Creation of the first nuclear power plant in the USSR. How does a nuclear power plant work? What are nuclear power plants

A nuclear power plant is a complex of necessary systems, devices, equipment and structures intended for the production electrical energy. The station uses uranium-235 as fuel. Availability nuclear reactor distinguishes nuclear power plants from other power plants.

There are three mutual transformations of forms of energy at nuclear power plants

Nuclear power

goes into heat

Thermal energy

goes into mechanical

mechanical energy

converted to electrical

1. Nuclear energy turns into heat

The basis of the station is the reactor - a structurally allocated volume where nuclear fuel is loaded and where a controlled chain reaction takes place. Uranium-235 is fissile with slow (thermal) neutrons. As a result, a huge amount of heat is released.

STEAM GENERATOR

2. Thermal energy is converted into mechanical

Heat is removed from the reactor core by a coolant - a liquid or gaseous substance passing through its volume. This thermal energy is used to produce water vapor in a steam generator.

POWER GENERATOR

3. Mechanical energy is converted into electrical energy

The mechanical energy of the steam is sent to the turbogenerator, where it is converted into electrical energy and then goes to the consumers through the wires.

What is a nuclear power plant made of?

A nuclear power plant is a complex of buildings that house technological equipment. The main building is the main building where the reactor hall is located. It houses the reactor itself, the spent fuel pool nuclear fuel, refueling machine (for fuel refueling), all this is monitored by operators from the block control panel (BCR).

The main element of the reactor is the active zone (1) . It is located in a concrete shaft. Mandatory components of any reactor are the control and protection system, which allows to carry out the selected mode of the controlled fission chain reaction, as well as the emergency protection system - to quickly stop the reaction in the event of emergency. All this is mounted in the main building.

There is also a second building where the turbine hall (2) is located: steam generators, the turbine itself. Next along the technological chain are capacitors and high-voltage power lines that go beyond the station site.

On the territory there is a building for reloading and storage of spent nuclear fuel in special pools. In addition, the stations are equipped with elements circulation system Cooling towers (3) (concrete tower tapering at the top), cooling pond (natural or artificial) and spray pools.

What are nuclear power plants?

Depending on the type of reactor, nuclear power plants can have 1, 2 or 3 coolant operation circuits. In Russia, bypass NPPs with VVER-type reactors (pressure-cooled power reactor) are most widely used.

NPP WITH 1-LOOP REACTORS

The single-circuit scheme is used at nuclear power plants with RBMK-1000 type reactors. The reactor operates in a block with two condensing turbines and two generators. In this case, the boiling reactor itself is a steam generator, which makes it possible to use a single-loop scheme. The single-loop scheme is relatively simple, but the radioactivity in this case extends to all elements of the block, which complicates biological protection.

Currently, there are 4 nuclear power plants with single-loop reactors operating in Russia

NPP WITH 2-LOOP REACTORS

The double-circuit scheme is used at nuclear power plants with water-cooled reactors of the VVER type. Pressurized water is supplied to the reactor core, which is heated. The energy of the coolant is used in the steam generator to form saturated steam. The second circuit is non-radioactive. The unit consists of one 1000 MW condensing turbine or two 500 MW turbines with associated generators.

Currently, Russia has 5 nuclear power plants with double-loop reactors

NPP WITH 3-LOOP REACTORS

The three-loop scheme is used at nuclear power plants with fast neutron reactors with a sodium coolant of the BN type. To exclude the contact of radioactive sodium with water, a second circuit is constructed with non-radioactive sodium. Thus, the circuit turns out to be three-circuit.

June 7, 1954 in the village of Obninskoye, Kaluga Region, at the A.I. Leipunsky (Laboratory "B"), the world's first nuclear power plant was launched, equipped with one uranium-graphite channel reactor with water coolant AM-1 ("atom peaceful") with a capacity of 5 MW. From this date began the countdown of the history of nuclear energy.

During the years of the Great Patriotic War work has begun on the creation nuclear weapons, which was headed by a physicist, academician I. V. Kurchatov. In 1943, Kurchatov created a research center in Moscow - Laboratory No. 2 - later transformed into the Institute of Atomic Energy. In 1948 a plutonium plant with several industrial reactors was built, and in August 1949 the first Soviet atomic bomb was tested. After the production of enriched uranium was organized and mastered on an industrial scale, an active discussion began on the problems and directions for creating nuclear power reactors for transport applications and for generating electricity and heat. On behalf of Kurchatov, domestic physicists E.L. Feinberg and N.A. Dollezhal began to develop a design for a reactor for a nuclear power plant.

On May 16, 1950, a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR determined the construction of three experimental reactors - a water-cooled uranium-graphite reactor, a gas-cooled uranium-graphite reactor, and a gas- or liquid-metal-cooled uranium-beryllium reactor. According to the original plan, they were all supposed to work in turn for a single steam turbine and a 5000 kW generator. ...

In May 1954, the reactor was launched, and in June of the same year, the Obninsk nuclear power plant gave the first industrial current, paving the way for the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. Obninsk NPP has been successfully operating for almost 48 years. April 29, 2002 at 11:31 a.m. Moscow time, the reactor of the world's first nuclear power plant in Obninsk was permanently shut down. According to the press service of the Ministry Russian Federation on atomic energy, the station was shut down solely for economic reasons, as "keeping it in a safe condition every year became more and more expensive." In addition to power generation, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant reactor also served as a base for experimental research and for the production of isotopes for medical needs.

The operating experience of the first, essentially experimental, nuclear power plant fully confirmed the engineering and technical solutions proposed by the nuclear industry specialists, which made it possible to start implementing a large-scale program for the construction of new nuclear power plants in the Soviet Union. Obninsk NPP, even during the construction and start-up, turned into a wonderful school for the training of construction and installation personnel, scientists and operating personnel. The NPP performed this role for many decades during commercial operation and numerous experimental works on it. The Obninsk school was attended by such well-known specialists in nuclear energy as: G. Shasharin, A. Grigoryants, Yu. Evdokimov, M. Kolmanovsky, B. Semenov, V. Konochkin, P. Palibin, A. Krasin and many others.

In 1953, at one of the meetings, Minister of the USSR Ministry of Medium Machinery V. A. Malyshev posed to Kurchatov, Alexandrov and other scientists the question of developing a nuclear reactor for a powerful icebreaker, which the country needed in order to significantly extend navigation in our northern seas, and then make it year-round. At that time, special attention was paid to the Far North as the most important economic and strategic region. 6 years have passed, and the world's first nuclear-powered icebreaker "Lenin" went on its maiden voyage. This icebreaker served 30 years in the harsh conditions of the Arctic. Simultaneously with the icebreaker, a nuclear submarine (NPS) was being built. The government decision on its construction was signed in 1952, and in August 1957 the boat was launched. This first Soviet nuclear submarine was named "Leninsky Komsomol". She made an under-ice trip to the North Pole and returned safely to base.

“The energy industry of the world has entered a new era. It happened on June 27, 1954. Mankind is still far from realizing the importance of this new era.”

Academician A.P. Alexandrov

“In the Soviet Union, the efforts of scientists and engineers have successfully completed the design and construction of the first industrial nuclear power plant with a useful capacity of 5,000 kilowatts. On June 27, the nuclear power plant was put into operation and provided electricity for industry and Agriculture adjacent areas.

London, July 1 (TASS). The announcement of the start-up in the USSR of the first industrial power plant using atomic energy is widely noted by the British press, the Moscow correspondent of The Daily Worker writes that this historic event “is of immeasurably greater significance than the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Paris, July 1 (TASS). The London correspondent of Agence France-Presse reports that the announcement of the commissioning in the USSR of the world's first industrial power plant operating on atomic energy was received with great interest in London circles of atomic specialists. England, the correspondent continues, is building a nuclear power plant at Calderhall. It is believed that she will be able to enter service no earlier than in 2.5 years ...

Shanghai, July 1 (TASS). Responding to the commissioning of a Soviet nuclear power plant, Tokyo radio broadcasts: The USA and Britain are also planning the construction of nuclear power plants, but they plan to complete their construction in 1956-1957. The fact that the Soviet Union was ahead of England and America in the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes indicates that Soviet scientists have achieved great success in the field of atomic energy. One of the outstanding Japanese experts in the field nuclear physics- Professor Yoshio Fujioka, commenting on the news about the launch of a nuclear power plant in the USSR, said that this is the beginning of a "new era".

In the second half of the 40s, even before the completion of work on the creation of the first Soviet atomic bomb (its test took place on August 29, 1949), Soviet scientists began to develop the first projects for the peaceful use of atomic energy, the general direction of which immediately became the electric power industry.

In 1948, at the suggestion of I. V. Kurchatov and in accordance with the instructions of the party and government, the first work began on practical application atomic energy to generate electricity.

In May 1950, near the village of Obninskoye, Kaluga Region, work began on the construction of the world's first nuclear power plant.

The world's first industrial nuclear power plant with a capacity of 5 MW was launched on June 27, 1954 in the USSR, in the city of Obninsk, located in the Kaluga region. In 1958, the first stage of the Siberian NPP with a capacity of 100 MW was put into operation; subsequently, the full design capacity was increased to 600 MW. In the same year, the construction of the Beloyarsk industrial nuclear power plant, and on April 26, 1964, the generator of the 1st stage gave current to consumers. In September 1964, the 1st unit was launched Novovoronezh NPP with a capacity of 210 MW. The second unit with a capacity of 365 MW was launched in December 1969. In 1973, the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant was launched.

Outside the USSR, the first nuclear power plant for industrial use with a capacity of 46 MW was put into operation in 1956 at Calder Hall (Great Britain). with a capacity of 60 MW in Shippingport (USA).

In 1979, there was a serious accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, and in 1986, a large-scale disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which, in addition to its immediate consequences, seriously affected the entire nuclear energy industry as a whole. It forced experts all over the world to reassess the problem of nuclear power plant safety and think about the need for international cooperation in order to improve the safety of nuclear power plants.

On May 15, 1989, at the founding assembly in Moscow, it was announced the official formation of the World Association of Nuclear Power Plant Operators (WANO), an international professional association uniting organizations operating nuclear power plants around the world. The Association has set itself ambitious goals to improve nuclear safety throughout the world by implementing its international programs.

The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is the Zaporozhye NPP near the city of Energodar (Zaporozhye region, Ukraine), the construction of which began in 1980. Since 1996, 6 power units with a total capacity of 6 GW have been operating.

The largest nuclear power plant in the world, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa in terms of installed capacity (as of 2008), is located in the Japanese city of Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture - five boiling water reactors (BWR) and two advanced boiling nuclear reactors (ABWR) are in operation, the total capacity of which is 8.212 GW.

We visited the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, the world's first nuclear power plant. A nuclear power plant with only one AM-1 reactor (“peaceful atom”) with a capacity of 5 MW gave industrial current on June 27, 1954 in the village of Obninskoye near Moscow, Kaluga Region, on the territory of the so-called “laboratory B” (now the State Scientific Center of the Russian Federation “ Physical and Energy Institute named after Academician A.I. Leipunsky”).

The station was built in strict secrecy, and suddenly on June 30, 1954, not only throughout the country, but all over the world, a TASS message sounded, shocking the imagination of people: “In the Soviet Union, the efforts of scientists and engineers successfully completed the design and construction of the first industrial power plant at atomic energy with a useful capacity of 5000 kilowatts. On June 27, the nuclear power plant was put into operation and provided electricity for industry and agriculture in the surrounding areas.

On May 9, 1954, at 07:07 pm, the reactor of the First NPP was physically started up in the presence of I.V. Kurchatov and other members of the start-up commission - a chain reaction began. And only in October 1954 they reached 100% capacity, the turbine gave 5 thousand kW. This period of time - from physical start-up to design capacity - was a period of taming the "wild beast". The reactor had to be studied, its operating parameters compared with the calculated ones, and gradually brought to the design capacity.

The history of atomic energy, which began in Obninsk, has deep roots in pre-war and wartime. The station was built in an extremely short time. A little more than three years have passed from the preliminary design to the power start-up. The work of the creators of the First NPP was highly appreciated. A large group of participants in this work was awarded orders and medals. In 1956, D.I. Blokhintsev was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor, A.K. Krasin was awarded the Order of Lenin. The Lenin Prize was awarded in 1957 to D.I. Blokhintsev. N.A. Dollezhal, A.K. Krasin and V.A. Malykh.

Since the beginning of the operation of the First NPP, experimental work has been widely developed at it due to the construction of experimental loops and channels. Water boiling regimes were studied directly in the tubular fuel elements of the reactor, a loop was created to study heat transfer during coolant boiling, and steam was superheated in the reactor itself. The analysis of operating modes with steam boiling and overheating provided the basis for the design of large power reactors for the Beloyarsk, Bilibino, Leningrad NPPs and many others.

The tour was led by the oldest employee of the station. He's been here since the day he was founded.

The extensive technical experience gained on the basis of the operation of the First NPP and the extensive experimental material served as the foundation for further development nuclear power. So it was conceived, and this was facilitated by the design features of the Obninsk NPP reactor. They ensured great experimental possibilities of the reactor with good neutron-physical parameters.

The design of the reactor provides for four horizontal channels for materials science purposes. Two are used for the production of artificial radioactive isotopes and two are used to study the effect of neutron irradiation on the properties of various materials.

One of horizontal channels, withdrawn from the reactor core, was used to study the atomic-crystalline and magnetic structures of solids by neutron diffraction. The results of studies of the crystalline and magnetic structures of chromium, performed on a neutron diffractometer, received general recognition and were qualified as a scientific discovery.

Thus, the reactor of the First NPP became one of the main research reactor bases. On its design experimental facilities and on newly created 17 experimental loops, the manufacture of isotope products was organized, neutron-physical measurements were carried out in the field of solid state physics, reactor materials science, and others. comprehensive research before last day station operation.

Sensational messages in the media mass media around the world about the launch of the First NPP aroused a special interest in the great achievement of science and technology in the Soviet Union. Especially this interest increased among the scientific world and leaders of states after the First Geneva Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in the autumn of 1955. DI Blokhintsev made a report. Contrary to the established rules, the end of the report was met with a storm of applause.

Remote controller.

Shortly after the start-up, the nuclear power plant became available to the general public. The delegation of the British Atomic Energy Authority in the guest book expressed their admiration for the work of Professor Blokhintsev and his colleagues. The delegation of the GDR left a note stating that it was a great honor for itself to visit the nuclear power plant. The German physicist Hertz wrote in the guest book: "I have already heard and read a lot about nuclear power plants, but what I saw here exceeded all my expectations ...".

Among the guests who visited the Obninsk NPP at different times were prominent scientists, political and public figures: D. Nehru and I. Gandhi, A. Sukarno, W. Ulbricht, Kim Il Sung, I. Broz Tito, F. Joliot-Curie, G. Seaborg, F. Perren, Z. Eklund, G. K. Zhukov, Yu. A. Gagarin, members of the government of our country - G. M. Malenkov, L. M. Kaganovich, V. M. Molotov and many others.

During the first 20 years of operation, the First NPP was visited by about 60 thousand people.

Console spread.

The red button AZ (Emergency Protection) was pressed only once in 2002. She shut down the reactor.

Everything has its own life span, gradually wears out and becomes obsolete morally and physically. For 48 years of trouble-free operation, the First Nuclear Power Plant has exhausted its resource, having served 18 years longer than planned.

17h. 45 min. June 26, 1954 - steam is supplied to the turbine.
June 27, 1954 - the launch of the First Nuclear Power Plant, the message of the Pravda newspaper.
11 h 31 min. April 29, 2002 - the station is stopped, the chain reaction is stopped.

At present, the Obninsk NPP has been decommissioned. Its reactor was shut down on April 29, 2002, after nearly 48 years of successful operation. The station was stopped solely for economic reasons, since maintaining it in a safe condition every year became more and more expensive, the station had long been on state subsidies, and the research work carried out on it and the production of isotopes for the needs of Russian medicine covered only about 10% operating costs. At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy initially planned to shut down the NPP reactor only by 2005, after the 50-year resource had been exhausted.

Reactor room.

Reactor, part of the protective plates removed.

Spent fuel rods are immersed here.

Control panel for a crane carrying spent fuel rods. The operator looks through a quartz glass about 50 cm thick.

In the last years of the nuclear power plant, she was affectionately called the "old lady". She really became a mother and grandmother to the next generations of nuclear power plants, more powerful and perfect. Under the scientific guidance of the IPPE, the First NPP was built, and then important and well-known facilities were created with its participation: the transportable nuclear power plant TES-3, pilot fast reactors at the IPPE - BR-5, BR-10 and BOR-60 in Dimitrovgrad, transport nuclear power plants with a liquid-metal coolant for nuclear submarines, the world's first sodium-cooled fast neutron power reactor BN-350, a nuclear power plant with a fast neutron reactor BN-600 - the 3rd unit of the Beloyarskaya station, the Bilibino ATES, operating in the conditions of the Far North in the mode variable loads in terms of heat and electricity, space reactor-converters of the Topaz and Buk types.

And this is a picture that quite accurately shows how work was going on at the station.

---------------------

Photos taken by Moy and Dima

The world's first nuclear power plant is the quite official name of the main attraction of Obninsk, the history and structure of which was dedicated. Built in 1951-54, the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant operated for 48 years until April 29, 2002. With a capacity of only 5 MW, it was hundreds of times smaller than its modern descendants, but it was it that became the firstborn of Peaceful Atom. Moreover, the oldest nuclear power plants in the West - the British Calders Hill and the American Shippingport - were dismantled at the end of their service life. And since 2009, an industrial memorial complex has been operating at the Obninsk NPP - a kind of quasi-museum, which, however, is not so easy to get into.

Before, I showed many milestones of the Soviet nuclear project. For example - in Kyrgyzstan, the first uranium mine in the USSR, where ore was mined with a pick and carried on donkeys. Here is the neighboring one in Tajikistan - the city of the first Soviet uranium. This is where the first atomic bomb in the USSR was detonated in 1949, once and for all depriving America of its monopoly on superweapons. Here, from the hills of neighboring Verkh-Neyvinsk, is a center for isotope enrichment of uranium, and there is also Sarov, Ozyorsk, Seversk, Zheleznogorsk and other ZATOs, which, oh, how difficult it is to get into! The Soviet nuclear project, as is commonly believed, began with Beria's report to Stalin on American developments, and the words of the leader - "We must do it!". Then there was an explosion over Hiroshima, plans for an atomic bombing of Soviet cities, a hasty search for uranium in the most different places from to, and finally, by the 1950s, the creation of not yet nuclear parity with potential adversaries, but weapons of retaliation. However, the atomic bomb is only the end result, and the key link in the chain of its creation is the nuclear reactor-plutonium "producer". The world's first nuclear reactor, nicknamed the Chicago woodpile for its location and characteristic appearance, was built in 1942 by the Italian Enrico Fermi, and it was purely experimental. In 1943, in Oak Ridge, Tennis, the Clinton Woodpile, or X-1, was put into operation, the world's first "working" reactor in continuous operation, and in 1948, for the first time in history, the power grid of the enterprise was powered from it. The first experimental F-1 reactor in the USSR was launched in 1946 at the Moscow Laboratory No. 2 (now the Kurchatov Institute) and operated until 2016, and in 1948 in the current Ozyorsk ( Chelyabinsk region) earned the first industrial production reactor A-1, which provided the first Soviet atomic bomb. However, as often happens, theory was ahead of practice: if the first purely paper project of an atomic bomb in the USSR appeared back in 1940, then in 1945 Academician Pyotr Kapitsa presented a report "On the use of intra-atomic energy for peaceful purposes." From the very beginning, the future Obninsk was a little away from the atomic project, as if above the battle: the Laboratory "V" that gave it its start, founded in 1946 (since 1960 - the Physics and Energy Institute), has never dealt with nuclear weapons.

We will start the path to the First Nuclear Power Plant in the world in the Old City - an area of the 1950s, built back in those days when there was not the city of Obninsk here, but a settlement at Object "B" and a scattering of estates, villages and boarding schools around it. I talked about the Old Town with its quiet shady streets, grandiose old pine trees, silence and cleanliness in the last part, but now let's continue our walk to the beginning of Lenin Avenue. On the frame above - the FEI Palace of Culture, completed in 1954, almost simultaneously with the nuclear power plant, and although the monument in front of it is Lenin, this porch remembers the whole color of Soviet nuclear and space science.

The Old Town has a surprisingly sterile landscape, as if it was in the 1960s:

And here it is not the 21st century that wedged in, but only the 1980s in the backyard:

One of the oldest buildings in Obninsk is a school (1949), where the children of the first employees of Laboratory "V" studied, and great scientists and designers entered its doors as just someone's dads or moms. A monument in front of the school, however, not to any of the eminent parents of her students, but to Stanislav Shatsky, who we knew from the last part - his colony "Cheerful Life" from here beyond the ravine.

The last quarters in front of the IPPE, where the street makes a very noticeable turn - in the perspective of Lenin Avenue, not the building of the institute, but behind Protva:

Houses on the other side of the block look at the Institute with their windows:

From the facades of the houses in both quarters to the south and north of Lenin Avenue, they are the same, and their appearance is clearly the turn of the 1940s and 50s. But house number 1 looks completely different from the yard:

In the same style and the main building of the IPPE, peeking out from behind the entrance:

At the checkpoint there are a couple more buildings, one of which is occupied by institute offices, the other by a telephone exchange:

I was not given permission to take pictures on the territory of the IPPE, and the Obninsk NPP is located on another site, so I was not at the main entrance. But the Main Building is a building with a very interesting history, and its architecture clearly shows that it was not built at the time of the "songs of the winners": it was a Spanish orphanage. Rather, the building was laid in 1937 as a boarding school for children with tuberculosis, but just on the eve of its opening, the Santay steamer from Bilbao arrived in Leningrad, and soon the train brought five hundred Spanish children and several dozen of their teachers to Obninskoye station. Some were the children of Spanish revolutionaries like Dolores Ibarruri, some were simply orphans and refugees whose homes were destroyed by the Civil War. The experience of rehabilitating homeless children in the USSR, born of its Civil War, was enormous, but it was not easy to cope with the Spanish temperaments: the children dismantled the toys one by one and distributed them equally, they fought with daisies in the meadow (in their homeland it was a symbol of children's fascist organizations), the very first football match deprived the building of most of the glass, and once the little Spaniards climbed into the control room of the Obninskoye station and staged a semaphore doomsday. All this extravaganza did not last long - during the war, the Spanish orphanage was evacuated to Saratov, the grown-up Ruben Ibarruri became a pilot and died a hero, and people with Spanish surnames in Russia are still not uncommon (for example, as a student I had a classmate Sanchez-Perez). Capital buildings in a beautiful clean place quickly found a new owner - Object "B". Nevertheless, on the day of my arrival at the IPPE, there was a fair amount of fuss - a delegation led by the Kaluga governor and the Spanish ambassador came to open the memorial plaque.

13. photo courtesy of the press service of JSC SNCC RF IPPE

The house from frame No. 10 served as the apartments of tutors. Judging by appearance, the FEI hotel also belonged to the Spanish orphanage, the facade of which is clearly visible at the end of Mendeleev Street, hugging the Institute, if you stand facing the entrance and look to the right.

On the ground floor, behind an inconspicuous door, there is an excellent dining room "Health", among the visitors of which there are many obvious people of science:

And if you turn left at the hotel and go along the fence of the institute, then at the foot of one of the buildings you can see a nice wooden house.
In the closed territory of the IPPE, near the Main Building, there are monuments to Dmitry Blokhintsev and Alexander Leipunsky. The first is better known as one of the founders of the famous Institute for Nuclear Research and the author of a number of discoveries in quantum physics, he headed Object "B", though not for long, but at the most crucial time - 1950-56. Alexander Leipunsky was the scientific director of the institute. He laid the foundation scientific school IPPE, the flower of local science, are his students and students of his students, so since 1996 the institute has been called IPPE named after Alexander Leipunsky. Well, this wooden mansion is known as the "Leipunsky's house" - the scientist lived here in 1949-72, until his death. Now this is not a museum, but an ordinary and dilapidated municipal housing:

Going further into the forest, you can see another similar house - these are the remains of the Turliki estate, better known as the Morozovskaya dacha. In 1901, a nobleman and well-known publicist Viktor Obninsky settled here, the owner of the Belkino estate familiar to us from the last part, to whom the city through railway station owes its name. In 1909, Turliki was bought by Margarita Morozova, a step-relative of Savva Morozov, the textile king from. Under her, in the 1910s, wooden buildings were built - Leipunsky's house was originally the mansion of the estate manager, and this is the house for guests of the estate:

And a little further away - and the stone Main House, in an equally sad state:

At its core, it was built back in the time of Obninsk in the romantic "English" style. An observation tower rose above the roof, and the interiors were decorated with furniture from the Kaluga house of Imam Shamil, the leader of the endless Caucasian war who surrendered to the Russian authorities. There was heating, elevators, linoleum floors - all with the latest technology of that time. In the 1910s, under Morozova, the house was rebuilt, and there is a version (seemingly not entirely reliable) that the textile princess ordered the project from the founder of Moscow Art Nouveau Lev Kekushev.

During the revolution and the civil war, about the same thing happened to Turliki as to the majority of Russian estates, and since 1918, "Cheerful Life" spread here from behind the ravine. And in 1942, the Morozov Dacha, together with the Spanish orphanage, was occupied by the Headquarters of the Western Front. The roof of the estate was painted in khaki color, the tower was cut off, and a net of barbed wire was stretched between the trees, over which they threw spruce branches - the estate was not visible from the air. A whole system of underground communications has grown under the buildings - the so-called Zhukovsky caves, through the efforts of popular rumor, have grown into a semblance of medieval catacombs. After the war, Morozovskaya Dacha served as a home for high-ranking guests, first of all, Igor Kurchatov, who regularly came to supervise the work of Laboratory "V". Then it was an IPPE dispensary, and in 2016 Turliki was transferred to the balance of the city. The estate is now awaiting restoration, but until it has been put in order, the entrance to the territory is closed, only the museum sometimes conducts excursions. However, the interiors of the house have been preserved. Well, I walked in the snow along the fence for a long time to find a suitable view of the facade:

All this can be seen just by arriving in Obninsk. But the FEI is spread over half the city, it is worthy of the size large plant(2 km by 500 m), consists of two sites separated by a road, and the Obninsk NPP is located in the very heart of the site that is further away. Calling the museum, I found out that excursions to the world's first nuclear power plant are free of charge, but for groups of at least 15 people, without the possibility of joining a ready-made group and without photography. Then I called the Director of Communications Alexey Yuryevich Gromyko, and you owe the rest of this post to him: he met my proposal with interest, but still it took another week for all the approvals, calls and letters to the press service, museum and security service. As a result, I was allowed to join a group of schoolchildren and take pictures "in prescribed places" - that is, strictly inside the building of the World's First Nuclear Power Plant. And so, having walked around the city, at the agreed time I was at the entrance, where a bus with ninth-graders from one of the Obninsk lyceums was waiting. I took the following shots with graffiti on the way back at dusk - the entrances of the two sites are connected by the same Mendeleev street:

Laboratory "V" - IPPE has developed more than 120 projects of nuclear reactors in its history. But the original project "AM-1" was not deciphered at all as the Atom of the Peace, but as the Atom of the Sea. Weapons were not created here, but still, Laboratory "B" also worked for the defense industry: its first project was nuclear reactors for submarines. The huge uranium-graphite reactor was not very suitable for ships, unlike a power plant. The world's first nuclear power plants (in the USSR) and nuclear submarines (in the USA) went into operation almost simultaneously - in 1954, but the creation of the Soviet nuclear submarine dragged on until 1959, and the crews for it were also trained in Obninsk. In subsequent decades, IPPE created nuclear reactors who can stand still, ride, swim and even fly.

Among the brainchildren of the IPPE were not only the nuclear reactors of most Soviet nuclear power plants, ships and icebreakers, but also such exotic things as the Pamir mobile NPP-all-terrain vehicles (in the frame below they are against the backdrop of the Obninsk NPP thermal power plant) for supplying energy to geological parties in the remote corners of the Far North or space nuclear reactors "Buk" and "Topaz" with a one-year service life, which ensured the operation of satellite equipment.

FEI access road, diesel locomotive at the bus stop. The equipment of the Obninsk NPP was transported along these tracks:

If next to the main site there is Leipunsky's house, then at the second site, which is located on the site of the village of Pyatkino - respectively, Kurchatov's house. This is no longer a manor - a wooden mansion, in which it is difficult to recognize the Stalinist style, was built in 1952-53. Now it is in a protected area, looking out from behind the gate, but it is planned to equip it with a museum and an interactive educational center for children.

The most interesting thing in this house is on the reverse side: the snow-covered Bench of Three "K", on which Igor Kurchatov, Sergey Korolev and Mstislav Keldysh sat. And although it is not known for sure whether they have ever been here all together, it is breathtaking to think what prospects could be discussed on this bench on warm summer nights, without unnecessary officialdom.

In the checkpoint room, I left my backpack with a laptop, phone and flash drives in the storage room, and the security guard checked my passport with the list, and together with the guide and museum manager Inna Mikhailovna, I got on the bus. Groups of "from 15 people" are here precisely because it is a little less than a kilometer from the checkpoint to the nuclear power plant, and of course, tourists are not taken on foot through the territory of such a regime institution. Even the facade of the Obninsk nuclear power plant and information posters next to it are forbidden to shoot!

25. photo courtesy of the press service of JSC SNCC RF IPPE

The peaceful atom was created in the strictest secrecy, from the air the site had to have a minimum of differences from city blocks. Therefore, the Obninsk NPP consists of two buildings - to the left of the main road, the actual nuclear power plant with a reactor, to the right - a thermal power plant. It is not quite obvious to the layman that a nuclear reaction is used to heat the boiler, and even nuclear ships are actually steamships. So, at the CHPP, hot steam was supplied from the reactor hall through an underground steam pipeline. On June 26, 1954, the power start-up of the world's first nuclear power plant took place, and when a cloud of steam appeared over the building of the thermal power plant, which was not yet hot enough to turn the turbine, Igor Kurchatov exclaimed "Enjoy steam!": for nuclear scientists, this phrase means about the same as Gagarin's "Go!" for astronauts. Those pipes from which the "light steam" went were not preserved, they are visible in the black-and-white photograph with the "Pamirs" (No. 21a), and the current striped pipes are of late Soviet construction.

The current status of the Obninsk NPP is twofold. With a power of 5 MW, by the end of the 20th century, the "old woman" (as nuclear scientists affectionately called her) worked mainly for scientific purposes, and also produced isotopes for medicine. Its exploitation did not pay off, the design period came out a long time ago (although the "old woman" was cheerful and could have worked for years), and in 2002 it was decided to stop the Obninsk nuclear power plant - the first of the Soviet nuclear power plants. But they did not begin to break down its building, and in parallel with the dismantling of the equipment, the creation of an industrial memorial complex was going on. It opened for sightseers in 2009, conservation work was completed in 2015, but even now the world's first nuclear power plant resembles an operating enterprise rather than a museum, and in its narrow corridors we met concentrated employees more than once or twice. At the entrance, according to the regulations, the group dresses in white coats and shoe covers.

The tour passes 4 objects. The first is the control and radiation safety post on the first floor. The recorders and dials of the measuring instruments here continuously showed data on the level of radiation and the composition of the air in the working rooms of the station. The valves on the wall on the left each correspond to one of the rooms, from where, when they were pressed, an air sample was taken for analysis.

Minor failures in the operation of the world's first nuclear power plant at first occurred regularly, sometimes several times a day, but none of them turned into a serious emergency. For 48 years of work at the Obninsk NPP, there was not a single dangerous release of radiation into the environment or cases of exposure of employees (but at other facilities of the institute in the same 1954, there was a much more serious incident - not with the dead, but with the injured).

Dosimeters, including a "pencil" - at the workplace such hung on the chest of each employee:

Radiation protection suits. These were used in the repair of equipment in the "hot cell" room, where spent fuel assemblies are cut. When put on, this one is also blown from the inside, so that at the slightest depressurization, a person notices this from the outgoing air, and manages to leave the dangerous room while the air is escaping from the suit, preventing the contaminated air from penetrating under the suit.

In general, it is difficult to talk about nuclear power plants, if only because most of its technology, in principle, is not clear to people who are far from the topic. For example, the UIM-2D device for measuring the speed of impulses - how many of those reading these lines say anything about this?

Straight to the stationmaster's office. The situation, while the nuclear power plant was operating, changed here several times, and the current one has been recreated as of the 1950s. On the wall - portraits of directors, on the table - a small exposition of measuring instruments:

But the main artifact of this room is Guest book. Initially, the Obninsk NPP was built in such a secret environment that not even all the construction participants knew exactly what they were doing - they simply made calculations without being aware of the whole picture. When Pravda wrote about the launch of Mirny Atom, not even all the employees of Object "B" knew that they had this Mirny Atom, and when the men walking by asked the nuclear workers who had covered a clearing near the coast of Protva, "What are you celebrating?" They answered - "We are celebrating the Lunar Eclipse!". But soon Mirny Atom began to open up to the world, and only under the Soviets, as part of various delegations, more than 60 thousand people visited the Obninsk NPP (for comparison, now the attendance of the museum is 3-5 thousand tourists a year).

An old guest book with autographs by Georgy Zhukov, Yuri Gagarin, Ho Chi Minh, Indira Gandhi, Broz Tito and other already legendary personalities of the 20th century is now kept in Moscow. But the current book with inscriptions in all languages of the world looks impressive. Eminent guests visit the World's First Nuclear Power Plant even now - for example, a few years ago it was visited by the British Prince Michael of Kent.

And not far away, behind a door marked with children's drawings and a monument to Kurchatov (he wore a Sumerian beard, by the way, because he was very young for his significance and tried to look more respectable among the veterans of physics) ...

The central control panel of the nuclear power plant is located. The strange contraption on the left puzzled me with its absolute cosmic appearance, and it was really intended for space. This is nothing else than the already mentioned "Buk" (or rather, its model), a space nuclear power plant for powering onboard equipment. Since 1970, at least 30 spacecraft have been launched with it.

Nuclear power plant control panel:

Again, just like (from his remote control - my current avatar), I cannot but admire the technical design of Soviet nuclear technology.

And on the other hand - fuel assemblies for different types of reactors (RBMK, VVR and BN-600). Fuel assemblies are what is loaded into the core of a nuclear reactor. Each assembly is a "bundle" of fuel rods - fuel elements, long rods with nuclear fuel pellets inside, and is arranged so that the nuclear reaction is efficient, but controlled. The word "TVEL" was also born in Laboratory "V" in 1951, even before the construction of the Obninsk nuclear power plant, and their creator was Vladimir Malykh, whom his colleagues called the "king of TVELs". Today, Russia, represented by the TVEL company with its main production in Elektrostal near Moscow, accounts for 17% of the world nuclear fuel market, and all 100% for some types of reactors.

Well, the last point is the holy of holies of the nuclear power plant, its reactor. The way to it is along an inconspicuous staircase in the floor, along narrow winding corridors:

First, the corridors lead to the crane control panel. From this console, work did not always go on, but only when the reactor lid was opened to replace the active technological channels:

Behind the green windows - as if layouts. In fact, half a meter of protective quartz glass gives this effect:

The crane operator's cabin looks into the reactor hall like a gloomy three-eyed Martian:

At the bottom right is a characteristic "sieve", a holding pool for spent channels:

The channels themselves, of course, without fuel and "clean":

When the reactor was closed with a multi-ton lid, the crane operator worked from the console on a glazed area almost above the reactor itself. The chief designer of the Obninsk NPP reactor was Nikolai Dollezhal, who participated in the creation of reactors and subsequent Soviet nuclear power plants.

The guide said the phrase "America is a country of atomic darkness, Russia is a country of atomic light." The United States created an atomic bomb and dropped it on the city, and the USSR, although it was 4-5 years behind in terms of weapons and ships, created the world's first nuclear power plant. In 1956, the first nuclear power plant in Britain gave electricity, and in 1957 - in the USA. In 1958, the Siberian nuclear power plant near Tomsk began operating, dozens of times more powerful than Obninsk, but still mainly engaged in plutonium production. The same applies to the Beloyarsk nuclear power plant in the Urals, launched in 1964, now the oldest operating in Russia. And the first completely civilian nuclear power plant in the country was Novovoronezh, which started operating in the same 1964. But the most famous nuclear power plant Soviet Union, sadly, it remained, and there is a great injustice in this. When the catastrophe happened there, headlines like "Savages should not be allowed to high technologies" appeared in the foreign press, and the authors of them clearly managed to forget who exactly created and first embodied these technologies. At the moment, the reactor of the Obninsk nuclear power plant has 441 living "descendants", Japan shut down another 40 of its reactors after Fukushima. And Russia continues to build Atom stations and deliver fuel to them both at home and around the world.

But the museum of the World's First Nuclear Power Plant is unlikely to ever become easily accessible - it is too far from the entrance, and IPPE does too responsible work to make the passage to it free. Finally - a view of the IPPE from the train, the Obninsk NPP belongs to the high chimney of the main building on the left and the low chimneys of the thermal power plant in the middle.

Obninsk forms a well-marked agglomeration, which includes Balabanovo, Borovsk, Maloyaroslavets and many smaller towns and villages. As already mentioned in the last part, now this is one of the most prosperous corners of Russia. Well, for history Center this system is answered by Borovsk, where we will go in the next 3-4 parts.

KALUGA REGION-2018
and a heading.
and a heading.
. City.
Obninsk. The world's first nuclear power plant.
Borovsk. Pafnutiev Monastery and environs.
Borovsk. Centre.
Borovsk. Suburbs and details.
Kaluga. General color.
Kaluga. Old market and surroundings.
Kaluga. Churches.
Kaluga. Chambers and mansions.
Kaluga. Cradle of Cosmonautics.