Let's get acquainted

Dubna residents

I was traveling from Irkutsk to Moscow by train and thinking: by God, it was some kind of Joyce-ness... I had a lot to think about: on the one hand, three days and a little more - there was nowhere to go from this submarine, so what else could I do but indulge in methal studies. On the other hand, it turned out to be some kind of Odyssey in reverse: I was coming from my native, distant (in the sense that our hut is literally on the edge of all processes there) Siberian city, where I lived more than half a century, being a representative of the third full-fledged Siberian generation (on my mother's side, even the fourth). For my great-great-grandfather came to Siberia as they usually came to us in the times of our ancestors - by stage. And afterwards, we all became locals. And with such background, "shaking in a smoky carriage" (as the poet said, in fact, as you know, there are no smoky cars on Russian railways...), I moved to the final point of my journey that was to be Dubna - the only city of the Moscow Region, located on the Volga (according to Wikipedia). "By the way, did you know that Dubna is an island?" Kirill asked me that was giving a lecture at the JINR Museum I joined that (the museum, I mean) became the place of my new job...

All these complex constructions are intended to show the respected reader my main mood: what a complex porridge was brewing all this time, preceding my arrival in Dubna and my employment in the museum as a senior document management specialist (I think, that's how I sound on paper) and in fact ....

"...Where did you go?" the voice of reason in me spoke. "Sit, fix your primus in your homeland: there are already grandchildren, but you still can't stop...."

The fact is that for quite a few years, in fact, since 2008 and if you take it as a hobby, then you can even designate 1996 as the starting point - I am engaged in personal stories of people. At first, in the format of journalistic interviews and later, in the preparation of genealogical books. As it is customary to boast in such cases: over the years, I have accumulated a great deal of experience.

Experience has indeed been gained. It includes sorting out, systematizing and putting in order the private archives of people that come to me for such help. So, in 2011, we made a small publishing house specializing in parsing archival materials and preparing various printed publications based on them. The main message is "to have something to leave to our children and grandchildren". I think it is an extremely important business. And when another potential customer comes to me and wants me to convince him that it makes sense to do such work, because "none of my children and grandchildren are even close to being interested in this!" - I always say the same thing: your business is not to think for others, whether they are interested or not, your business is to do your part in preserving family history. And that's it. And that's all. And then, no one knows how this life story will unfold....

This very competence of mine turned out to be in strange and unexpected demand in Dubna when last autumn, the idea to establish an independent additional structure in JINR - a historical archive that would work on collecting and preserving such private personal stories of JINR staff members, members of their families, Dubna residents... To record interviews with people, to sort out private archives, to map where and in what form different layers of historical memory are stored in JINR... And all this - on the threshold of the forthcoming 70th anniversary of the Institute.

That's how I found myself in Dubna. On an island.

I have lived here for a whole month (or is it just a month?). I have met fantastically interesting people; have seen the Volga and green grass on the February lawn; have climbed Tyapkin Peak and have crossed the Black River; have walked the city from Bolshaya Volga station to Ratmino - solely for topographical purposes; have realized that drinking tap water here is still not worth it; have been impressed by the prices of eggs in local supermarkets (in Irkutsk, they charge from 120 rubles for the second category...); have admired the Universal Library - how cozy and homely it is arranged; have felt the lyrics from Vysotsky's song "it would be great if Pontecorvo took him by the scruff of the neck" in a completely different way; have seen the synchrophasotron about which Pugacheva sang; have felt proud of the historical homeland, where JINR currently constructs a neutrino telescope (and I was there several years ago, in the period of Covid! And I saw everything there! I just could not even suppose that I would be thrown into such an adventure that would allow me to become colleagues of these people!)...

Dubna really turned out to be an island. And I am not talking about literal geography. I'm talking about the feeling of a wildlife preserve, if not a nature reserve, where there is a certain spirit of inner calm freedom. What Tsvetaeva wrote about - "I know the truth, all other truths - away". I have walked the streets, entered into conversations with all sorts of people - with realtors that with great difficulty, yet still found me an apartment; with sales clerks that advised me to go to Kimry for candy, for there is a choice there and, in general; with a fisherman that put up for sale a terrible monster - a catfish that I saw for the first time in my life....

And also, with fellow librarians, fellow museum workers, fellow archivists, fellow physicists, after all - and this is coming from me that as a child was convinced that if you tied a wire in a knot, the current wouldn't flow! And today, physicists are my colleagues... what a miracle! And in all these conversations so different and unlike one another, one could hear that quiet truth....

What kind of truth?

I am only beginning to formulate it, to find it in the process of creating our historical archive that we are doing right now in real time. For JINR. And for Dubna residents.

And I am glad that I was given an opportunity to participate in it.

Anastasia GOLDSTEIN