ABSTRACT
Answer. I specially touch upon this subject in the second edition of my book 0 Nauke, o Sebe i o Drugikh [About Science, Myself, and Others], which is now in print. 1 A renowned Anglo-American physicist, who visited the USSR at the end of the 1950s, said to explain the enthusiasm of Soviet physicists, 'But they do not have anything else!' He meant that from the point of view of economic conditions our life was difficult, contacts with abroad were almost non-existent, and we lived in a totalitarian state. That is why such things as work and science were everything for us-serving as a safety-valve and acting as a drug. I must confess that, for a long time, I agreed with this diagnosis. But now I understand that it was the truth but by far not the whole truth. Indeed, in spite of all the drawbacks of our life, in today's Russia we can go to conferences and in general we can communicate freely with our colleagues all over the world, there is no our censorship and, on the whole, we are free. However, the majority of people no longer have our former enthusiasm. This can be explained by the sharp decrease in the financing of science and the change of attitude towards it in the country. In the USSR, physicists were held in high esteem. Going in for physics (unlike going in for the truly scientific biology) was prestigious. And now a scientist in Russia is, on average, far worse provided for than a
secretary in some firm and scientific work is not prestigious. That is why many scientists move abroad or go into business or so forth. This situation is true even for people who ardently love science.
