An outstanding scientist of Russia, one of the founders and creators of domestic thermonuclear and nuclear weapons.
First Deputy Scientific Director of the RFNC-VNIIEF for Advanced Research, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor.
Trutnev Yuri Alekseevich was born on November 2, 1927 in Moscow into a family of students at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.
In February 1951, after graduating from the Faculty of Physics of Leningrad University, Yu.A. Trutnev arrived at KB-11 (VNIIEF). His teachers were outstanding scientists: D.A. Frank-Kamenetsky and N.A. Dmitriev. Academicians Ya.B. Zeldovich, A.D. Sakharov and Yu.B. Khariton had a great influence on his development as a scientist. Already in 1954, Yu.A. Trutnev became one of the co-authors of the most important invention of the principles of radiation implosion, developed as a result of collective work (A.D. Sakharov, Ya.B. Zeldovich, Yu.A. Trutnev) and one of the main creators of the first thermonuclear charge based on this new principle - RDS-37. This charge served as the prototype for almost all thermonuclear charges developed in the USSR. For these works, Yu.A. Trutnev was awarded the Order of Lenin in 1956. The work on RDS-37 was a landmark event, comparable in significance to the creation of the first atomic bomb, since it opened a real path to achieving thermonuclear parity with the United States.
In 1955, Yu.A. Trutnev, together with Yu.N. Babaev, proposed a “new principle for the design of thermonuclear charges” (improved radiation implosion), which they implemented in 1958 in “Project 49”. This development was the most important basis for improving the thermonuclear arsenal of our country. For this work in 1959 Yu.A. Trutnev and Yu.N. Babaev were awarded the Lenin Prize.
In 1961, on the initiative and with the participation of Yu.A. Trutnev, the most powerful thermonuclear charge in the world (“Project 602”) was created, tested at the suggestion of A.D. Sakharov at half the power of 50 Mt FC. The successful testing of this charge led to the cessation of the buildup of the thermonuclear arsenal in the United States; the race in this area became meaningless.
In 1958-1962. under the leadership and with the direct participation of Yu.A. Trutnev, a whole range of thermonuclear charges were developed, which became the foundation of the domestic nuclear missile weapons system. These works were noted by awarding him the title of Hero of Socialist Labor in 1962.
Under the leadership of Yu.A. Trutnev, in 1962, the fundamental problem of ensuring the ignition of thermonuclear fuel under the influence of radiation implosion was solved - a prototype of the explosive thermonuclear energy scheme of the future was created.
In 1964, Yu.A. Trutnev was elected corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1965, Yu.A. Trutnev became the successor of academicians A.D. Sakharov and Ya.B. Zeldovich, heading the united theoretical sector of VNIIEF (sector 1 - Ya.B. Zeldovich, sector 2 - A.D. Sakharov), which was headed until 1999.
During this time, the team under his leadership designed hundreds of nuclear and thermonuclear charges, which became the basis for the nuclear equipment of almost all types of the Armed Forces of the USSR and Russia.
In 1966, Yu.A. Trutnev became the deputy scientific director of VNIIEF, academician Yuli Borisovich Khariton, and in 1978 - the first deputy scientific director. Since 1999, Yuri Alekseevich has been the first deputy scientific director of the RFNC-VNIIEF for advanced research.
Yu.A. Trutnev’s initiatives to develop new “non-traditional” areas of work in the team he led, which made it possible to begin the development of charges based on new physical principles and other significant projects, seem extremely valuable.
Yu.A. Trutnev is a leading specialist in the fields of high energy density physics and the creation of nuclear and thermonuclear charges. His works played a decisive role in the formation of the basic ideas of these new areas of knowledge, in the development of the theoretical base and the development of many specific weapons.
On the initiative of Yu.A. Trutnev and with personal participation in many projects, the direction of creating industrial charges with an important national economic purpose was organized. Some of them were applied to solve problems of the national economy in practice (creation of reservoirs, extinguishing gas flares, intensification of gas and oil fields, etc.). The ideological continuation of these works was the research and development in the field of nuclear energy safety carried out at RFNC-VNIIEF under the leadership of Yu.A. Trutnev.
In the 70-80s. Yu.A. Trutnev made a significant contribution to the organization of work in our country on research into the survivability of rocket and space technology and the development of means of protection against the damaging effects of a nuclear explosion. With his participation, the problem of increasing the resistance of RCT to the action of PFYV was solved.
Yuri Alekseevich is a participant, and in many cases, the leader of more than 50 nuclear tests and underground unique physical experiments to study the survivability of military equipment and the effects of missile defense damaging factors.
An important role was played by the measures taken by Yu.A. Trutnev to increase the qualifications of VNIIEF employees: training candidates and doctors of science, organizing lectures for MEPhI students, organizing a department of applied physics and mathematics at MEPhI, organizing a branch of the department of theoretical nuclear physics at MEPhI at VNIIEF.
For a long time, Yu.A. Trutnev has been a member of a number of scientific and technical councils of the Ministry and the RFNC-VNIIEF, a member of scientific councils for the defense of doctoral and candidate dissertations, an editor and member of the editorial board of the journal “Questions of Atomic Science and Technology”.
In the 1960-1980s, Yu.A. Trutnev, as the head of computational and theoretical work at VNIIEF and one of the creators of the VNIIEF computing center, made great efforts to further develop the scientific, technical and material base of the center.
These measures laid the foundation for the creation of the Institute of Theoretical and Mathematical Physics RFNC-VNIIEF.
The activities of Yu.A. Trutnev, aimed at preserving Russia’s nuclear status during the period of disintegration of the USSR, were important.
Yu.A. Trutnev is an active member of the Russian Academy of Sciences (academician since 1991), and has great authority in the academic environment. He is a member of the Bureau of the Physical Sciences Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2003, Yu.A. Trutnev was awarded the Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after I.V. Kurchatov for a set of classified works that have the most important military-strategic and national economic significance, providing the country with a modern, reliable nuclear shield. Yuri Alekseevich was personally acquainted with I.V. Kurchatov, who, with his characteristic integrity, supported new promising developments of his young colleague.
The activities of Yu.A. Trutnev in the 90s as a member of the scientific advisory committee under the Board of Directors of the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) were of great importance.
The amazing features of Yu.A. Trutnev is his remarkable scientific intuition and amazing efficiency. Now, on the threshold of his 90th birthday, he continues to actively work (together with a team of young people) on the development of new physical methods for maintaining the functionality of nuclear weapons under the conditions of the CTBT (proton radiography), on the creation of modern original types of non-nuclear weapons, means of overcoming missile defense, and increasing capabilities strategic submarines and many other major problems necessary to ensure the security of Russia.
Yu.A. Trutnev was formed in a purely applied science, filled with unconventional content, when the main skill is required: to solve a problem down to the numbers and bring the matter to a trouble-free, efficient serial design.
Yuri Alekseevich Trutnev belongs to those rare talents who, at the beginning of their creative career, stood on a par with outstanding pioneers. He picked up the baton and is extremely successfully continuing the most important work in ensuring Russia’s national security.
Yu.A. Trutnev’s talent in identifying development paths on which the national security of the state depends, consistency and uncompromisingness in upholding fundamental issues are the standard for new generations of specialists in the nuclear weapons complex.
The entire creative, scientific life of Yu.A. Trutnev for more than 66 years shows us an example of selfless service to the Fatherland.
He is one of the obsessed people for whom the fate of the Fatherland forever remains the main and indisputable priority.
Awards Yu.A. Trutneva:
1956 - Order of Lenin;
1959 - Lenin Prize laureate;
1962 - Hero of Socialist Labor (Order of Lenin and gold medal “Hammer and Sickle”);
1970 - medal “For Valiant Labor” (for the 100th anniversary of V.I. Lenin);
1971 - Order of the October Revolution;
1975 - Order of the Red Banner of Labor;
1984 - State Prize laureate;
1987 - Order of the Red Banner of Labor;
1997 - medal “850th Anniversary of Moscow”;
1997 - title “Honorary Citizen of the Nizhny Novgorod Region”;
1998 - Order of Merit for the Fatherland, III degree;
2002 - medal of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "TsKB MT" Rubin "For the rise of the agro-industrial complex "Kursk";
2003 - gold medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after I.V. Kurchatov for a set of closed works that have the most important military-strategic and national economic significance, providing the country with a modern, reliable nuclear shield;
2003 - Order of Merit for the Fatherland, II degree;
2006 - Certificate of Honor from the President of the Russian Federation;
2007 - badge of the Federal Atomic Energy Agency “Academician I.V. Kurchatov" I degree;
2010 - badge “E.P. Slavsky" of the State Corporation "Rosatom";
2011 - awarded the title “Honorary Citizen of Sarov”;
2012 - Order of Merit for the Fatherland, IV degree;
2012 - insignia “For outstanding achievements in science and technology RFNC-VNIIEF”, Gratitude of the Government of the Russian Federation, Medal of the Security Council of the Russian Federation “For merits in ensuring national security”;
2016 - laureate of the Government of the Russian Federation Prize in the field of science and technology.
On November 2, the legendary nuclear physicist Academician Yuri Trutnev, the scientist who pioneered the design of modern Russian nuclear weapons, celebrated his 90th birthday. Largely thanks to his work, nuclear parity between the Soviet Union and the United States and, ultimately, security on the entire planet became possible.
VGTRK correspondent Maria Saushkina became the first among journalists who managed to visit Yuri Alekseevich’s home and ask him about his work on secret projects.
One of the creators of the hydrogen bomb is 90, but he is still like a boy: youthfully cheerful, cheerful and, as before, stubborn. Tempering and conditioning - a genius physicist, on whose shoulders lay the burden of responsibility for world peace and on whose discoveries and research the balance of the world depended - is not slowing down even today.
Explosion. Chain reaction. Communications are being cut off all over the world. There is an all-consuming energy of force, incinerating everything in its path. In 1955, the Russians established a new world order, bringing the world into balance. The nuclear race has stopped. The United States has to change its plans - the blow that they wanted to inflict on the Soviets loses its meaning. From now on they can show that same “Kuzka’s mother” overseas.
Once upon a time, these missile warheads served as the shield of our Motherland, and the most powerful bomb in the world played a huge political role - it was after it was exploded at the test site that the Moscow Treaty was signed to stop testing in three environments at once: in space, in the air and in water.
Academy town in Sarov - one of the most secret places in the world. The genius physicist Trutnev meets us in his wooden mansion. All his life he didn’t need anything except science. Having experienced the hardships and deprivations of war in his youth, he longed for only one thing - so that this would not happen again. With this fuse, the young physicist, leaving everything, moved from St. Petersburg to the secret city of Arzamas-16.
"On St. Isaac's Square, opposite my father's institute, there is the former German embassy. I saw a colossal red flag with a swastika. For me it was a blow to the heart. That is why I went, so that such things would not happen again. Evil can only be defeated by evil. You are bad “You’re behaving, let’s make peace with you - this is all for the children,” says Yuri Trutnev, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, first deputy head of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center.
The hydrogen bomb was created in the Soviet Union in every sense contrary to that. In the hungry post-war years, when the country was just getting back on its feet, they began working almost from scratch on a thermonuclear bomb. They were created in the image and likeness of the American one, intelligence reported, but firmly following the principle of “catch up and overtake.”
What was inside the bomb remained to be unraveled. The principle of radiation implosion, which Soviet scientists did not know about. It was Trutnev who understood how this principle works. The American hydrogen bomb was bulky - the size of a three-story house - but ours, exceeding all expectations, could be delivered by bomber to any point on the planet.
“We knew that the Americans had done it. It made us think and think. As a result, in 1955 we discovered this principle and this thermonuclear charge,” Trutnev recalls.
Today, all over the world there is a new race to use thermonuclear energy as efficiently as possible in a peaceful manner. The Federal Nuclear Center under the leadership of the Rosatom corporation in Sarov is confidently among the leaders in this competition of powers.
A project to create a powerful laser with which the thermonuclear reaction will be used in production.
“The developments that were made 50-60 years ago, including those associated with the name of Yuri Alekseevich Trutnev, are now being used and will be used, among other things, to obtain thermonuclear energy for industrial purposes. And the project that is now being implemented here is is a project that can ensure our country’s leadership in the field of thermonuclear energy,” noted RAS President Alexander Sergeev.
Research centers in France, China, Russia and the USA are currently working simultaneously on the creation of a powerful laser of this class. Who will be the first to obtain this peaceful energy of thermonuclear fusion, scientists will answer in just a few years.
Born on November 2, 1927 in Moscow into a family of students at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy. Then he lived in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), where the family moved. During the Great Patriotic War he was evacuated: in the Chelyabinsk and Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) regions. He returned to Leningrad in May 1944.
In 1945 he entered the chemistry department of Leningrad State University (LSU, now St. Petersburg State University). After the second year I transferred to the Faculty of Physics. Graduated from the university in 1950.
Doctor of Technical Sciences (1963; awarded without defense, bypassing the candidate stage). In 1964 he was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1991 - an academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAN). Member of the Department of Physical Sciences (section of nuclear physics) and the Presidium of the Nizhny Novgorod Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Professor (1993).
After graduating from Leningrad State University, he was assigned to the secret design bureau No. 11 in Arzamas-16, Gorky region (later - the All-Union, now - the All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics, VNIIEF, Sarov). Was involved in work on the USSR nuclear program. He worked under the supervision of such outstanding nuclear physicists as Yuliy Khariton, Yakov Zeldovich, Andrei Sakharov and others. From February 1951 he was an engineer, from April 1964 - head of the department, then deputy head of the KB-11 sector. From October 1965 to 1999, he headed the joint theoretical department of VNIIEF. At the same time, since 1966, he was deputy, and since 1978, first deputy scientific director of the institute. Since 1999, he has held the position of first deputy scientific director of VNIIEF for advanced research.
Part-time lecturer at the Department of Theoretical Nuclear Physics of the National Research Nuclear University "MEPhI" (Moscow).
Since 1991 - participant of the Pugwash movement of scientists. He was a member of the Sarov branch of the Russian Pugwash Committee under the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, which operated in 1995-2014.
He was the editor-in-chief of the VNIIEF publication - the scientific and technical collection "Issues of Atomic Science and Technology".
Trutnev Yu. A. - specialist in the field of theoretical nuclear physics, ultra-high pressure physics, applied mathematics. In 1954, together with Andrei Sakharov and Yakov Zeldovich, he developed the principle of radiation implosion (consists in pulsed compression of a nuclear charge) and became one of the creators of the first thermonuclear (hydrogen) charge based on this principle - the two-stage hydrogen bomb RDS-37 (tested in 1955 .). In 1955, together with Yuri Babaev, he formulated the idea of improving radiation implosion and proposed a new scheme - a miniaturized design of a two-stage hydrogen charge. Its test was successfully carried out in 1958 as part of Project 49. This idea was used for a series of other thermonuclear charges of varying power developed in 1958-1962. under the leadership of Trutnev and which became the basis for the USSR nuclear missile weapons system. In 1961, under the leadership of Andrei Sakharov, he participated in the creation of the world's most powerful hydrogen bomb, “product 602” (the 50-megaton Tsar Bomba was tested that same year on October 30). In 1962, together with Yuri Babaev, he expressed the idea of using atomic and thermonuclear explosions for technical and scientific purposes. This idea formed the basis of the program of “peaceful atomic explosions”: nuclear explosions were used in the USSR in 1965-1988. during geological exploration, creation of technical dams, etc. Since the 1960s. He also worked on issues of controlled thermonuclear fusion.
Currently, Yuri Trutnev is working on creating modern, original types of non-nuclear weapons, increasing the capabilities of strategic submarines, etc.
Hero of Socialist Labor (1962, for the development of a series of thermonuclear charges). Laureate of the Lenin (1959, for “project 49”) and State (1984) prizes of the USSR. Awarded the Order of Lenin (1956 - for participation in the creation of RDS-37; 1962), the October Revolution (1971), the Red Banner of Labor (1975, 1987), the gold medal "Hammer and Sickle" (1962), the medal "For Valiant Labor" ( 1970). Full holder of the Order of Merit for the Fatherland (in 1998 he received the III degree, in 2003 - II, in 2012 - IV, in 2017 - I degree). He has a certificate of honor (2006) and gratitude (2012) from the government of the Russian Federation.
“For a set of classified works that have the most important scientific, military-strategic and national economic significance and have provided the country with a modern, reliable nuclear shield,” he was awarded a gold medal named after. I. V. Kurchatov RAS (2002). Among his awards are the medal “For the rise of the agro-industrial complex “Kursk” of the Central Design Bureau of Marine Equipment “Rubin” (2002), the medal of the Security Council of the Russian Federation “For merits in ensuring national security” (2012), the medal of the Russian Ministry of Defense “For strengthening the military commonwealth” ( 2017), insignia of the state corporation "Rosatom" "For services to the nuclear industry" 1st degree (2017), etc.
He is an honorary citizen of the Nizhny Novgorod region (1997) and Sarov (2011).
The legendary Russian scientist, academician Yuri Trutnev, turns 90 on Thursday. He made a decisive contribution to developing the foundations of modern Russian nuclear weapons and achieving strategic parity with the United States.
Yuri Alekseevich Trutnev is one of the people whose services to their homeland are invaluable. For obvious reasons, it is not always possible to talk about his work widely. But even those brilliant ideas of his, which are already known from open publications, would probably be enough for more than a dozen specialists. There are not only the main military themes of his work, but also peaceful nuclear explosions and nuclear energy.
“All modern thermonuclear weapons are associated primarily with the name of Yuri Trutnev. Very talented people have always gathered at our nuclear center in Sarov. There were geniuses among them. So Trutnev belongs to the category of such geniuses,”
The writer told RIA Novosti Vladimir Gubarev, who at one time “discovered” many leading developers of the domestic nuclear missile shield for the general reader.
In order to understand the exceptional nature of what Trutnev did, we must take into account the military-political context that emerged during the development of thermonuclear weapons in the USSR and the USA by the mid-1950s.
As a rule, in articles aimed at the general public on the topic of the Soviet atomic project, August 29, 1949 is named as its only significant date, when the first domestic atomic charge RDS-1 was successfully detonated at the Semipalatinsk test site, after which it is reported that the Soviet Union thereby became possessor of nuclear weapons.
But this is an overly simplistic view of history. At that time there was no talk of the USSR having full-fledged nuclear weapons. The results of the first Soviet atomic explosion meant two other fundamentally important things. First: the US monopoly on the possession of the atomic bomb was broken. Second: it was proven that in the Soviet Union, in the incredibly difficult conditions of the first post-war years, through a colossal effort of effort and resources, a scientific basis for the development and improvement of nuclear charges was successfully formed and the foundations for their industrial production appeared.
The main goal of further work was to achieve parity with the United States, to prevent the Americans from launching a unilateral and unpunished preventive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, because Washington was developing such plans one after another on an ever-increasing scale.
But there was no possibility for parity at that time - the gap in the number of atomic bombs owned by the USSR and the USA was too large. For example, in 1950, the USSR had only a few of them, while the USA had several hundred. In addition, the capabilities of their delivery vehicles were incomparable. The United States had strategic bombers in the early 1950s, but the USSR did not yet have reliable means of delivering nuclear weapons to US territory.
And most importantly, in response to the successful test of the first Soviet atomic charge, US President Harry Truman at the end of January 1950 announced the launch in America of a full-scale program to create thermonuclear (hydrogen) weapons, the first samples of which were a thousand times more powerful than existing atomic bombs.
Thus, six months after the test in Semipalatinsk, a threat arose to a new US monopoly on the possession of thermonuclear weapons. Without the creation of a similar type of weapon in the USSR, the danger of an attack from the Americans would probably have become inevitable. Therefore, the Soviet leadership already at the end of February 1950 decided to begin the creation of domestic thermonuclear weapons.
In the United States, the idea of a “superbomb” began to be discussed at the end of 1941. Work on studying the possibility of creating thermonuclear weapons in the USSR began towards the end of 1945, when it became known from Soviet intelligence materials and publications in the American media that work in this direction was being carried out in America.
Work on thermonuclear topics was concentrated in the first Soviet nuclear center - Design Bureau-11 (KB-11), located in Sarov (now it is the Russian Federal Nuclear Center - All-Russian Research Institute of Experimental Physics RFNC-VNIIEF, part of the Rosatom state corporation) . Specialists from institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences - the Physical Institute (FIAN), the Institute of Chemical Physics, and the Institute of Physical Problems - were involved in the research.
The general management of the development of a thermonuclear charge, codenamed RDS-6 (from “special jet engine”), was carried out by Igor Kurchatov. The immediate supervisor of the work, including the design part, was the chief designer of KB-11, Yuliy Khariton.
A fundamental feature of those works was the involvement of the country's best theorists - not only physicists, but also mathematicians. The fact is that thermonuclear reactions cannot be studied in laboratory conditions. As the scientists who worked on the thermonuclear program themselves noted, the problems they had to solve exceeded in their complexity all scientific problems that humanity had ever faced.
Therefore, it was extremely important to first accurately understand the physical processes occurring during the explosion of a hydrogen bomb, then create their mathematical models (that is, put them in the form of a huge number of equations), and then solve them using calculation methods (and this in the absence of practical required in sufficient quantities of powerful electronic computing equipment).
The most important stage of the Soviet thermonuclear program was the development and successful testing on August 12, 1953 of the first domestic hydrogen charge RDS-6s. The basis of the bomb (or, as the developers themselves say, the product) was the original principle put forward by FIAN employee Andrei Sakharov of the so-called “puff” (hence the index “c” in RDS-6s) - a spherical atomic charge surrounded by several layers of alternating thermonuclear “fuel” "and uranium-238, and "compressed" on top with chemical explosives.
The design of the RDS-6s used another brilliant idea, which belonged to another scientist from the Lebedev Physical Institute, Vitaly Ginzburg - the “puff” used a solid chemical compound of the deuteride isotope of lithium-6, which made it possible to “produce” another thermonuclear “fuel” - tritium - directly in the process explosion. At the same time, in RDS-6s a certain proportion of tritium was also used initially.
Finally, another fundamental feature of the RDS-6s charge was that it was developed in a transportable version, suitable for equipping bomber aircraft.
The power of the RDS-6s explosion was 400 kilotons of TNT - 20 times more than the explosion of the first Soviet atomic charge.
But again, as in the case of the atomic bomb, neither Soviet scientists nor the military-political leadership of the USSR had any reason for complacency - the fact is that the United States had already begun testing megaton-power thermonuclear charges. The first such test, conventionally called Ivy Mike, took place on November 1, 1952 at Enewetak Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The power of the explosion exceeded ten megatons - this was an unprecedented record.
It should be noted that the thermonuclear device detonated by the Americans at that time was a device the size of a two-story house. But the main feature of the new approach of US physicists was that these new devices were two-stage - after the explosion of an atomic charge in the first stage, the thermonuclear “fuel” of the second stage was “ignited”. This ignition occurred thanks to radiation implosion - a very effective way of compressing thermonuclear "fuel" due to x-rays emitted during the explosion of the primary atomic charge. Soviet scientists did not know this then.
Specialists at KB-11 tried to increase the power of the “puff” without changing its fundamental design, but it soon became clear that it would not be possible to raise such a charge to the megaton level.
The climax came in the spring of 1954. On March 1, the United States tested a new, more powerful (15 megatons) device and at the same time a more compact thermonuclear device at Bikini Atoll. It became clear that the United States had once again taken an ominous lead, having found a way to significantly improve the efficiency of hydrogen bomb designs.
And almost immediately in response, KB-11 came up with its own idea of how best to use the principle of radiation implosion. It is symbolic that the breakthrough approach was proposed by Yuri Trutnev, a representative of the younger generation of physicists who came to Sarov.
“From a very young age, Yuri Alekseevich had a great curiosity about everything. This is a quality that should be characteristic of any real researcher. It was clear that this man would become a great scientist. Moreover, this curiosity remained with him to this day,”
The President of the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a conversation with RIA Novosti Alexander Sergeev.
“Of course, the fact that Yuri Alekseevich ended up in the nuclear complex may have had some element of accident. But this accident was lucky for our country,” he added.
Yuri Trutnev was born in Moscow into a family of students at the Agricultural Academy. My father was a soil scientist, and my mother was a housewife. After graduation, the parents first moved to Kostroma, and then to Leningrad.
As the scientist himself recalls, his main passion during his school years was reading, and most of the books were popular science literature on a variety of topics - not only in physics, but also in mineralogy and paleontology. After some time, he began to read popular things and on the then completely new atomic physics. But soon war burst into the life of the country.
After the siege of Leningrad was lifted in 1944, the Trutnev family returned to Leningrad. After graduating from school, Yuri entered the chemistry department of Leningrad University, but after some time he realized that chemistry was not his calling, and transferred to the physics department. He himself explained the reason for the transfer as follows: they say, chemists study the properties of substances by “crawling” on the surface of atoms, but he wants to study the atomic nucleus.
He studied successfully and attracted the attention of those who selected young personnel for the nuclear project. Yuri Trutnev was summoned to Moscow, where he was offered to do “interesting work” in the central part of the country. Moreover, the registration took place in one of the buildings that belonged to the First Main Directorate under the Council of Ministers of the USSR - the “headquarters” of the domestic nuclear project. It was necessary to enter this building (probably for security purposes) through the janitor's room.
The exact place where they were to go was not reported. But, as Trutnev recalled, already on the plane, looking at the landscape under the windows, he realized that he was flying to Sarov. The year was 1951.
"I was able to propose a method for concentrating the energy of X-ray radiation in material pressure, which made it possible to effectively carry out radiation implosion"
So briefly, much later in the spring of 1954, he will write Trutnev about his discovery, decisive for the Soviet thermonuclear program.
In KB-11 the new approach was perceived as a sensation. It became clear that the key to solving the problem of creating powerful hydrogen charges had been found. Based on the new principle, the RDS-37 thermonuclear charge was developed. The design power of the RDS-37 was three megatons, but the Semipalatinsk test site was not designed for it, so the charge had to be “halved.” Its successful test took place on November 6, 1955. The final power of the explosion was 1.6 megatons. The Soviet breakthrough to full-fledged thermonuclear weapons took place.
But then - more: while KB-11 began to offer new charges, but not always suitable for combat use, Trutnev already had the idea of a more advanced, more compact and at the same time more powerful charge, which went down in history under the index 49.
“The peculiarity of the new charge was that, using the basic principles of the RDS-37, it was possible to significantly reduce the overall parameters due to a new bold solution,”
Trutnev wrote already in the 2000s. It was product 49, first successfully tested on Novaya Zemlya on February 23, 1958, that was put into service and became the basis for the creation of modern nuclear weapons in Russia. For this work, Yuri Trutnev and his colleague and friend Yuri Babaev were awarded the Lenin Prize.
Dry lines about work on RDS-37 and Project 49 are the maximum that can be reported about what was done then. Until now, specific data about those works, as they say, relate to information constituting a state secret.
At the turn of the 1960s, the Americans actively tested their powerful thermonuclear charges against the backdrop of growing international tension. In order to to some extent compensate for the then still remaining gap between the USSR and the United States in the volume of thermonuclear arsenal, according to Trutnev’s idea, in 1961 they set the task of creating a superbomb with a capacity of up to 100 megatons.
This work took place very quickly - until October 1961. The test of the most powerful hydrogen bomb in history, which received the official index AN602, and popularly called the “Tsar Bomba” and “Kuzka’s Mother,” was successfully carried out on Novaya Zemlya on October 30, 1961. For safety reasons, a half-power charge was used here too. The energy release during the explosion was 58 megatons. The blast wave circled the Earth three times.
Of course, such a bomb had no military use - it simply could not be installed on intercontinental missiles, and it was not suitable for bomber aircraft. But that test had a colossal political result: it became clear that the USSR could create thermonuclear charges of any power. And it was then that the United States stopped the race for ever greater power of its hydrogen bombs. Thus, the balance of mutual deterrence, which essentially still ensures peace, became obvious. And Trutnev in 1962 was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
On Trutnev’s initiative and with his personal participation, the direction of creating industrial charges for peaceful purposes, which had national economic significance, emerged. The peculiarity of these charges was that they practically did not pollute the environment - the yield of radioactive “fragments” during their explosions was extremely small.
Some of these charges were used in practice - for example, in the 1960s to create the artificial Lake Chagan with a volume of 20 million cubic meters in Kazakhstan. It is noteworthy that Trutnev himself later swam in this lake - and without any harm to health.
Industrial charges have also found other practical applications - for example, extinguishing a burning torch in a gas field.
Yuri Trutnev’s enormous contribution was made in protecting Russia’s nuclear weapons complex from collapse in the early 1990s.
Immediately after the collapse of the USSR in January 1992, Trutnev wrote a report to President Boris Yeltsin, in which he substantiated the need to preserve Russia as a nuclear power, for which nuclear weapons can serve as the only guarantor of military security.
That call was heard. A few days later, at the end of January 1992, the Ministry of Atomic Energy appeared. Now its legal successor is Rosatom, whose main priority is fulfilling the state defense order and reliable provision of the nuclear weapons complex.
Yuri Alekseevich Trutnev, who now holds the post of first scientific deputy of the Sarov Nuclear Center, is working on new tasks. In the summer of 2016, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin came to Sarov to congratulate the RFNC-VNIIEF team on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the nuclear center. Rogozin then addressed special words of gratitude to Yuri Trutnev.
“I serve Russia as I previously served the Soviet Union,”
The scientist answered to applause from the crowded hall.