Interview conducted in April 2022

Vinogradov Alexander Vitalievich - master of nuclear neactors and power plants, Chief engineer of FLNP, Deputy Chief Engineer of JINR for nuclear and radiation safety

“I graduated from school in 1975 in the city of Olmaliq, Tashkent Region, Uzbekistan. In those years it was an industrial, company town. A wide range of non-ferrous metals were mined for in Olmaliq and there were many Russians there. Developed infrastructure, a lot of schools, good teachers. I graduated from school with a gold medal and in the 9th-10th grades I studied at the correspondence school of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and took courses of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics of Moscow State University, I also successfully graduated from them, that was why I thought about entering a Moscow university. Only I had to choose which one: Faculty of Physics of Moscow State University or Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, where I already knew some of the teachers. At the last moment, my uncle, an engineer at mining-and-metallurgical integrated works, whom I respected very much, said: "Why do you need to study physics? You should become a good engineer!" And I took thought: indeed, in physics, as in art, a vocation, an obvious talent is relevant. I didn’t feel such a talent in myself and I earned excellent grades at school with perseverance, deeply studying each subject.
I took my uncle’s advice and went to Bauman Moscow State Technical University. As a medalist, I had to take one exam, oral physics. I passed it easily. At BMSTU, I chose a specialty close to physics, the Department of Nuclear Reactors, which was headed by Academician N. A. Dollezhal (the chief designer of the reactor of the world's first nuclear power station in Obninsk, head of NIKIET, where reactors of all types were developed, and also the chief designer of the IBR-2 reactor of JINR - O.T.).
I graduated from BMSTU with a red diploma and therefore I could choose where to take my further studies. And again, I chose not between different nuclear power stations, but closer to physical research - the Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology. We were engaged in very interesting work there, now we can talk about it, the development of anti-satellite weapons. Some applications of nuclear physics were used in those studies. It was good in Sukhumi - the sea, mountains, I went mountain climbing there, intensively trained. Wonderful people worked nearby. There were still old staff members taken back to work after the war. German physicists who were taken out of Germany worked at SIPT at the beginning of its activity. Therefore, there was an excellent library at the Institute, a significant part of which constituted books in German. I knew German well then, I read those books. Although many of them at that time were of more historical than scientific value, yet the physics and the technique of the experiment were presented in them with German scrupulousness and they were published very well, it was pleasant to take them in hand.”

“How did you come to Dubna?”
“In 1983, the Abkhaz-Georgian conflict started flaring up and it so happened that in the very period I met my future wife who together with her parents was on vacation in Sukhumi. I bought butter for food stamps (in those years there were food stamps), got apples from friends and went to ask in marriage. We soon got married, I moved to Dubna with my wife and since February 1984 I have been working at JINR. I was met by V. D. Ananiev and started working as an engineer on the control panel of the IBR-2 reactor. I quickly dag myself into the new job, learned it and soon began moving up the career ladder. Four years later I was appointed chief engineer of IBR-2. I had worked in this position for almost twenty years and in 2007 I was appointed Chief Engineer of FLNP.”

“Which senior colleagues do you consider your teachers?”
Now, as time passes, I cannot but say about it, the merits of the wonderful people who created our reactor are becoming obvious. I will name only a few of them - Vladimir Dmitrievich Ananiev, Evgeny Pavlovich Shabalin, Boris Nikolaevich Bunin, Yuri Valeryanovich Kulpin, Alexey Ivanovich Babaev, Vladimir Pavlovich Voronkin, Valery Pavlovich Popov, Vladimir Pavlovich Plastinin. This list can be continued. I have learned a lot from them. They were excellent, highly educated engineers and physicists of the Soviet school. IBR-2 is still in operation, first of all, thanks to their huge efforts, to the fact that a reliable design base was laid, there was a time-tested prehistory - the first IBR.

“Has a new generation of engineering staff grown up, to whom to transfer experience, with whom to create a new neutron source, if such a decision is made?”
“There is currently no clear answer to this question. This is not even a question, this is a complex organisational task, a solution to which must be found. And the situation is such that, unfortunately, there are less and less engineering specialists and physicists who know and understand the pulsed reactor "from the inside", its complex physical nature, technology features.”
I named the pioneers of the reactor, the second wave of excellent specialists followed them. And again, I will name only a few of them - Viktor Grigorievich Ermilov, Mikhail Alekseevich Kiselev, Yuriy Nikolaevich Pepelishev, Anatoly Dmitrievich Rogov, Leonid Vasilievich Edunov, Nikolay Pavlovich Antsupov, Viktor Alekseevich Trepalin, Alexandr Anatolievich Belyakov, Sergey Aleksandrovich Tsarenkov, Igor Dalianovich Filin. Today many of them are in charge of the most critical work and operational services of the reactor. They graduated from MSU, MIPT, MEPhI, BMSTU, UPI, MPEI - the best universities of the USSR at that time. Following this wave, with rare exceptions, at various times young specialists have been employed - graduates of regional universities. I don't want to say anything bad about these universities, I'm just stating a fact. And there is an acute shortage of young reactor specialists who would lead the work on the new source. In this part, the main creative burden again falls on experienced veterans. Such as Evgeny Pavlovich Shabalin, who is in combat formation, full of ideas and it is very good that he has a group of talented assistants. At present, I do not know who will create and then operate a new source in the next 10-20 years. We regularly write applications to MEPhI, Tomsk and Ural universities, invite students to practice - they don’t come! Graduates of MSU, BMSTU and MEPhI simply do not reach us, from Tomsk they are allocated to Siberian nuclear centers, and graduates of the Ural University who do not go abroad make such social demands that we cannot fulfill.
IBR-2, under favorable conditions, will tentatively operate until the mid-2030s. The average age, for example, of reactor control workers is about 45 years old, that is, by the end of the reactor's operation, they will approach their retirement age. FLNP Director Valery Nikolaevich Shvetsov has taken an important step: he has organised a sector of a new neutron source in order to pursue the task of JINR as the scientific director of the project. In the future, difficult decisions on the formation of the operational staff of the future source will be required. If IBR-2 was developed by a team that evolved from the first reactor through IBR-30, in addition, the required specialists were recruited through the Soviet allocation system, now there is no such option. But staff is merely a part of the overall task of creating a reactor, there are still many scientific, technical and organisational tasks and, of course, the organisation of financing is one of the main issues. The estimated cost of the future source according to various and very rough estimates is up to 500 million euros. This is a huge amount. Obviously, it is necessary to look for and find sources of funding for its creation. So, there is still much work to be carried out.

Olga TARANTINA