Major figures in Russian science laid flowers at the grave of Igor Kurchatov at the Kremlin Wall on the occasion of his 122nd birthday. The ceremony was attended by Aide to the President of the Russian Federation Andrei Fursenko, President of the National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute” Mikhail Kovalchuk, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gennady Krasnikov, Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladislav Panchenko, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Denis Sekirinsky, Deputy President of the Russian Academy of Education Gennady Onishchenko, and other officials.
While it was a celebration of the figure of the great scientist, there were two points underlined in the comments of Mikhail Kovalchuk which were of great relevance for the situation today. One, was the importance of nuclear weapons in the defense of Russia. “We clearly understand that we have survived as a sovereign great country at this stage thanks to what was done by Kurchatov and his colleagues,’ Kovalchuk said. “The nuclear umbrella, the shield—this is our national amulet, which made us the greatest power in the world and allowed us to survive during the most difficult transition period, which few countries can afford.”
At the same time, he underlined the important step taken by Kurchatov to change the course of the Cold War. Kovalchuk recalled that the report given by Kurchatov in Great Britain in 1956, when he was part of the Soviet delegation headed by the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev, “broke the ice of the Cold War and launched large-scale international cooperation.”
