The combat railway complex "Molodets", behind which the western name SS-24 Scalpel stuck more, began to be tested with practical launches and put on rails after Academician Zababakhin was gone. But the nuclear sting for such and similar missiles, including sea-based ICBMs, still in service, was conceived, designed and embodied in full-scale samples under his supervision and leadership.
A boy from the outskirts of Moscow, born on the eve of the social cataclysms of 1917, Yevgeny Ivanovich Zababakhin for a quarter of a century - from 1960 to 1984 - was the scientific director of the second (in time of creation) nuclear weapons center in our country. But this person is practically unknown to the general public.
Although in the yard, it would seem, publicity, and many secrets have long been removed. We now know much more about the same "Scalpel" - a combat railway missile system than about its creators. And the fact that there were a whole dozen such trains, camouflaged as ordinary trains, were combined into three special divisions of the strategic missile forces. One - in the Perm region, the other - in Kostroma, the third - near Krasnoyarsk. It happened that from Kostroma such "costumed" echelons ran right up to Syzran. And they returned unnoticed …
And the sting at the "Scalpel" under the car roof is a split warhead with ten individually guided warheads. The capacity of each is 550 kilotons of TNT. All together, starting at once - 5, 5 megatons. What these missiles were aimed at and what they could grind into powder, we will not specify. All this, fortunately, is in the past: the BZHRK and warheads for them have been removed from service. And the rocket train itself remained as a reminder in the Museum of the Strategic Missile Forces and in the railway museum at the Varshavsky station in St. Petersburg.
We are now talking about Snezhinsk and the Russian Federal Nuclear Center of the All-Russian Research Institute of Technical Physics, as it is now openly called. Today, colleagues, associates, students and followers of Academician Yevgeny Zabakhakhin have gathered here to pay tribute to the memory and merits of this amazing person - a scientist, experimenter, leader and teacher.
To keep the old cat awake
According to those who worked with him for a long time, he was the first not in office, but in business, he did not chase after glory, he could not stand pathos, and when on rare occasions he had to put on a general's uniform with all the orders, a smile of embarrassment, almost suffering, on his face could not extinguish.
In KB-11 (in another way - Arzamas-16), where in 1948 the atomic biography of Captain-Engineer Zababakhin began, Academician Yuliy Borisovich Khariton held a vigil at the scientific helm for almost half a century. His name is named in the calendar of the Soviet Atomic Project right after Igor Kurchatov. In the same place, in present-day Sarov, the older generation of scientists and designers worked on bombs: Zeldovich, Frank-Kamenetsky, Sakharov, Negin, Muzrukov, Zernov, Babaev, Trutnev …
And in NII-1011, aka Chelyabinsk-70, which in the mid-50s it was decided to create in the Urals as a duplicate institute for the development of nuclear weapons, it seems that there were no such sonorous names, if you follow the lives and memoirs already written. However, the facts and declassified (so far only fragmentary) documents tell a different story.
Like the Livermore National Laboratory, created in the USA in 1952 (ten years after Los Alomos, where the first atomic bomb was created), the Ural nuclear center in the USSR was designed to provide mutual expertise of proposed and completed developments, which means that it is inevitable in such cases. adversarial and even competition. The scientific youth, who grew up with "Academician Kharitonov" (his KB-11, as soon as they were masked), was parachuted from the Volga office to the Urals in order to "keep the old cat awake."
They said that, and at very different levels.
Already in the first five years of the formation of the new design bureau, when Kirill Shchelkin was still the scientific leader, and Dmitry Vasiliev was the first director, the team proved its worth. Theoretical physicists, mathematicians and designers, voluntarily and forcibly moved to the Ural foothills, to the shores of the most beautiful lakes Sinara and Sungul, did not spend their working time on excursions and hikes.
The primary task set during the creation of NII-1011 was the development of a special aerial bomb, the charge power of which was supposed to exceed the power of any thermonuclear charge previously tested in the USSR and the USA. As a result, several generations of special aerial bombs were developed and put into service, including: the first hydrogen bomb for strategic aviation, a nuclear bomb for use from supersonic aircraft, a small-sized anti-submarine, shock-resistant for the Air Force, and a special bomb for front-line aircraft with controlled energy release.
And the very first nuclear weapon developed at the new institute was a superbomb with a diameter of two meters, a length of eight, weighing about 25 tons and an estimated yield of 30 megatons. Its practical test was canceled due to the unpreparedness (at that time) of the test site on Novaya Zemlya to conduct explosions of such power. But the body of this gigantic bomb and a unique parachute system specially created for it were later used in testing the most powerful thermonuclear charges (tens of megatons), including the Kuz'kina Mother.
This will happen later. And in 1957-1958, fourteen nuclear products developed by NII-1011 specialists were tested. And right then, in 57, a thermonuclear charge was adopted as part of an aerial bomb, which became the first thermonuclear weapon in the Soviet nuclear arsenal.
Following this, the first head part of a ballistic missile, ammunition for an aviation cruise missile (joint development with KB-25, now - VNIIA named after N. L. Dukhov) and a nuclear charge for another aerial bomb were handed over to the military.
For the above-mentioned work, the Deputy Scientific Supervisor Evgeny Zababakhin and five other leading employees of the Institute (K. I. Shchelkin, L. P. Feoktistov, Yu. A. Romanov, M. P. Shumaev and V. F. Grechishnikov) were awarded the Lenin Prize. And in 1958 Zababakhin was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
In October 60, the Urals put into service a nuclear warhead for the R-13 ballistic missile, which was installed on diesel submarines. It was a joint work with the scientific and design organizations of Miass and Sverdlovsk (now - the V. P. Makeyev SRC, Miass, and NPO automatics, Yekaterinburg).
And in November of the same year, changes took place in the management and structure of NII-1011. Scientific leader and chief designer Kirill Shchelkin unexpectedly left both positions for many (the official version is for health reasons). In this situation, it was decided to form two design bureaus: for the development of nuclear charges and for the development of nuclear weapons. The positions of scientific supervisor and two chief designers were introduced - they were Boris Ledenev and Alexander Zakharenkov.
And Evgeny Zababakhin, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, was appointed the scientific director of the entire institute. At that moment he was 43 years old.
Everything "froze" and did not "bounce"
I myself - as it happened - for the first time heard about this man from a half-joking story told by a participant in nuclear tests on Novaya Zemlya. They say that the Urals have brought their next "product" for a test detonation. It was in the 61st, and maybe also in the 60th - soon after the change of leadership in their "office". They laid the contraption in the prepared adit, concreted the entrances and exits, waited until it hardens, then checked it again and gave the command to detonate. And in response - no gu-gu. The witches who turned out to be nearby immediately commented: "Everything froze and did not bother …"
Much later, Leonid Fedorovich Klopov will return to this case and comment on it in his own way, who started, like Zababakhin, in KB-11, worked with him in the Urals, and then for seventeen years headed the 5th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building - just that, which was in charge of the development of nuclear weapons and their range tests. He knows what he is talking about, so let us allow one quote: “A distinctive feature of EI Zababakhin was the use of sometimes non-standard programs and methods that could and did lead to the creation of samples of charges with better characteristics than those of the theorists Arzamas-16. The novelty of the decisions made had to be paid for with unsatisfactory results, to which they jokingly said from Arzamas-16: it was not “forgotten.” However, the inexhaustible will and desire to move forward allowed Evgeny Ivanovich not to stop there, and he, together with the theoreticians of the institute, continued to look for new and new ways. …
Lev Petrovich Feoktistov and Boris Vasilievich Litvinov, two more outstanding people, two academicians, a theoretical physicist and a designer, who did a lot personally, so that one could confidently talk about the Ural nuclear center today, recalling Zababakhin about the same thing - he was not afraid to take risks. say: it is the second in time of formation, but not in any way in terms of contribution to the creation of the nuclear potential of our country.
In addition to medium-power warheads for the Scalpel mobile missile complex, which has already been mentioned, Zababakhin's farm has also created super-high-power charges for the SS-18 Satan rocket. But the Urals did not see the valor in this, but precisely in the direction directly opposite to "Satan" and "Kuzkina's mother" - in the creation of small-sized, but at the same time very effective and powerful nuclear charges.
Leaving gigantomania, in the Urals, they were able in a relatively short time to create a nuclear warhead of the first sea missile with an underwater launch, a warhead for the first multiple warhead of a sea-based ballistic missile, the first warhead of a multiple warhead with individual aiming points (MIRV).
- And also, - Academician Yevgeny Avronin emphasized on this point more than once, - a fundamentally new class of combat equipment has been created: nuclear ammunition for artillery and mortar systems, which provided the Soviet Union with parity with the United States in this type of weapons.
According to Evgeny Nikolaevich, the design of the so-called "malgabs" - small-sized nuclear charges for artillery systems - was further developed and used in industrial nuclear explosive devices: for intensifying oil and gas production, extinguishing fires in emergency wells, creating underground tanks, degassing of coal seams, crushing of ore and seismic sounding of the earth's crust for the benefit of geological exploration.
- During the period when underground nuclear tests were carried out, the specialists of the Ural center created a number of "products" with record characteristics, - the current scientific director of RFNC-VNIITF, Academician Georgy Rykovanov, notes the merits of his predecessors. We will only briefly mention these critical positions: the lightest warhead in its class for strategic nuclear forces; the most durable and heat-resistant nuclear explosive device for industrial applications (withstands external pressure up to 750 atmospheres, heating up to 120 degrees); the most shock-resistant nuclear charge, withstanding overloads of more than 12,000 g; the most economical in terms of consumption of fissile materials nuclear charge; the cleanest nuclear explosive device for peaceful applications, in which 99.85 percent of the energy is obtained through the synthesis of light elements; the lowest-power charge-irradiator.
According to Rykovanov, regardless of how the international situation and the situation inside the country changed, the Ural center provided designer and guarantee supervision of nuclear charges and nuclear weapons at all stages of their life cycle - from design development to dismantling and disposal of the main components of the units. And, of course, he provided and provides escort for the Russian nuclear arsenal in the army.
- In the context of the existing ban on nuclear tests, - adds Mikhail Zheleznov, Director of RFNC-VNIITF, - our center is modernizing previously developed structures in order to improve their safety, reliability and resistance against unauthorized actions, implements civil projects, conducts fundamental and applied Scientific research.
Who will follow Teller's example?
Why are we talking about this in such detail today?
Academician Yevgeny Zababakhin and his colleagues - those who worked at the same time with him, and those who continue their work now, have created and keep weapons in order to prevent war with their use.
Nuclear weapons are weapons against war.
For such a barrier to work, it was necessary to ensure strategic parity in the nuclear weapons of the United States and the USSR. It is no coincidence that Arzamas-16, now Sarov, appeared in the Soviet Union after the Los Alamos nuclear center in the United States. And in response to the creation of a duplicate American nuclear center in the form of the Livermore National Laboratory (California), a second Soviet nuclear weapons center was founded in the South Urals in the mid-1950s. Now - the city of Snezhinsk in the Chelyabinsk region.
Over the 60 years of its development, it has successively changed several official names, but has retained its status and main purpose unchanged: not just an understudy, "little brother" or reserve, safety platform just in case of emergency, but a completely independent and self-sufficient research center with developed design, experimental, production and testing facilities. And with a surprisingly close-knit, mobilized, talented team of theoretical physicists, experimenters, designers, technologists, engineers.
For several decades this city, its facilities and people working here have been hidden from prying eyes by the strictest veil of secrecy. And they didn’t meet, didn’t know by sight those who were doing the same thing in Livermore. They recognized and assessed each other only by the results: nuclear tests and new types of weapons that were transferred to the troops and put on alert.
At some point, the wall of alienation itself began to seem like a threat to the world, and it, on both sides, was dismantled almost to the ground. The historic day came when the creator of the American hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller, in the company of his younger colleagues from Livermore, found himself in Snezhinsk and with his equally famous staff greeted "Kuz'kina's mother" of 57 megatons. And the bombers from Snezhinsk went on a return visit across the ocean …
It was quite recently. And I want to believe that it has not gone, will not go away, will not plunge into the abyss of the second spill of the Cold War, when people from both banks stop hearing each other.
Firsthand. Father's Lessons
According to Igor Zababakhin, the eldest of the two sons of a general and an academician, “our parents brought us up so that we never felt that we were living in a privileged family. When it came time to go to college, I thoroughly prepared for this. father and I wanted it myself, did not get a point to pass the competition. Father, apparently, was worried, but did not show his mind. I sat down even more thoroughly at the textbooks and managed to enter MEPhI that summer. In September or October, when I had already begun to study, my father, as if by chance, found a yellowed paper in his desk and shows it to me. It turned out to be a government decree to encourage participants in the first (or the first - I don’t remember exactly) nuclear tests. In one of the points, along with awards, bonuses, free transport for those who distinguished themselves, it was said that their children were given the right to enter any university in the country without entrance exams. His father's surname was also on the list. And he, showing this, only smiled and shrugged his shoulders …
“One winter,” Nikolai, the youngest of the brothers, recalls, “Igor was spinning around a soldier guarding the zone on Sungul. He was about ten or twelve years old. and immediately pulled him out by the collar. When Igor was brought "to be rubbed", dad, without hesitation, gave the soldier his watch …
Father did not like the dress uniform very much. Gathering for the parade - it was scary to watch and listen. But with what pleasure he put on old trousers and a shirt at home, condemning at the same time that wealthy people first let the servants vilify them, and only then put on them themselves."
According to daughter Alexandra, father and mother loved to hike on weekends, raft down the rivers and often took their children with them. "My brother and I have no help, but my parents could do everything. They cooked food on the fire, bought fish and chickens from the locals. Dad hunted. He was an avid hunter. But once he said that there were few animals left in the forest, and he drilled the trunk himself. "Browning". He knew the forest very well, he could light a fire with the help of the lenses from his glasses when the matches were damp. In all trips and trips a diary was always kept. These diaries have survived … ".
By the way. Sakharov and Zababakhin's "puffs" were highly appreciated by Kurchatov
Evgeny Ivanovich Zababakhin became a doctor of sciences on the same day as Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. They did not prepare theses in the classical form, but defended themselves "according to the report". It was initiated by Kurchatov personally - in August 1953. Moreover, not after, but in preparation for testing the thermonuclear design proposed by Sakharov and called "puff". Evgeny Ivanovich defended himself first, and the topic of his report entered the open press as "Zababakhin's puff." Subsequently, he jokingly said that "he actively worked on his Ph. D. thesis, received his doctorate without any effort, and even objected to being elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences."
Having become the scientific director of the entire research institute, Evgeny Ivanovich resolutely refused to be a member of the authors' collectives represented for the Lenin or State Prizes. In our pragmatic time, the act of Zababakhin and the director of the institute, G. P. Lominsky, looks like a naive eccentricity: they refused to receive the cash payments that were due to them for the ranks of the general, considering the salary that was due for the leadership of the institute sufficient for themselves.
Direct speech. Evgeny Avrorin, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Scientific Director of RFNC-VNIITF (1985-1998):
