The scriptwriters of the western "Chernobyl" presented the great scientist Valery Legasov as a deeply reflective person, but in many respects devoid of a solid inner core. It is not true. While still in school, as a high school student, Valery showed considerable initiative, which even attracted the attention of the special services. It happened in the Moscow school number 54 (now it is named after the heroic graduate) in the early 50s, when the young Legasov proposed no less, but to rewrite the charter of the Komsomol. Moreover, he even prepared his own version, characterized by a dangerous freedom of views at that time. Such a politically active secretary of the Komsomol organization could not fail to attract the attention of the state security authorities, but the school director stood up for him. Of course, the teacher's intercession would hardly have helped, but then Stalin died, there was a slight liberalization, and obviously his hands simply did not reach Legasov.
The headmaster of the school, Petr Sergeevich Okunkov, told the parents of Valery, who graduated from the school:
“This is an adult, a future statesman, a talented organizer. He can be a philosopher, historian, engineer …"
By the way, after school, the young Legasov seriously thought about his literary career and even asked for advice on this matter from the famous poet Konstantin Simonov. Valery came to him with his poems and asked about the advisability of entering the Literary Institute. Fortunately, the master of Russian poetry advised the young man to first get an engineering or natural science education, and only then devote himself to poetry.
As a result, Valery, who graduated from high school with a gold medal, successfully entered a prestigious university - the DI Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. In those days, this educational institution specialized in training personnel for the young nuclear industry. The faculty, a graduate of the school, chose a physico-chemical profile, where he became one of the most successful students - after graduating from the university it was planned to leave him in graduate school to defend his Ph. D. thesis.
It is worth making a reservation here and separately speaking about the specialty of the future academician and Hero of Russia. Legasov was not a nuclear physicist in its purest form, was not involved in the design of nuclear reactors and, moreover, did not develop weapons of mass destruction. The main area of Valery Legasov's scientific interests were noble gases (xenon, argon and others), which for a long time were considered absolutely inert, that is, they did not react with anything. But the scientist was able to prove that this is not entirely true, and such substances may well react, for example, with fluorine. In the 60s, this was one of the most pressing problems in chemistry. The result of many years of research of the future academician was his Ph. D. thesis, defended in 1967, and the N. Barlett-V. Legasov effect discovered by him together with his western colleague, which was included in university textbooks around the world. Actually, already at that time Legasov worked at the level of the world's leading scientists.
But let us return to the promising graduate of the RCTI Valery Legasov. It would seem that behind the back is a serious metropolitan university, there is an invitation to graduate school - stay and study. But Valery Alekseevich leaves in 1961 for the closed city of Tomsk-7 - the Siberian Chemical Combine, where he holds the position of a chemical engineer. Three years later, Legasov returns to Moscow and is working on a dissertation at the V. I. I. V. Kurchatov. In those days, it was difficult to imagine a more prestigious place of work for a scientist, and the future academician took advantage of this chance 100%. In 1966 Valery Legasov received the honorary title "Inventor of the State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy of the USSR". And at the age of 36, Legasov was already a doctor of sciences and a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Academician Aleksandrov himself, director of the Institute of Atomic Energy, appoints the young scientist as his deputy for science.
Legasov's authority is becoming more and more significant not only at the institute, but throughout the entire space of the Soviet Union. Events in the scientist's scientific career are developing rapidly - in 1976, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR awarded Valery Legasov the State Prize for the synthesis and study of the physical and chemical properties of compounds of noble gases. And in 1984, several years before the Chernobyl disaster, Legasov became the winner of the Lenin Prize. One of the directions of the academician's work, along with the research of noble gases, was the problem of combining hydrogen and atomic energy. Valery Legasov proposed using the thermal energy of a nuclear power plant for the synthesis of hydrogen from water.
I must say that the academician lived quite modestly for his regalia and influence. Of course, not the way it is shown in the film "Chernobyl" - in a cramped and poorly furnished apartment. Legasov had a personal car GAZ-24 "Volga", which he bought for a considerable 9,333 rubles at that time.
Valery Legasov in the late 70s devoted a lot of time to the industrial safety of nuclear facilities. The accident at the American Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in 1979 made this problem especially urgent. According to the memoirs of L. N. Sumarokov, Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who worked in Legasov's team, the academician closely followed the global energy industry:
“… Valery Alekseevich's efficiency was amazing. Among the qualities inherent in an academician, I would like to note the inquisitiveness of the mind. By the nature of my activity, I am connected with information, I had to observe how Valery Alekseevich was interested in the question of what is the reason for the reduction in the construction of nuclear power plants in some countries … in the United States, about 200 restrictions were imposed on the operation of nuclear power plants … We began to understand, and even then, in 1978, the prospect of Chernobyl loomed …"
A little later, Legasov directly warns of the possibility of a disaster similar to the Chernobyl one. So, in the journal "Nature" from 1980, the academician with colleagues writes:
"Under certain circumstances, despite the existence of safety measures, conditions for an accident with damage to the core and the release of a certain amount of radioactive substance into the atmosphere are possible at a nuclear power plant …"
Six years remained before the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant …
The last two years of life
On April 26, 1986, Valery Legasov, together with a government commission, flew to Chernobyl. It was this day that finally and irrevocably changed the fate of the scientist. From that moment on, for several months, Academician Legasov carried out direct scientific supervision of the elimination of the consequences of the disaster. Why was an inorganic chemist by profession forced to solve purely physical problems? Why didn’t they send someone from the high society of nuclear physics? The fact is that the academician was personally asked by the president of the Academy of Sciences Anatoly Alexandrov. Time was running out, and Valery Legasov was simply the closest. In addition, Aleksandrov took into account the outstanding organizational skills, dedication and perseverance of the academician. And, I must say, I was not mistaken.
In the very first days, Legasov, as a chemist, proposed to extinguish the area of the emergency reactor with a mixture of boric acid, lead and dolomite. Physicists, by the way, suggested simply removing the burning graphite from the zone. How many lives it would cost, no one knows. It was also Valery Legasov who insisted on the complete and emergency evacuation of the population of Pripyat. Constant monitoring of the elimination process required the scientist to stay almost around the clock in the zone of radiation contamination. When he returned to Moscow for a couple of days on May 5, his wife Margarita Mikhailovna saw a person with clear signs of radiation sickness: baldness, "Chernobyl tan", weight loss … Formally Legasov could refuse and already in May 1986 did not take further participation in the liquidation accident, but he returned and received an even larger share of the radiation. Perhaps this is what undermined not only his physical, but also his spiritual health. On May 13, Legasov returned to Moscow for the second time with new signs of the disease: nausea, headaches, loss of appetite and a debilitating dry cough. In total, the academician flew to the emergency zone seven times, working 12-15 hours a day.
At the end of August 1986, Valery Legasov spoke in Vienna to the IAEA specialists with a report "Analysis of the causes of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and elimination of its consequences." For three months, hot on the heels of the tragedy, the scientist prepared a 380-page work and in five hours read it out to an audience of at least 500 world-class researchers and engineers from 62 countries. Was it possible to mislead them and provide deliberately false facts? The Chernobyl accident was not the first in world history; the scientific community has already learned to analyze the causes. Nevertheless, rumors about Legasov's insincerity still tarnish the memory of the great scientist. It is from the report at the IAEA meeting that Academician Valery Legasov becomes world famous - according to the results of 1986, he is one of the ten most popular scientists in the world. But Mikhail Gorbachev, following the results of his speech in Vienna, struck Legasov off the list of those awarded for the elimination of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
In the fall of 1987, the scientist was invited on a "tour" around the cities of Germany, where he gave lectures, in one of which he expounded the following:
“Humanity in its industrial development has reached such a level of use of energy of all kinds, has built such an infrastructure with a high level of concentration of energy capacities that the troubles from their emergency destruction have become commensurate with the troubles from military operations and natural disasters … Automatism of correct vigilant behavior in such a complicated technological sphere has not yet worked out. An important lesson from the Chernobyl tragedy is the absolute lack of technical readiness among all firms and states to act in such extreme conditions. Not a single state in the world, as practice has shown, possessed a full complex of behavior algorithms, measuring instruments, workable robots, effective chemical means of localizing an emergency, necessary medical supplies, etc. … The development of complex and potentially dangerous technologies can no longer be carried out in a closed manner, within the closed community of its creators. All international experience, the entire scientific community should be involved in assessing the risk of projected facilities, a system of inspections (international) should be created to continuously monitor the correct execution and functioning of hazardous facilities!.."
And that was putting it mildly. Legasov openly stated that the situation at the nuclear power plant was very reminiscent of 1941: no one expected and was not ready for an accident, even at an elementary level. There were not enough respirators, special dosimeters, iodine preparations …
There are many reasons that led the academician to commit suicide at the age of 52. Among them is the conspiracy of the special services, which did not forgive him the truth about the causes of the accident, and the pressure of the leadership of the Academy of Sciences due to elementary envy. After all, it was Legasov who was to become the successor of Academician Aleksandrov as director of the institute. But he was not from the "atomic" elite. "Upstart", who achieved world fame on the tragedy - that's how they thought about him in scientific circles. Many were annoyed. He was oppressed at his native institute, openly criticized, and many initiatives were simply turned off. The realization of the importance of genius in Russia did not come soon. After a decade of the Chernobyl accident, the President of Russia posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation to Academician Legasov Valery Alekseevich.
But Academician Valery Alekseevich Legasov was nevertheless awarded a commemorative medal for his participation in the work to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. The appendix to the medal contains the signatures of the NPP director M. P. Umanets, as well as the employees of B. A. Borodavko, V. A. Berezin, S. N. Bogdanov. They were only late to hand them over personally, they had to posthumously …
