Break the sky with your head
The President of Russia and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief spoke in favor of large-scale re-equipment of the Russian army fleet - including nuclear deterrence forces. This places a special responsibility on scientists and specialists working in Sarov and Snezhinsk. How were new tasks translated into the activities of the Ural nuclear weapons center, which celebrates its sixtieth anniversary this year? On the eve of the sectoral scientific and technical council, an exclusive interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta was given by Mikhail Zheleznov, director of the RFNC-VNIITF.
Not long ago, a large group of VNIITF scientists and specialists was awarded state awards - orders, medals, and honorary titles. What are nuclear physicists working in centers like Snezhinsk being awarded now?
Mikhail Zheleznov: This time - for one of the works that we put into service. The Institute, as before, works quite productively. Over the past ten years - about a dozen of such "products". This is a good result for a compact nuclear center, which, along with its main activity, is puzzled by a number of other issues - including fundamental, general scientific, and general civil ones.
Academician Rykovanov, the supervisor of your center, was awarded the Order of Alexander Nevsky ...
Mikhail Zheleznov: Yes, for his contribution to the development, I would say, not of one, but of a number of products. With an interval of about a year, we had large deliveries. Two years ago, a group of VNIITF employees received state awards, and now. This is not for the anniversary, but for the specific work that we passed last year.
Infographics: Maria Pakhmutova / Alexander Emelyanenkov / RG
In cooperation with the Makeyev missile center, what is next to you in Miass?
Mikhail Zheleznov: no. Recently, we have had no heroic achievements with them. Now such joint work is underway - big and serious. But you need to live to see the result, it's a few years. It is important that we are in constant contact with the SRC. We have not lost contact with them, despite the fact that we are in different departments, and that there was a period of fascination with exclusively solid-fuel carriers. Even in those years when the majority focused on MIT (Moscow Thermal Engineering Institute, developer of Topol and Bulava solid-fuel missiles - AE), we did not interrupt contacts with Miass. I think that this is very good: we don’t jump from a bare start, but already having joint achievements ...
Fashion for MINI already passed?
The theme of the miniaturization of nuclear charges, why has the center in the Urals been distinguished for many years, has not yet exhausted itself?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Miniaturization, if we mean by minimizing the mass and size characteristics of a nuclear charge, we are not engaged now - based on the fact that this contradicts existing international agreements. As we see, terrorist threats are not diminishing in the world, but they are growing, therefore, developing products that can be covertly and illegally moved under certain circumstances is fraught with unpredictable consequences. I don’t think that somewhere in the world someone is completely openly engaged in this ...
My question is not so much about specific developments, but about the trend itself. As I understand it, the creation of compact ammunition and warheads remains the most important task ...
Mikhail Zheleznov: Let's go back to the original positions. We are not an autonomous scientific organization that operates within our own fundamental research. We work on specific tasks of the Ministry of Defense and other ministries with which we are associated. We work on the basis of the tactical and technical characteristics of the product, which are given to us a priori. They are, of course, linked to the purpose and tasks that face this or that product. And tasks can be different. The second most important circumstance is the carrier.
Infographics: Leonid Kuleshov / Alexander Emelyanenkov / RG
These are the most key things: what the charge is for and how it is delivered. They set the basis for all further actions - that it will be in size, how heavy, bulky, etc. it is. And so now the goal is not to do some miniature things. This is already meaningless, I guess. Today, many others are created samples that local problems successfully solve.
Three "Bison" have already been sold. And two with 10 performance teraflops brought up to one hundred and even slightly higher
"Atomic" shells for tank “Armata”, as my colleague Sergey Ptichkin recently wrote in “RG”, is it just a figure of speech? Or is there something behind this?
Mikhail Zheleznov: We practically do not participate in the Armata project. We performed a certain fragment of work on an ordinary high-explosive high-explosive product. The fragment was executed and given away.
And ammunition with special explosives do you do?
Mikhail Zheleznov: We are engaged in non-nuclear ammunition, we have a whole segment. And this, if you will, is a time requirement. Certain competencies that were weakened or even lost within the framework of enterprise incorporation, when people left, and research was not carried out in the proper amount, now they have to be restored and developed. Because in all that relates to explosives, chemistry is very complex. And she always goes on a cumulative total. Nothing is invented from scratch. New explosives are a development of previous developments: something is changing, something is being supplemented. In some cases it is phlegmatizers, in others - nanomaterials, which allow to improve the required characteristics: throwing ability, crushing, and the like.
In the VNIITF Museum, I have not seen such developments, and your colleagues in Sarov, they are openly represented in the museum exhibition ...
Atomgrad Snezhinsk and Mikhail Zheleznov, who worked for seven years as the head of this city and now became the director of the nuclear center, were born on the same day. Photo: VNIITF Press Service
Mikhail Zheleznov: I find it difficult to comment on this. Because the too fragile distinction between the main activity, which we do, and what is concomitant for us - both from a scientific point of view and from a practical point of view. But we also bring certain products to a high degree of readiness, and they will be mass-produced.
Let "iron", but with brains
We will depart for a short time from the main activities of VNIITF related to research and development in nucleararmory sphere, and talk about what you are doing for civilian use.
Mikhail Zheleznov: The dynamics are as follows. In 2012, the amount of work on other products, as we call it, was approximately 1,3 billion. A year later, 2,3 was made. In 2014, despite crisis matters, we managed to raise a little more - 2,4 billion. And for this year, the State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, like any state structure, plans us from what has been achieved - 3,5 billion rubles. I don’t like to get ahead, but I hope that we can overcome this bar.
In addition to what we are doing as part of our state defense orders and components, which are supplied to subcontractors under their SDOs, we are able to manufacture different products for 5-6 billions per year. To do this, it is necessary to do more thoroughly mathematical modeling.
So it's your horse - mathematical calculations and modeling ...
Mikhail Zheleznov: In the main field - yes. And in civilian areas with this is still rather weak. Although we are already able to make good data centers, we can operate with large amounts of information. There are certain successes in joint work with Gazprom. For example, software products that allow you to fully automate major gas transmission lines. To always and clearly understand how much product has passed, in what condition the equipment, when it needs repair, replacement, etc. We have not yet learned how to earn big money on this, but we are actively developing the trend.
That is, your "other" products are not so much hardware as software development?
Mikhail Zheleznov: While more "iron". We have created a special service that tracks serious competitive procedures both within Rosatom and in other large structures. We have been participating in the Rosenergoatom tenders for many years now. They have contests, as a rule, for the whole "chain": to develop, mount, test and put into operation. That is, there is the OKR part, and a piece of research, and then - the design, manufacture, installation at the facility. In this we willingly participate.
And nuclear medicine in your "other" activities at the leading position did not come out?
Mikhail Zheleznov: In monetary terms, this is only tens of millions of rubles.
Including the Center for Neutron Therapy and the production of radiopharmaceuticals?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Only the Center for Neutron Therapy works and brings a stable income. The production of radiopharmaceuticals is currently assembled, all certification procedures and test launches have passed. If you just plant radiopharmaceuticals - it is short-lived isotopes. Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk - there you can deliver. But only. And it would be more correct to not only produce isotopes, but also provide a scanning service.
And what's stopping you?
Mikhail Zheleznov: I need a PET scanner. To solve this problem, a joint venture with the Rosatom city corporation has already been established. VNIITF, in its capacity of 25, contributes technology and developments in neutron therapy, in the production of isotopes, ensures the operability of the equipment, maintains it, and leases the plant of radiopharmaceuticals to this enterprise. And the Rosatom Corporation, which receives the package in 75 percent, acquires a scanner, agrees with the FMBA on the provision of this medical service to the population and organizes the entire business. The project was agreed with the administration of the Chelyabinsk region and received the support of the governor. In the future, we see the creation of a specialized center of ion therapy in Snezhinsk.
Chick on the grain pecks
And the Zubr supercomputers that you have developed are in demand?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Three Bison have already been sold. And all three are different. One machine with the initially declared capacity of 10 teraflops at the request of the customer brought up to almost a hundred, the other even higher, and one sold a small one. Let it be for now. Another one that works for us.
35 technologies critical for creating nuclear weapons are supported and developed by the RFNC-VNIITF team
Sold to customers for their own money? Or was there some kind of program - budget funds were allocated, and you put three cars into some state institutions on account of this? Is business really possible here?
Mikhail Zheleznov: We have not sold to business. Sold to defense companies that need it. But we didn’t just set it up as an expensive cupboard, but we do maintenance on our own in order to keep it working.
Do you also do lasers?
Mikhail Zheleznov: This is a major area. Some part of our laser products is put on mass production, although it may be in small batches. In particular, range finders, target designators, other products with defense or civilian use. And besides, we provide our partners with components, including our colleagues in Sarov. We plan that this trend in a year or two will be closer in income to a billion rubles and even surpass it ...
Are your “explosive” supplies - detonating cords, perforators - comparable to laser?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Every billion, as you know, consists of hundreds of millions, and every hundred consists of a certain number of millions. Cords are 20-30, sometimes 40 millions. Sometimes all 10. One year is not necessary ...
Explosive compositions inside perforators - one part of the money. Blast welding is another. Research for related enterprises, which we in the gas-dynamic department do - a third of the income. And all together - a set of income related to each other. It is difficult to predict in advance what direction will bring how much money.
But the chicken pecks on the grain. And those who breed chickens, at one time spoke well of the egg grading machine you created with Snezhinsk. It was, as I understand it, one of the first conversion projects. Do these machines still produce?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Serially no longer. But we support the spare parts kit for 120-130 of the machines currently working - out of the hundred and fifty that were released in Snezhinsk. Although unexpected orders continue to come. This year already two - from those for whom these machines have been worn out, but still working. They want to buy new ones, and it is from us. And we do not dare to refuse. Although the ten people who were isolated in this area, we have already been distributed among other departments of the institute.
I did not understand: will you fulfill these two single orders? Yourself at a loss ?!
Mikhail Zheleznov: They are not unprofitable. This is the first car was difficult to do. And then everything was fine. We have a separate division that will perform this as an additional contractual work.
Closer in tandem
You have been appointed director of RFNC-VNIITF three years ago. Your predecessor in this position, Academician Georgy Rykovanov, did not leave anywhere, but only focused on the duties of the supervisor and works side by side. Is this a split in the leadership of the nuclear center - is it a temporary measure or, on the contrary, the restoration of the usual status quo?
Mikhail Zheleznov: I will say this: over sixty years stories of our nuclear center, there were only short periods of time when one person combined the positions of director and supervisor. What is taking place now is a historically established and justified management scheme for a large research and production team. When one person is engaged in general business, organization of work, implementation of production plans, etc., and the other can fully concentrate on the scientific direction, on the development of scientific activity, on experimental and other aspects of the life of the team - this is very good.
Economic activity takes a lot of time. And to combine it with scientific work is very difficult. And with the current scheme, the supervisor has a certain freedom of hands, and the whole team in his scientific management. At the same time, he is not distracted by topical efforts - the provision of energy, materials, is not obliged to constantly monitor the time of manufacture of various components. There is more time left for the actual scientific work, to communicate with theorists, designers. And the experience, skills, knowledge possessed by the supervisor, and the fact that there is in the director's baggage, combine and give a synergistic effect.
How do you build personal relationships in the leadership tandem?
Mikhail Zheleznov: We communicate very smoothly, carefully with each other. I try not to interfere in making decisions on scientific activities. Georgiy Nikolayevich fully supports me in making business decisions, if I turn to him for advice on certain issues. He has a lot of experience. In addition, we have known each other for a long time, I worked as his deputy for more than seven years, the characters have got used to it. And in the period when I temporarily left the institute - I worked in the city, we always kept and maintained personal contacts.
To go to 2005 for the election of the head of Snezhinsk was your personal decision?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Yes and no. For myself, I called it an internal business trip. Before me was the task of settling, restoring and adjusting for a positive relationship of the then Snezhinsk, his administration with the city-forming enterprise. If you want, return to the guilty earth the leadership of the closed city and those who, under his offshore umbrella, tried to catch dubious luck. Manna from heaven will not wake up anymore - roll your sleeves yourself. And remember: the city was created to work here a nuclear center.
And in the nuclear center they must understand and, in turn, appreciate the work of people who work in urban structures. This is also work, and work is hard, often ungrateful, in order that the staff of the nuclear center be provided with everything necessary: kindergartens, schools, nurseries, society, normal clean paths, and so on.
And it was not so?
Mikhail Zheleznov: It was different. If VNIITF shrugs off city problems, goes into itself, these problems come back to us. And if the city begins to stand in a pose, say that the nuclear center is "one of" enterprises located on the territory of CATF, then he himself gradually dies.
Everything is connected ... In my opinion, over the past ten years, decent and respectful, even I would say, creative relations between the municipality and the nuclear center have been established and maintained. What is very important is that they contribute to the normal microclimate inside the city as a whole. In such an environment is just a shame to work carelessly. And law enforcement agencies, and public services, and health care begin to act for the benefit of all.
After all, a closed city is a small world. If someone didn’t manage to write out the pass in time or forgot about it on purpose, business starts to collapse with entrepreneurs. They didn’t give warmth to the kindergartens in time, the children got sick - it means that mothers do not go to work. And there is already a congestion. There is no place for children to define after school - they reduced sports sections, clubs, additional education, something else connected with this - it means that someone will run away from work to work with children ...
Employees of the institute came home from work - it should be warm there, a shop, a gym, a park, a park, an opportunity to sit with a fishing tackle on the lake, a ski ride in winter should be within walking distance. If everyone in his place works as our grandfathers and fathers thought in a closed city, then everything is fine. And our closed city becomes open - for the arrival of children at competitions, scientists - at the conference.
How many people live in Snezhinsk now?
Mikhail Zheleznov: According to the latest data - 51 one thousand. And two thousand daily come to town to work. They are not residents of the city. But they provide the society, perform some work with the nuclear center or upon its order, carry out construction, repair.
Born to meet
The decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR on the formation of the city of Snezhinsk in the Chelyabinsk region (at that time completely secret) was published on 23 on May 1957 of the year three weeks before your birth. When and how did you get here?
Mikhail Zheleznov. In 1976. In 19 for years, I came here to work as a technical research specialist.
And when and under what circumstances did you first learn about the existence of such a city?
Mikhail Zheleznov: A year earlier, when a personnel service specialist came to us in Dzerzhinsk. I was born there, grew up and entered the technical school named after the Red Army at the faculty of producing explosives.
We came, called - and you immediately agreed? And your parents, your teachers in the technical school, did not know anything about this place?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Father spent some time at work on the elimination of the Kyshtym accident 1957 of the year (explosion of a tank with high-level waste at the Mayak plant - AE) Of course, he did not provide details, but he said if it was Chelyabinsk-40 - this is very bad. And since they gave me a different address, Chelyabinsk-70, he was confused. In practice, it turned out that Chelyabinsk-40, the current Ozersk, is not terrible ...
And Chelyabinsk-70, who now returned the original name Snezhinsk, has become your destiny?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Probably so. I have practically no one left on the land of Nizhny Novgorod, one aunt with a niece. And the Urals is the whole life. From here I entered the MEPI. Here, in the Ural Polytechnic, he received a second degree when he felt that he lacked economic knowledge. I was still a master at the time, and that was the direction from the nuclear center.
My family was formed in Snezhinsk and two of our sons were born. The senior chose Moscow State University, the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, in parallel received an economic education, defended his candidate’s, now works in Moscow as Deputy Director of VNIIA. The younger son graduated from the Financial Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation and works in our institute.
It feels - purposeful guys ...
Mikhail Zheleznov: We have this family. Spouse also worked in the nuclear center for a long period of time. We are all in the industry.
One salary people do not keep
Speaking in the State Duma with the justification of the idea of a rocket-space state corporation (like Rosatom State Corporation), Deputy Prime Minister and the head of the military industrial complex Dmitry Rogozin praised the atomic lobbyists for their decent wages. What is your salary in the center?
Mikhail Zheleznov. The average for the institute is 50 thousand. There are people who still receive some state support in the form of subsidies. With such subsidies - 60 thousands. In working positions, for example, machine operators at the factory, receive from 30-40 to 80 thousands. It all depends on the qualifications, the technological redistribution at which they work, the presence of hazardous assets. In some areas we work overtime, on weekends. We are forced to do this because there are not enough people.
How different are the remuneration of the leading specialists, the top officials in the leadership of the nuclear center and the salary at the base level in engineering, technical and work positions?
Mikhail Zheleznov. We don’t have a lot of people who get big money. As those who receive the minimum 14-15 thousands. We have a decimal coefficient - 5,3. In Sarov, as far as I know, the same. In Moscow VNIIA - five. When we arrived, we had a coefficient of 7. But all these years we have raised the “bottom”, and the “top” has been restrained.
Watch this?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Yes, I think that this is fundamental. Agreed as follows: we increase by 6 percent to all but deputy directors. I made local decisions on certain categories of employees on my own. Suppose theoretical physicists have increased wages. Although the supervisor criticized me, he said "the physicist must be hungry." But it seems to me that everything must be done so that the thinking specialist would think about the case and not look at his watch at the end of the working day. I repeat: individual managers - both specialists and chief specialists, and research associates - have established additional allowances in 30, 50, 70 thousand rubles. It is not massive. As for us, Georgy Rykovanov, we are on a contract with the state corporation - we live within the limits of what we are assigned. And that's fine. We have long been working not only for money. We do not have people who make the euphoria of earnings.
It is yes, but when it is not enough for the most necessary ...
Mikhail Zheleznov: I agree here. We now have the smallest salary - 14 thousand - a cleaner. Is it good or bad? Of course, bad. My colleague from Sarov, Valentin Efimovich Kostyukov, periodically says that there should not be people in our enterprises who receive less than 20 thousand rubles. This is the minimum that a person has enough for food, utilities, clothing. You can not pay less. We have not yet come to ensure this. Although we are moving, despite the crises, every year we increase our wages by 5-6 percent. This year, for the anniversary, they raised 6 percent. By the end of the year, I hope there will be substantial bonus payments for the team. Unless, of course, we fulfill the main tasks and provide the same 3,5 billion from the "other" products.
How survived in dashing 90-e?
Mikhail Zheleznov: In the last year, when Vladimir Zinovievich Nechai was the director of our center, I worked as his assistant.
And the tragedy, which wrote a lot, happened before your eyes?
Mikhail Zheleznov: Essentially, yes. We saw how hard it was for him. It seemed that everything was falling apart, going into another world. The act of Vladimir Zinovievich (October 30 1996, shot himself in his office - AE) says a lot. He was a conscientious man. I remember how, after receptions on personal matters, he lay down on a small sofa and lay for an hour without moving. Very worried. When it was impossible to pay a salary. When time and again there were other difficulties: arrests of bills, the Pension Fund, debts for electricity, for consumed materials, etc.
Sometimes it came to jokes. There was, for example, such. The minister is calling from Moscow - Viktor Nikitovich Mikhailov: listen, Vladimir Zinovievich, we have very bad money, but there are a few wagons of sugar. Maybe a salary to send you? And Nechay in response: "Yes, yes, hook up another carriage of yeast. We will put brago in Sinara here ..."
It got to the point that bread was almost distributed by ration cards, they were engaged in some kind of idiotic netting. They restrained the collective from mass demonstrations, and, at the same time, sent people to Moscow to convey our problems to the leadership of the country.
After Nechaya, when Yevgeny Nikolaevich Avrorin became the director and supervisor in one person, such decisions were made, for example: if we cannot pay the salary, we pay an advance, but to everyone, even the boss. Moreover, the authorities received in the last turn. It was fair. The salary was very small - and the team, and the chiefs. Even in those conditions, they lived normally, amicably. And the team has not collapsed.
Then, when things straightened out a little, they decided jointly: 10 percent of each received, earned amount is sent to the materials. Because the team can not just live a salary and do nothing ...
Only facts
More than half of the nuclear munitions transferred to the troops and currently in service with the Russian army have been developed by the RFNC-VNIITF team.
Submarine forces of the Russian Navy are equipped with nuclear warheads of the Urals only.
RFNC-VNIITF fully met the needs of our country's Air Force with highly efficient nuclear bombs. And only here were nuclear weapons for artillery and mortar systems created.
Information