Joint Institute for Nuclear Reseach

• In this photo of 2000 taken during a conference held in Dubna (north of Moscow). We me in this photo are Alexander Filippov, Naya Smorodiskaya, and Valentina Novikova.
  1. Alexander Fillipov. I met him in 1978 at a neutrino conference held at Purdue University (U.S.A.). During this Cold-War period, you had to be somebody in the Soviet Union to visit the United States. Indeed, he was so brilliant when he was a student that he had a privilage of meeting both Joseph Stalin and Mao Zhedong at the same time and same place when Mao visited Moscosw.

  2. Naya Smordinskaya. I met her at Moscow's ITEP in 1995.

• Valentina Novikova works for the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna (near Moscow), and she takes care of foreign visitors. I met her in Yerevan Armenia in 1998. again in Dubna (2000).
  1. Another photo taken in Yerevan.
  2. Two year later, we met again in Dubna (2000).

• Lydia Arndt also works for Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. She is a very quiet person, and she comes with her daughter at social gatherings. This photo was taken in Dubna (2000).
  1. Two year later, we met again in Prague (2002). Again she was with her daughter, who became taller.

• with Georgy Afanasiev. I met him at the Hotel Akademicheskaya (Moscow) in October of 1990. The big news at that time was that Mikhail Gorbachev got the 1990 Nobel peace prize. Afanasiev was kind enough to come all the way from Dubna (about 100 km north of Moscow) to pick me up. Since then, we met several times. He gave me his Soviet Army belt because he knew I am collecting old Soviet items. Recently, I bought one at a souvenir shop in the Washington area, and I am ready to return his belt to him. During the above-mentioned Kharkov meeting, we had a peaceful moment for a photo. He asked me whether I thought he was a KGB agent when I saw him first time in 1990. I said Yes even though my true answer was No. This photo was taken in October of 2001 in Kharkov, Ukraine.