Sarov

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Sarov (Template:Lang-ru) is a town in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia, located at Template:Coor dm. It was known as Kremlyov (Template:Lang) in 1991–1995. In 1946–1991 it was called Arzamas-16 (Template:Lang) and considered a closed town generally off limits to foreigners. Population: 87,652 (2002 Census).

1 History
2 See also
3 References
4 External links
5 Maps

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History

The history of the town can be divided into two completely different periods. In the earlier history of Russia it was known as a holy place for Orthodoxy, for its monastery, that gave Russia one of its greatest saints, St. Seraphim. In the newest history, it is USSR's and Russia's secret nuclear center, where Soviet nuclear weapons were created by the greatest Russian scientists.

The history of Sarov started in the 12th–13th centuries, when a large Mordovian settlement was found on its spot. In 1298, the city was taken over by Tatars.

The town took its original name from being the site of the Sarova monastery next to the Sarovka River, the waters of which thought to have healing powers. In 1664, monk Theodosius first settled on Sarov mountain. The first Church of Sarov tenement was found in 1706. Saint Seraphim was living in Sarov from 1778 to 1833. In 1903, the town was visited by Tsar family. At that time it had nine churches, including one underground. Around 320 monks lived in the monastery.

In 1923, the monastery was completely closed, monks faced bolshevik repressions, many were executed. During WWII, the monastery buildings were used as factories for producing rockets for BM-13 "Katyusha" rocket launchers.

In 1946 the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics, a nuclear weapons design facility that would become known in the West under the acronym VNIIEF, was built. The town received a code name of Arzamas-16 and was removed from all unclassified maps. In 1954, Arzamas-16 was given a city status.

Much of the city was built by German POWs and the architecture has a definite German / European flavor. The city houses the Russian Federation Nuclear Center and "Atomic Bomb" museum which has a number of casings of Soviet-era nuclear weapons and photographs of those involved in their production. Most access is by train, which, after a security stop and inspection, is allowed into the city to disembark passengers. A small airport on the facility is generally for government aircraft only, and visitors usually fly to Nizhny Novgorod airport and then drive three hours.

The city is surrounded by fences that are patrolled by the military. Foreigners and Russians, who do not live in Sarov, are not allowed to enter the city. Foreigners who visit for business have to get special permission and are forced to surrender their passport, phone and camera to Russian security while they are in the facility, though some documentary filmmakers have shot footage inside the city walls.

The actual location of the closed city, "Arzamas-16" is difficult to find on the maps. This is because a large portion of it is located on the grounds of the P.G.S. State Park in the adjacent Temnikovsky District of the Republic of Mordovia.

In 1993, it became a sister city to Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site of the U.S. nuclear weapons design laboratory (Los Alamos National Laboratory, or LANL). Scientists from LANL and VNIIEF have cooperated on various arms control and nuclear safeguards programs, under which the Los Alamos scientists learned, to their amusement, that their Russian colleagues paid homage to their American rivals by irreverently calling their own laboratory "Los Arzamas."

Boris Yeltsin changed the city's name to back Sarov after a formal request from residents in August 1995.

In present days, the Russian Federal nuclear center is responsible for important decisions of development, production, storage and utilisation of nuclear weapons, and recycling of radioactive and other materials. Research in fundamental and applied physics is conducted as well.

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References

"Los Alamos and Arzamas-16: The 'Sister Cities' Relationship," Los Alamos Science 24 (1996): 44-47.[1]
Борис Забываев. "Любимый город". Саров в Internet. [2]

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