ABSTRACT
On one autumn evening in 1968, when work on preparing a memorial for Igor Vasil’evich Kurchatov was in full swing, I had the privilege to be the guest of his widow, Marina Dmitrievna. We sat at a table set for tea, on which bright, cheerful flowers stood in a round vase. The cordiality of my hostess, her cultured simplicity, and the atmosphere of calm and remembrance led us into conversation. Gradually, our discussions of museum affairs shifted to the past, and Marina Dmitrievna began to reminisce about life in Leningrad and the intense period of self-deprivation during Igor Vasil’evich’s activities in Moscow. At one point, we began to talk about the book by P.AstashenkovKurchatov. Marina Dmitrievna did not favour the book, which must have dismayed rather than gladdened her, and expressed regret that she had shown the author letters from her husband, which she had kept. However, when I remarked that the best book about Igor Vasil’evich was probably still to be written, Marina Dmitrievna sadly disagreed: ‘No…Another time has come. Now the cosmonauts get all the glory. The creators of nuclear weapons have passed into shadow….’
