For the JINR anniversary

Gratitude for work and active social life

On 16 April, a meeting of the JINR Veterans’ Council was held at the Scientists’ Club, at which a scientific report was presented, the activists were awarded and a friendly tea party was held.

JINR Chief Engineer Boris Gikal recalled the JINR anniversary and the glorious pages of its history, in particular, about the synthesis of superheavy elements: dubnium, muscovy, oganeson, as well as the fact that the Institute will soon begin the synthesis of the elements 119 and 120. Addressing the veterans, Boris Nikolaevich emphasized, "I wish you all health. Everything we have today has been done by your hands. Thanks for the work and the passed baton, for the education of new generations of scientists."

Head of Department of VBLHEP Alexander Malakhov made a large report on the achievements of the Institute on the example of the work of the Laboratory of High Energy Physics for 70 years. He highlighted important historical stages: the launch of the synchrophasotron, Nuclotron and the NICA Megascience Project. He spoke about the book "70 strokes to the portrait" published for the JINR anniversary, stating that the sections of the book contain information about all important investigations and a large number of photographs. A separate topic of the report was a story about the applied research of the Institute.

Chairman of the Joint Trade Union Committee of JINR Valery Nikolaev emphasized that the Institute was able to preserve the social infrastructure that was laid down in Soviet times: the Cultural Centre, hotels, sports facilities, a dispensary in Ratmino, Resort Hotel in Alushta. "The Institute has always played an important role in the life of the city and made a great contribution to its development," V.P. Nikolaev said. “In particular, as you have noticed, the base of the Medical Unit No. 9 has improved. JINR Directorate has entered into an agreement with the Federal Biomedical Agency. With more than 200 medical units in the FMBA, only the Dubna Medical Unit has received unique funding and material base. There are no analogues to it. In fact, this is the FMBA showcase. And all it goes in parallel with scientific activity."

Chairman of the JINR Veterans’ Council Svetlana Elizarova presented gift certificates to twenty veterans. The Council has been in existence since 2011, during which time a lot of work has been done and the award recognises those who have made a great contribution. For the rest, souvenirs were prepared.

Several guests of the event shared their memories of their work at JINR and told what they are engaged in today.

Lyubov Nikulina

"I have only good memories of working at JINR. I have worked for 36 years. From 1981 to 1998, I was an engineer in the Capital Construction Department, where I was mainly engaged in economics. I planned estimates, made a calculation of the work carried out. In 1998, I moved to the Chief Power Engineer Department for a similar position. I always remember how we worked - very responsibly, gave all our best, gave the whole soul to work. We were above the labor norm: the schedule was from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM and we, economists, worked until 10:00 PM. Then there were no computers and the accounting was completely different.

I also remember with pleasure the vacation in Alushta in our Resort Hotel, in which we still have the opportunity to relax. As a pensioner, I last took a ticket in 2022. And once we built this Resort Hotel and I regularly went on business trips to oversee and check the work carried out.

Now, I am 85 years old, I am retired but I still do social work. For many years, I have been Chairman of the Dubna Council of widows of the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident. I'm such a widow, too. My husband Viktor Nikulin worked in the Department of Mechanization of Vehicles. Those who were engaged in liquidation died very quickly, the employees of 24 years old passed away. This is terrible. I keep all the lists. We work with social protection, from them we receive information about new widows and take them into the community. There are 50 people in our group.

We are engaged in a lot of organizational work. In 2006, a book was published in which the widows of the Moscow Region wrote about their husbands. I supervised the Dubna widows. I suggested what to tell: how the husbands left, how they were conducted, how the family lives today. 26 people with their own histories were included in this collection. This year, on 23 April, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the tragic event, a commemorative event will be held at the Cultural Centre “Oktyabr”.

Maria Anosova (Davydova)

"I like to remember how biology appeared in JINR. The time was amazing. In the fourth year of the Medical and Biological Faculty of the 2nd RNRMU Department of Biophysics, I was tasked with finding a solar activity test (a modern analogue of the Chizhevsky-Velkhover effect).

In my pre-diploma paper, I discovered an interesting fact: fluctuations in the spontaneous induction of the λ profag in the lysogenic system Escherichia coli K12 λ that correlated with Wolf numbers and with changes in the horizontal component of the Earth's magnetic field. The results were published in the MSN - this is the Moscow Society of Naturalists, organized in 1806 at Moscow State University, in the section "Sun, electricity, life".

Head of DCB of DLNP Vladimir Danilov was a scientist with a broad view of the world. As a great specialist in magnetic fields, he was interested not only in magnetic fields in a synchrocyclotron, but also in their effect on biological objects. Having learned about our papers from N.V. Chizhevskaya, he invited me to the group of magnetic tests of the DCB DLNP to complete my thesis in 1971.

In 1976, I defended my thesis "The influence of slowly changing magnetic fields of low intensity on the production of phage λ in the lysogenic system Escherichia coli K12 λ". The parameters of the magnetic field for the experiment were selected by V.I. Danilov according to the thesis and IZMIRAN data.

Since the majority of the scientific community was skeptical about the influence of the magnetic field on biological objects, I had to go through a collective review after defending my thesis that took place in 1977 at the Doctoral Scientific Council of the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University. It was successful and V.I. Danilov turned to V.P. Dzhelepov with a request to contact Director of the Institute of Medical Radiology in Obninsk to send one of the leading radiobiologists Vladimir Ivanovich Korogodin to work at our Institute.

Arriving at JINR, Korogodin held seminars in all laboratories, spoke about his work and the prospects for this area. Everyone accepted it with great interest. The Academicians of the Institute unanimously gave the go-ahead and it happened extremely rarely. So, at the end of 1977, the Biological Sector was established in DCB DLNP.

Today, I am retired, I am a member of the Council of Veterans. I like to connect with the kids because that's our future. It is necessary to convey your views and knowledge to young people. The Veterans’ Council is invited to school holidays and events. I also organize trips for School № 6 on educational excursions. Recently, we have visited the House-Museum of D. I. Mendeleev."

Margarita Furman

"I was born in 1938, worked at FLNP JINR from 1964 to 1994. I was engaged in the processing of physical information. It was the childhood of computing, we ourselves created file systems to gain statistics. They wrote everything in machine codes BESM-4, BSEM-6. When the "personnel" appeared, I was sent to train older colleagues to work for them. Since 1995, I have not worked, in the family we decided that I would deal with my granddaughter. But my husband still works in FLNP. Currently, he very actively consults and is engaged in theses.

There are many memories of working at JINR. There was an interesting young life. In the 1960s, graduates from all over the country came to Dubna. The best students came to the diploma and then, stayed. During these years, we had a great climbing and skiing company. I'm a ski instructor. My husband is a climber and still does it. Alexey Alekseevich Tyapkin, Gil Pontecorvo and many others - a large company we went to ride in Yakhroma every Sunday. In summer, we organized kayak competitions, went to the mountains.

Today, my husband and I will celebrate 65 years of married life. And once we sat at one desk at the University of Voronezh at the Physics Department.

For quite a long time, I have been in the Council of Veterans. Now, for health reasons, I no longer participate, but I am invited to events out of good memory. And there was so much activity, I was engaged in the care of veterans of the Great Patriotic War. I loved it. I went to their house and helped in every possible way. When they passed away, I left the Council. There was also a lot of cultural life: trips, excursions to museums and cities."

Maria KARPOVA,
Photo by Maro TKACHENKO