70 years of the nuclear industry. A chain reaction of success

Moscow City department of Culture

Manege Museum and Exhibition Association

Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation 

On September 1, an exhibition called “70 years of the nuclear industry – a chain reaction of success” will open at the Manege Central Exhibition Hall. The organizer of the show, Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation, will present unique documents and exhibits linked to the development history of the nuclear industry in the USSR and subsequently Russia. The show will be staged to celebrate 70 years of the nuclear industry. 

The central exhibit of the show will be the legendary AN-302 hydrogen bomb (also known as Kuzma’s Mother, or “Tsar Bomba”), the most powerful weapon in human history and the main argument of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. For the first time, the unique exhibit will be placed in central Moscow, next to the Kremlin walls. It was delivered by special transport from the Russian Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov late on August 22. The media was allowed to record footage of the offloading of the Kuzma’s Mother in the Central Manege.

The test of the AN-602 bomb was carried out on October 30, 1961, at a sit in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. The bomb was dropped from a specially modified strategic bomber Tu-95V. The mushroom cloud following the blast soared to 67km, and the shock waves circled the Earth three times. The main goal set and achieved by this test was to demonstrate the Soviet Union’s capabilities to produce fusion charges of unlimited power. This played a key role in establishing nuclear parity in the world and prevention of the use of nuclear weapons.

On the sidelines of the exhibition, the Knowledge Day will be celebrated on September 1 with Moscow’s students of specialized schools. A Lesson of Peace will be taught to school students of physics by Director General of State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom Sergey Kirienko. The exhibition will be open for the public from September 2 till September 29. Opening hours: 12.00-22.00.

The exhibition space will be divided into several exposition zones comprising together a complex of spatial architectural installations dedicated to major milestones of the industry development. The visitors will be taken through the history of the Soviet “nuclear project” and learn about the current state and outlook of the industry, which is considered one of the most advanced and competitive industries in the global market. Modern exhibition equipment will be used, including projection screens, booths and installations.

The show will bring to the public many rare exhibits and documents from national museums, archives and enterprises of the sector, which have never before been on display in Moscow. The exposition will feature personal effects of the industry’s founding fathers, including Igor Kurchatov, Yulii Khariton, Anatoly Alexandrov and others, as well as declassified archive documents and video footage, models of special products and equipment, drawings and maps. The exhibition will address, among other, the following topical blocks: “Uranium and the geology of uranium”, “Reactors F-1, A-1 and weapon-grade plutonium”, “The world’s first nuclear power plant”, “Nuclear-powered icebreaker “Lenin” and so on.

Participating in the exhibition will be not only organizations and entities of the nuclear industry, but also the Polytechnic museum, the Central Armed Forces Museum, the Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics, the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History, the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the National Research Centre “Kurchatov Institute”, the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research and others.

The exhibits of the show will later make the core of the collection of the nuclear industry museum at VDNH.

Note:

On August 20, 1945, Joseph Stalin signed a decree to establish an authority in charge of uranium projects, a special committee of the State Defense Committee of the USSR. The date has been referred to as the starting point in the development of the nuclear industry.

Ticket prices: 250 rubles; special rate: 50 rubles.

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