City 40 Page #2

I remember, we were in school.

It was 1990 or 1989.

We were getting ready for a trip.

A man came to us,

dressed in a solemn suit,

and warned us,

"You guys are not from Ozersk.

You are from Chelyabinsk.

You live on Lenin Street.

Because there are enemies everywhere,

and they aren't sleeping.

Blabbermouths help the enemy."

The forbidden quality of our town

has made people beware of strangers.

I remember an episode

when my father went to a resort.

A fellow train passenger asked him...

for a long time...

about his city, the life, etc...

Father tried to get rid of him

by saying he was born in Chelyabinsk.

That he lived on Lenin Street, and so on.

At the next stop, before leaving,

the passenger said to him,

"Good for you. You haven't

disclosed anything about our city.

Because our town

does not accept traitors."

Even though Mayak

is just a factory in Ozersk,

historically, Mayak has always been

more important than the city.

It was on July 5, 1947.

I was met at the Kyshtym station.

It was 11 o'clock in the evening.

They drove me...

in an unknown direction.

They didn't tell me

where I was being taken.

I thought it would be a factory.

in Kyshtym. I realized...

there were no enterprises there

that would fit my specialization.

I began to worry.

Especially when we passed

through the center of the town.

Then we went up the hill to the church...

and then the woods began.

There was nothing to see.

This is when I really began to worry.

I had a sinking feeling.

Had I been arrested for something?

My mother came here at the age of eight,

with my grandmother

who was a chemical engineer.

You were named after your grandmother?

Yes, my mother named me

in honor of my grandmother.

Whose mother was she?

Mother told me it was

a very long train journey.

People were telling

all kinds of tall stories.

That it was a subterranean city,

they would live underground.

Nobody knew anything.

To build the factory,

they used forced labor

from the prison camps

as construction workers.

They also brought in elite physicists

from all over the country.

Nuclear physics was only just being born.

It was for the best and most intelligent.

Mother told me Grandmother was working

with Kurchatov to produce plutonium.

At that time,

they were scooping it up with spoons.

As she recollected.

People worked with plutonium

with bare hands.

Many died, so they had to bring in

more and more people.

Families were created...

children born.

This is how the town became a real town.

Everything was heavily controlled

by Stalin's secret police.

If someone refused to work, they'd be

taken to a prison camp and executed,

because they were introduced

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