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May 01, 2020

Sarov: A City Closed

Sarov: A City Closed

Monday, August 12, 2019, was a somber day in Sarov, birthplace of the Soviet Union’s first atomic bomb and still the hub of its nuclear program.

Thousands gathered in the city’s main square to view five coffins brought back from the State Central Navy Testing Range a couple of thousand kilometers to the northeast, where five Sarov scientists ­had been killed in the August 8 Nyonoksa radiation accident. Russian officials described the accident as a failed test of “an isotope power source for a liquid-fueled rocket engine.” Whatever the cause (We­stern experts suspected the accident stemmed from a Burevestnik cruise missile test), the mournful gathering was a reminder of the perilous business that is the focus of this nuclear “company town.”

The five were laid to rest in Sarov’s main cemetery.

According to the most recent official count, Russia has 38 “administrative-territorial formations” categorized as “closed,” in other words, requiring special authorization to visit. One of these is the city of Sarov – birthplace of the Russian atom bomb and still the center of the country’s nuclear program. Yet it is also a Mecca for Orthodox Christians, and a rather nice place to live.

No Entry

Unlike most of Russia’s closed cities, Sarov (accent on the second syllable) has centuries-old roots and dates to long before there was such a concept. It may have started as a Mordvin settlement that was eventually deserted. After sitting empty for many years, the site became home to what would be one of Russian Orthodoxy’s most revered holy sites – the Sarov Monastery. The monastery is primarily renowned for being where Prokhor Moshnin performed the feats of asceticism and healing that earned him glorification as Saint Seraphim in 1903. Then, in the late 1940s, Sarov was where the Soviet Union centered its efforts to create its first atom bomb. Suddenly, Sarov disappeared from Soviet maps. In 1954, the research center was legally designated a city, first with the name Kremlyov, then Arzamas-60, then Arzamas-16, before, in 1995, reverting to its original name – Sarov.

housing complex
A housing and sports complex.

The primary task of the city’s All-Russia Experimental Physics Scientific Research Institute is to maintain the reliability of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Beyond that, its research topics entail supercomputer technology, the study and development of nonnuclear weapons, the use of nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes, and basic science. All of it is top secret. The center’s staff is not allowed to bring any communication or recording devices to work, tell anyone what they are working on (even their families), and are certainly not allowed to travel overseas. The research facilities are heavily guarded, with an entire army division responsible for their security.

For the residents of this closed city, everything beyond its perimeters is “the Mainland.” Their world is enclosed in barbed wire. In Soviet times, nobody could enter the town without an official invitation.

Roman Svanidze
Roman Svanidze

One longstanding local, the actor, writer, and head of an Orthodox nonprofit, Roman Svanidze, tells the following story, which gives an idea of how stringent constraints on the city once were: “A math teacher told me that she came close to divorcing her husband, since he had utterly vanished. Her husband had been sent to our city at a time when there was a much higher level of secrecy and you weren’t even allowed to send a letter. Imagine: he’s here, she’s on the Mainland. Not a word from him. Who wouldn’t imagine the worst? Fortunately, there was a happy ending. The restrictions were slightly loosened, the husband was able to tell his wife where he was, and the family was reunited.”

When Svanidze went away to school, he and others from Sarov were not allowed to say where they came from. When people from the Mainland asked questions, they were supposed to say that they lived in Arzamas or Nizhny Novgorod. Arzamas was 80 kilometers from Sarov and Nizhny Novgorod was a good 200.

As a resident of Sarov, Svanidze had a permanent pass to enter and leave the city. He and his wife went out of town rather often and even traveled abroad, since they did not have access to secret information. One thing they could not do was invite friends to visit, only immediate family, and those visits required an application to the FSB three months in advance. Not every application was approved.

Smokestack
Electric power station.

 “Several years ago, our daughter came to visit with her husband and son,” another Sarovian recalls, the local photographer Vladimir Cherkasov. “They still let our daughter visit, but for some mysterious reason they won’t let her husband and son in.”

Distant relatives are only allowed in for funerals, weddings, and certain other major life events. You can’t just visit your Sarov relatives because you feel like it.

The Local Workforce

Today, however, there are more people coming and going than in Soviet times. Some families have brought their parents to live with them, others, their children. There are also many more people coming to Sarov for employment, mostly from neighboring villages to work in commerce and the service sector. They come in the morning and leave in the evening and are not allowed to stay overnight. These workers are granted temporary passes.

Most locals work under the umbrella of Rosatom (the State Atomic Energy Corporation), but Sarov also has companies that make high-tech products in demand across Russia and the world. 

City street
The intersection of Dzherzhinsky and Sakharov Streets.

Cherkasov used to have a factory job, but then went to work selling computer hardware. A year and a half ago he switched professions and opened a photography studio. He knows better than anyone the rules about what can and cannot be shot. For a long time, there was a ban on photographing views of the city. Not everyone obeyed these rules, but they also didn’t hurry to put their pictures on social media. Today the ban is limited to photographing secret facilities (launch pads, factories, testing grounds), even in the background. This is strictly enforced. Drones are also banned, except for those operated by emergency responders and the local television station.

These limitations have advantages and disadvantages for local businesses. Dmitry Chorich is a supplier to local restaurants, but for now the fact that the city is closed works to his benefit. There isn’t much competition, so there is little pressure to lower prices and little consequence when he raises them.

Roman Aleinik came to Sarov from Penza in 2009, when he was invited to run the local television station. He and his colleagues managed a complete overhaul, changing what was being broadcast and launching another informational station and a free newspaper. Later, he had to leave the company. Today Aleinik serves as a media expert and conducts publicity trainings for the nuclear center, helping to improve relations with the public. He has a program on the Sarov Speaks radio station called “The Quiet Hour,” where he and his colleagues discuss the city’s current affairs and collaborate with a number of print publications. Since 2014 he has also run a large bookstore. He has a somewhat different take on the development of business in Sarov.

“Imagine that my source for office supplies brings a shipment but isn’t allowed to deliver to my store. He drives up to the checkpoint, unloads his goods into another truck, which I have to hire, a local one, and only then the shipment is brought to its destination. You have to pay for the labor and the fuel twice. All that affects prices.”

As Aleinik explains, the real competition is not against local businesses but with the Mainland and online merchants. Since expenses for local businesses are higher, prices tend to be as well, so Sarovians prefer to buy online or in neighboring towns. Then again, as Aleinik pointed out, the dividing line between businesses within the city limits and those on the Mainland is being gradually erased.

The local mentality has also shaped how business is conducted. Decades of being a closed city has made Sarovians more cautious, taciturn, and confident that nothing is impossible for their nuclear center. They are never in a hurry, keep to the same steady pace, and consider mealtime to be sacred. Don’t expect to get anything done during the lunch break!

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Aleinik comments. “You just have to get used to it.”

the Younger Generation

Sarov’s local government has not neglected the infrastructure for childhood fun: there is an amusement park, and every housing complex has its own playground. To develop the bodies and minds of local children, there are music and art schools, libraries, an ice rink, stadiums, skiing centers, a network of trails used for rollerblading in the summer and for cross-country skiing in the winter, and countless clubs, teams, and hobby groups. Most of these amenities are free.

Despite the city’s closed status, it has many post-secondary students. The nuclear center is mainly staffed with graduates of the Sarov Institute of Physics and Technology. You don’t have to be from Sarov to enroll. Recruiters travel to nearby towns and villages, such as Temnikov, Diveyevo, and Voznesenskoye. But sometimes students come from far away. Those wishing to attend the institute’s open house must of course apply for permission to visit in advance, via email.

Colors Day
Colors Festival on Youth Day.

Ilya Farin came to the Sarov Institute from the small town of Ardatov, also in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. He chose Sarov for several reasons: it is prestigious, relatively close to home, and his degree would give him an opportunity to get a job where he could continue his scientific studies.

“At first it felt a bit odd living behind barbed wire, where the population is just 100,000. Everyone knows everyone else, or at least everyone has friends in common. But six years later I don’t even notice that,” Farin explains. “My thesis topic was not secret, since there aren’t many people in the world working in the same area, and my advisor and I were hoping for some feedback on it. But some theses are secret: then, even your teachers don’t know the content and your research and defense is curated directly by the research institute.”

Farin has now finished his master’s degree and is a doctoral candidate. In parallel with his studies he has a job as a research engineer. He’s not worried about the restrictions his job will place on him, and doesn’t think it’s a good idea to talk about work with his relatives anyway, since his field is so specialized.

Farin said he feels confident that the city has everything he needs for both work and play. In Zernov Park (named for Pavel Zernov, who headed up the effort to build and launch the nuclear research facilities in what was then Arzamas-16) he can play soccer, volleyball, or tennis. The city has many sports fields and fitness centers, and offers opportunities to pursue all sorts of exercise, including yoga, qigong, and cycling. Ilya himself likes fixing up cars, although it’s hard to find the time: in the winter he skis and skates, and in the summer he helps his parents in their vegetable garden.

Cultural Life

Sarov’s research scientists have always been involved in the city’s cultural life. Yuly Khariton, who worked at the forefront of the Soviet atom bomb project, never missed a premiere at the local theater.

It’s not easy staging plays in a closed city. Out on the Mainland, shows usually come into their own sometime around the tenth performance, but here, they are usually retired after six, since pretty much everyone has already seen them. Sarov’s theater-going public is always looking for something new, so the city has about ten premieres a year. If an actor decides to leave town, that can throw the theatrical calendar off schedule for six months, since it isn’t easy to cast a replacement in a smallish closed city.

Nevertheless, Sarov has a rich cultural life. Aside from the theater there are libraries, art galleries, and movie theaters. Roman Svanidze and his wife founded the nonprofit organization MiR, the centerpiece of which is an Orthodox theater. Today, they organize exhibitions, hold competitions, stage concerts and plays, and work with preschoolers in their early childhood development studio, Rodnichok (“the little wellspring”).

Bike ride
A bicycle ralley on last year’s Russia Day.

There’s always something going on in the city. Favorite public celebrations include Victory Day, graduation day, Day of the City, and Day of Youth (the over-thirty crowd confesses these celebrations were bigger and better in Soviet times). In recent years, local history buffs have started staging historical reenactments.

“Maybe it’s because of our closed status, but, paradoxical as it may sound, even in a museum it’s better not to ask about the weapons,” photographer Cherkasov says. “I once had occasion to do a photo shoot there, and it turned out it wasn’t allowed, and it is better to not even look around. When I asked about one item on display, whether it had military applications, the guide looked at me as if I was some sort of secret policeman ready to put him behind bars, rather than simply a photographer.”

Sarov does have enough of its own entertainment talent, but it’s still exciting when stars of stage of screen pay a visit. Yet why they would want to go to the trouble of applying for a pass is a bit of a mystery for the locals.

Religion

Every now and then the question of opening up the city is raised. Proponents of such a liberalization point to the city’s significance for the Orthodox faithful, due to its role in the life of Saint Seraphim.

The Sarov Monastery was founded in 1706 by the monk Ioann. In the latter half of the eighteenth century, Seraphim (then Prochor Moshnin) arrived in Sarov and spent fifteen years living in the woods as a hermit. He died in 1833 while praying in the tiny cabin that served as his cell. After he was canonized, a cathedral was built around his hermitage. Sarov’s holy sites were visited more than once by members of the ruling dynasty. After the monastery was shut down in 1927, it was turned into a children’s labor colony (this is where the film Road to Life – «Путёвка в жизнь» – was filmed), and later into a correctional labor colony.

In the 1950s, the monastery’s main buildings were demolished to make way for a highway. But the 81-meter bell tower survived. It was saved by the fact that the city didn’t have a television tower. The bell tower served this function very nicely, and the antenna and wiring were not removed until 2012.

The monastery is currently undergoing restoration. Its greatest treasure is actually underground. Twelve-meters down is a 1,250-square-meter city, complete with streets, cells, and a functioning church. A path for processions of the cross has even been hewn around it.

In 2019, the restored Cathedral of the Dormition was reopened in its previous 1777 form. Also being rebuilt is a church to honor an icon of the Mother of God titled Life-Giving Spring. This church, built in 1706, was destroyed in the 1950s. The city also saw the recent opening of an Orthodox high school.

At a time when locals have trouble arranging visits even by close relatives, the authorities of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast are working hard to promote tourist and pilgrimage packages to Arzamas, Diveyevo, and Sarov. The idea is for tourists to visit the cloisters of Diveyevo and Sarov, while overnighting in Arzamas. By 2025, they hope to attract a million visitors a year.

To Open or Not to Open?

While the powers that be are debating whether or not to open the city, its isolation is being steadily reduced. This has inevitably impacted the city’s appearance. Sarov is situated in the middle of a forest. At first, this was a matter of protecting its secrets, but the pristine nature that surrounds the city has turned out to offer both advantages and challenges. While there are centuries-old pines growing in some of the older parts of town, the state of the forest in and around the city is a major problem. Trees are often cut down to make way for shopping malls. In Soviet times, it was not uncommon to run into an elk coming out of the forest. No longer. The city’s residents themselves have scarred the landscape by cutting down trees and scattering trash. And now multistory buildings are being built in Sarov, since the city cannot expand outward.

The river is another problem. In Soviet times, people used the river for swimming and boating, and you might even encounter muskrat or beaver there. Today, the river has grown shallow, and environmental researchers are finding microorganisms there that make swimming dangerous, despite several major cleanup efforts. The locals see the construction of a new bridge and the restoration of the religious sites as a major cause of the pollution.

The city is far less cut off from the rest of the country than it used to be. Many Sarovians are active on social media and many don’t hesitate to give interviews to journalists, so news from Sarov often reaches Russia’s national newspapers. Sarovians visit Nizhny Novgorod to shop and can travel across Russia, and those without access to classified information can vacation abroad. Yes, it is still hard for relatives to come visit, but those who can afford it solve this problem by buying dachas outside the city’s barbed-wire perimeter. Tourists may not generally be allowed, but you can still sign up for a pilgrimage tour and try to visit Sarov Monastery in order to at least catch a glimpse of this hidden city. In truth, the only people still faced with strict restrictions are those who work in the nuclear realm. Yet presumably it is only a matter of time before the city opens up completely.

But is that something the locals want? After all, these are people who have chosen to live in a city enclosed by barbed wire.

Barbed Wire

 

Tags: nuclear armsclosed citiessiberia

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