ABSTRACT
The pioneering Soviet reactors at Novovoronezh and Beloyarsk both started operation in 1964. In what followed, the civilian side of the Soviet nuclear industry entered what we will refer to as its “first boom phase.” The time had come, or so the country’s political leaders thought, to harvest the promised fruits of the “peaceful nuclear worker” on a grand scale. The expansion was to take place based on the two standardized light-water reactor types discussed in the preceding chapter, the VVER and the RBMK. The first was based on the developments at Novovoronezh. The second built on the Beloyarsk experience. 89
