazz Town club on Taganskaya Square.
- Do Americans perceive you as an outsider?
- At first there was interest as to a person “from there”. And now - professional interest. When I say that I'm not ethnically Russian, but a Tatar, they remember the Tatar steak. I explain to them: "My ancestors would be terribly surprised that such a dish is attributed to them."
- Not invited to return to Kazan as a national pride of Tatarstan? Do they promise to erect a monument in the hero's homeland?
- I come there quite often. I am an honorary doctor of Kazan University. I have relatives there. And brother Renad, he is nine years younger than me, lives in Akademgorodok, he is a chemical scientist.
And for the monument, I did not finalize one star. Two stars of the Hero of Socialist Labor - and the monument was erected. And I left with one. I once said to Susan: "If I get the star of the hero of capitalist labor, then the total will be counted." She said: "If you become a hero of capitalist labor, you can buy yourself any monument."
Dossier Roald Zinnurovich Sagdeev
Was born in 1932 in Moscow. In 1955 he graduated from the Physics Department of the Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov.
In 1956-1961. worked at the Institute of Atomic Energy. I. V. Kurchatov.
In 1961-1970. headed the laboratory of the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, in 1970-1973. - Laboratory of the Institute of High Temperature Physics of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In 1973 he headed the Space Research Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
The main works are devoted to plasma physics and problems of controlled thermonuclear fusion and magnetohydrodynamics. Supervised astronomical research carried out using spacecraft.
He carried out important research on the theory of magnetic traps in tokamaks, in particular, together with astrophysicist Albert Galeev, he developed the neoclassical theory of heat conduction and diffusion processes in tokamaks (1967–1968).
Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR since 1968 (since 1991 - RAS). Member of the International Academy of Astronautics (1977).
Since 1990 - Professor at the University of Maryland.
Elected People's Deputy of the USSR (1989-1991). He was a member of the Interregional Deputy Group.
Hero of Socialist Labor. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, the Orders of the October Revolution and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
Lenin Prize Laureate (1984).
