City of scientific cooperation

On 14 – 18 September, a series of festive events "JINR Days in Vietnam" will be held in Hanoi and Nyachang, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of Vietnam's membership in JINR. In anticipation of these events, we are publishing the memoirs of a former employee of LCTA - MLIT Thai Le Thang.

The first days in Dubna

At the end of 1977, as a member of a group of nine employees from various research institutes and universities in Vietnam, I was sent by the Vietnam Academy of Sciences to work at JINR. Unlike interns or graduate students, we didn't have much of a regime. As "researchers" we arrived at JINR and immediately integrated into the working system.

Our first impression of Dubna was the following: this is, one might say, a separate city located in a forest in the very north of the Moscow Region, with a unique access system - the entrance was limited to outsiders. The residents of the city were mainly scientists, their families and relatives (therefore, for several years of work there, we constantly greeted each other on the streets, wherever we went, we always met friends). Dubna was united to the "outside world" by railway express trains running from Moscow to Dubna about every two hours throughout the day, serving scientists and residents of the city.

JINR is located in the forest. Entrance to the territory only with passes, even familiar persons must present their documents. On the territory of the laboratory, there are walking alleys, canteens, cafeterias... In short, all the necessary conditions have been created here, so that, if desired, everyone can stay and work in laboratories around the clock.

We used to get to work on bikes; they could be left anywhere: near the workplace, in the yard, without fear of theft. In summer, the city is buried in greenery, and in winter it is covered with snow. The Volga River freezes so much that one of my colleagues jokingly exclaimed,

“What a lovely view of Dubna!

Crows are croaking and the Volga is freezing."

It only suggests that our main goal in Dubna is scientific research, work and again work...

My supervisors

Boss Hieu

On 4 May, 1964, V. S. Shvanev, Head of the JINR International Department, wrote a report on the defense of Nguyen Van Hieu's thesis that included a recording of Academician M. A. Markov's statement during an interview with Shvanev, "We are dealing with an outstanding personality. Sometimes, people do get lucky at work because they find a brilliant idea that leads to important results, like finding a gold mine. Nguyen Van Hieu went the other way. As it is often said, he did not sit and wait for "science to show him mercy". He achieved amazing results, working very hard, with great working capacity. The Dubna Joint Institute provided him with a favorable environment. Everything else depended on his work and personal qualities. Nguyen Van Hieu is truly a great scientist."

Back in school, we always dreamed of being able to meet famous representatives of Vietnamese science, such as Hoang Tui, Nguyen Dinh Tu, Nguyen Van Hyeu and others. Working in Dubna, my young colleagues and I often communicated and worked side by side with Professor Hieu, he was always attentive to us, gave advice and helped. For us young scientists, it was a real honor and a source of great inspiration. At the time, some of my fellow students were his subordinates, so while he wasn't my supervisor, I easily blended into that friendly atmosphere. During his visits to Dubna, when time allowed, he came to us, we cooked food together and spent time at the table. And when he was in a good mood, he joined the singing. I must say, when I first heard him sing, I was incredibly surprised - before that I knew him only as a scientist, so it was difficult to imagine him with a guitar in his hands, mentally performing pre‑war songs...

I remember that around the end of 1980, during a business trip to Dubna, Professor Hieu asked me to solve a problem that according to him, he had previously entrusted to his colleagues in Vietnam but they could not find a solution. I was very glad that he trusted me!

After a week of learning the problem, finding algorithms and running test programmes, I found a solution and sent it to him but... did not receive any remark from him and it worried me a lot! Afterwards, I forgot about it for a while, went back to my research work... But once, in early February 1981, Nguyen Van Hyeu, returning from a business trip to Italy, stopped by Dubna and handed me an article published in the prestigious scientific journal Annals of Physics (Volume 131, issue 1, January 1981, p. 149‑162).

What was surprising and touching was that I also co-authored the paper, along with Nguyen Van Hyeu. (To be honest, even now, I'm not quite sure why I was given such deference; I'm only suggesting that perhaps the outcome of the problem coincided with the hypothesis he had put forward earlier.)

Despite the fact that he was a world-famous scientist, for us Professor Hieu was a brother and a friend - a simple and sincere person. Perhaps that's why, without anyone's guidance, instead of calling him "Professor Hieu", we called him boss Hieu that sounded friendlier.

Professor N. N. Govorun

I will always remember my first days at work at the Laboratory of Computer Technologies and Automation (since 2000, LCTA has been renamed MLIT – Meshcheryakov Laboratory of Information Technologies) of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. In accordance with the plan of cooperation between JINR and the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST), my colleague and I were appointed to the group of Professor V. P. Shirikov with the task of transferring the programme library from the Soviet BESM6 computing system to the EU system. Considering that this work was not suitable for me, I boldly asked for a meeting with Nikolay Nikolayevich Govorun who then was Deputy Director of LCTA and was responsible for scientific research (I heard about him from Vietnamese scientists even before my trip to Dubna). I wanted to ask him for an opportunity to do research in recognition that I found interesting and that I wanted to do. (While still in Vietnam, taking advantage of the almost two-month wait for "going abroad" procedures to be formalized, following the advice of Professor Bah Hung Khang, I went to the National Library to read and understand some rare introductory books on recognition theory, including the book "Teaching the pattern recognition machine" by A. G. Arkadieva and E. M. Braverman).

N. N. Govorun greeted me with a friendly smile, listened to my request and unexpectedly challenged me - he proposed a cunning task . Luckily, I quickly found the answer. After some thought, Govorun told me that there are no groups in LCTA exclusively engaged in recognition theory but I can join the group of N. D. Dikusar that uses recognition algorithms in data processing...

My first meeting with Professor Govorun left me with an unforgettable impression, as it became a turning point in my scientific research at JINR. Being a leading scientist in the field of computational science in the Soviet Union and the world (and later, Director of LCTA), N. N. Govorun was very busy but he always paid attention to my work; I always felt his care and support. During my work under his supervision, I published several scientific articles, nine of them were included in my thesis that I successfully defended before completing my work at JINR in 1982.

Shortly after my return to Vietnam to work, in 1989, Professor Nguyen Van Hieu, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of Vietnam at JINR, informed me that he had received a letter from Professor Govorun inviting me to Dubna for a year to continue my research in the area I had studied earlier. Surely, I was overjoyed, looking forward to seeing the faces of colleagues and friends in familiar surroundings. However, arriving in Dubna, I was deeply saddened to learn that my beloved teacher, a famous scientist of the Soviet Union and the whole world, a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Nikolay Nikolaevich Govorun passed away at the age of 59...

In conclusion

The Joint Institute for Nuclear Research is an intergovernmental international research organization with Vietnam as one of its official members. Over the past 70 years, since Vietnam has signed the Agreement on the establishment of this Institute in 1956, according to incomplete statistics, more than 400 Vietnamese scientists have worked in this academic environment, talked, carried out research under the supervision of scientists from around the world, including prominent physicists of the 20th century, such as Nikolay Bogolyubov, Georgy Flerov, Vladimir Veksler, Bruno Pontecorvo and others.

This article can be seen as a personal expression of gratitude (and can also partially express the feelings of generations of Vietnamese scientists who have worked and work at JINR) of Dubna scientific cradle – the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and the leading scientists of the Soviet Union (at present, the Russian Federation), scientific leaders and senior colleagues that wholeheartedly guided and instructed us - from the very first timid steps on the path of scientific research.