Thursdays with garlic

Remembering Chrome (Valeria Ivanovich Ivanov, 1939–2012), it is not enough to say that this is the author (and co -author) of classical works on the structure and biophysics of DNA. After all, he was also a wonderful cheerful and witty person. Many loved him for this, and some avoided him ...

Start

In 1964, when Lysenko’s era was already coming to naught, but no one had canceled the knocking, risky and mischievous chrome and his wife Luda Mintchenkov, with a similar, of course, dared to spend scientific and friendly seminars-fourthly at home. Friends came with beer, and Luda fried rye crackers, grated by garlic. And in anticipation of the report, there was, as it were, a relaxed conversation on the themes of the day (after all, it was always dangerous), also with a garlic.

First of all, there were friends and colleagues. For example, the Malenkov brothers (no politics!), Anatoly Zhabotinsky, Andrei Kuznetsov, Lev Yaguzhinsky, Vigen Geodakean, Anatoly Vanin and both author of these notes - Maxim from the very beginning, and Edward a couple of years later. Whatever they were talking about: the evolution and origin of man, about the ratio of sexes, often also discussed oscillatory chemical and biochemical processes in connection with the subsequently the world -famous reaction of Belousov - Zhabotinsky. And of course, the main topic was the DNA biophysics, that which was more interested in both chromium and the authors of these lines.

THIS. : We are close to Maxim and Chrome since 1965. Caution brought up by the Soviet authorities (and my father Grigory Yuryevich Machulan, and the stepfather Nikolai Nikolaevich Trifonov were repressed: the execution and ten years, respectively) did not allow to immediately trust and open, no matter how pretty the person seemed. On Thursdays, I was a friendly and nerd, "I did not trust." And what pride I was already imbued with Israel, when I found out that Valera, risking his own career, resolutely became defeated by leaving Jews. It was bitter that I left with a piece of distrust of this brave man.

Today you can openly be proud of participation in the Khromov Thursdays, and then it was on the verge of danger.

MF: I had a completely different life experience than Edik, closer to the life experience of chrome: we are both of the prosperous, even privileged families. My father was not only the largest scientist, but also one of the key figures in the Soviet atomic project. Our family spent eight years in Sarov, in the “zone” (it really was called), but inside this zone they did not starve and overwhelming, but created comfortable conditions for the life and work of leading physicists and their families. As A. D. Sakharov writes in his memoirs (who lived with his family at an object in a cottage neighboring with us), in the villages surrounding the zone in the meager post -war years, the peasants believed that in the zone there was an experiment to find out whether the Soviet person could survive under communism, with complete abundance.

The father of Chroma was a diplomat, an ambassador to Mongolia, and Chrome spent his childhood at the Soviet embassy in Ulan-Bator. I visited the apartment of their family, while the mother of chrome was still alive. This impressed: a large apartment on Tverskaya, immediately around the corner from the Mayakovskaya metro station. But, when married, he began to live in a tiny apartment in the Khrushchevsky house near the New Cheryomushki metro station with Luda. Thursdays passed there. The people were stuffed with a bit, a small board covered with linoleum was hanged on the window: the speaker painted or wrote the formulas on it with chalk.

So, Khrom and I did not feel the fear that Edik experienced at all. It never occurred to us that our gatherings could be dangerous. But somehow chrome or someone else brought A.A. Malinovsky, older man. He was known to us mainly by the fact that he immediately translated Schrödinger's famous book “What is life?” The book was almost immediately prohibited and removed from all libraries. But it was preserved from those who managed to buy it, and, of course, we all read it and she had a huge influence on all of us. Therefore, to get acquainted with Malinovsky was very pleased. Malinovsky sat with us, and then took the chromium to the kitchen and said: “Are you crazy?! Stop your seminar immediately! Yes, they will put you! " Chrome told me about the reaction of Malinovsky, and we agreed that Malinovsky was intimidated since Stalin's times and that now everything is different. Malinovsky no longer appeared, and Thursdays continued in the same format.

I must say that for all participants in the Thursday, Chrome and Luda were a real holiday. I write these lines while in Israel, and it suddenly occurred to me that in this tradition there was something from the Jewish tradition of Shabbat. Like believers of the Jews, we gathered for a festive meal once a week in the evening after sunset and talked about the object of our worship. But if on Saturdays, believers worshiped and worship, with all my respect, a certain phantom, then the subject of our worship - science - without a doubt, deserves and deserves such a relationship to it. We all were very young, and we all had to find our place in science, which we decided to devote ourselves - a new biophysicist that arose after the opening of the DNA structure. No one could indicate the path, we had to do it ourselves, and the chromium seminar played a very important role.

Funny man chrome

According to Lev Abramovich Tumerman, the first chief chromium after the end of Moscow State University, Valerka is a wonderful person. You tell him: "Listen, Valerka, let's rob the savings bank!" -And he (thinking a little): “Great idea! Imagine: they come, but there is no money! ”

The story repeatedly told: they call the laboratory and ask Alexei Nikolaevich. Valera replies: “You were mistaken. There are none here. ” But they call again and again. And then Chrome says: “Alexei Nikolaevich is not there now. He and Leonid Ilyich are discussing what to do with Nikolai Viktorovich. ”

They didn’t call anymore. (A.N., L.I. and N.V., respectively, Kosygin, Brezhnev and Podgorny, then higher Soviet ranks.)

E.T.: In 1983, Chrome first escaped to the States, at a conference in Albani. With him and with Vitya Zhurkin, with the help of Lordis, the wife of the Svetel, we drew from supervision (the Soviet group arrived with the "tail") and went to the Niagara waterfall. There you can go down under the very streams. We were given raincoats and rubber boots, and I advised Valera to tie the pants into boots. For some reason, he refused. Downstairs under the roar, with a view of the Canadian shore, we drank and bit. Chrome really liked this idea. And upstairs, at the exit from the locker room, I asked him:

- Why do you have wet pants?

- And I ... dragged.

- Why below the knees?

- And I have it long.

“But why are both trousers?”

- And I have two of them.

He had his own laughter, memorable and inviting.

After my departure to Israel in 1976, I did not write to my friends to Russia, they would have trouble. However, I sent postcards-checks to real articles on behalf of a certain boatswain (see below). Say, "I know, read, hug."

But once I somehow managed to send my army photos (I served only about a year, but still). Valera is walking along the institute corridor and shows all of her “Israeli aggressor”. But then the same “tail” appears:

- What are you showing everyone?

- Yes, you are not interested. Family photos, different Baby.

MF: Chrome loved to sing a song that he composed in his student years on a famous melody from the 9th Symphony Beethoven, which became the anthem of the European Union:

Because Gotvald genius,
Zhabotinsky
Because the genius Gotvald,
Tinizhabsky spa could not.

Few people now remember that Gotvald was the Czechoslovak ruler under Stalin. His genius was that after the Tiran’s funeral, returning home to Prague, he could not control grief, he was naughty and announced two days later, for which he was awarded the mausoleum, though for a short while. Well, Tolya Zhabotinsky (the co -author of the now famous reaction of Belousov - Zhabotinsky), whom chrome called only as a toad, was a friend of chromium since their studies at the Bluma department, as everyone called Lev Aleksandrovich Blumenfeld. I met, and then made friends with Tolya, not only thanks to Thursdays, but also because of my father, who, among other things, was the world's largest expert in vibrational chemical processes. Tolya was at our house, consulting with his father about his work on studying the reaction of Belousov. Subsequently, we both (Tolya and I) almost simultaneously moved to Boston - he is to the University of Brandeis, I am to the Boston University. Our friendship continued until the death of Toli in 2008. As for the song, it is very sticky. I often catch myself on the fact that I sang her.

Links of continuity

No one had such a strong influence on chromium as Nikolai Vladimirovich Timofeev-Rresovsky, the famous bison. As a student of the department of the physical faculty of Moscow State University, the Department of Biophysics, began to ride every summer, like some other students of the Blumenfeld department, in Miasovo in the Urals, where Timofeev, who had already been released from a conclusion, but had not yet received permission to appear in Moscow at that time. It was Timofeev who came up with the lame of his nickname: he called him a “chromosome”, because chrome was long, skinny and flexible. Then there was a reduction to chromium. For many Timofeevs, in those years, he was the missing link, a living relic, connecting the great genetics of the early twentieth century with new biology, which the new generation, which passed at the school, was to create on the same sixth part of the land. Chrome literally idolized Timofeev. Having moved closer to Moscow, Timofeev often began to appear at seminars and schools, especially at the famous winter schools in molecular biology in Dubna, and then in Zvenigorod. So we all got the opportunity to communicate with a great person. And Thursdays Ivanov were a natural continuation of Miasov.

It is interesting that, like most geneticists of his generation, Timofeev never believed in the bottom nature of Gene. He considered this theory a manifestation of primitive reductionism inherent in physicists and chemists who did not mean anything in biology. Maxim remembers well how, faced with Timofeev at different meetings, he invariably heard a mocking instead of greeting: "What, are you still digging?" Of course, with all his admiration, Timofeev Chrome did not share this position at all - he was primarily a physicist and a chemist and, of course, a notorious reducer. Speaking of chemistry. Among us, biophysicists, chrome stood out with excellent knowledge of chemistry and biochemistry. In parallel with the enthusiasm of DNA, chrome has been very actively working in the field of enzymatic catalysis for many years, where he collaborated with Marat of the Karpeysky.

What can be said now, many years later, when there has been no Bigger than Life for us for a long time Timofeev-Rosovsky, and recently our dear friend of chrome? Chrome was engaged in DNA to the very end, and we continue to do the same. However, now the whole world is driving.

After Thursdays

In the early 1970s, the Thursday at Chroma exhausted themselves. Apparently, both he and other participants in the seminar firmly decided on their scientific interests, and the need for a wide seminar was disappeared. This, of course, did not mean a decrease in the level of communication of the authors of these lines with chrome. Rather, on the contrary: all three were established in their passion for DNA, we began to seriously engage in DNA biophysics. All these years, until the death of chromium, we constantly exchanged with each other both ideas and news, held joint seminars, schools, which was not there. Of course, after Eduard emigrated to Israel in 1976, the communication between him and the remaining behind the iron curtain was very difficult. But we all three used any opportunity to exchange at least a news through this damn an ​​iron curtain.

One of the schemes was like that. At that time, before the era of the Internet, the parcel of postcards with a request was practiced sending the print of the published article. So, Eduard agreed with colleagues from Spain and the USA that they would send requests from their addresses to the articles of Ivanov and Frank-Kamenetsky, but not signed by his surname, but by the name Botsman. Starting to receive such requests, Maxim and Chrome very quickly realized who was hiding behind this surname. The fact is that at one time Eduard received the nickname “Botsman”, after he got everyone an endless repetition of an old joke, ending with the words: “You are a fool, a boatswain, and your stupid jokes.” And now getting a postcard from Botsman was a great joy. Probably, the young generation should explain that Eduard could not send a request for an impression from Israel - he would simply never reach the addressee, replenishing the already chubby dossier to the KGB to the one to whom the postcard was addressed. After the six -day war of 1967, when the best friend of the USSR Gamal Abdel suffered a crushing defeat, despite the fact that Soviet pilots and tankers fought on his side, the advice was so offended that they broke out diplomatic relations with the Israel and generally stopped all contacts with the Jewish state.

Immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this most vivid embodiment of the iron curtain, at the end of 1989, Edward organized a unique event at his Veitskanovskiy Institute, which was first called the Israeli-Soviet seminar in molecular structures. There were no flights between Moscow and Tel Aviv, and the Soviet delegation had to fly to Cairo, and from there to get to the rekhot on the bus through the Sinai. In fact, our first Reunion, all three, for the first time after 1976, took place a year earlier in Spain, when Edward specially arrived at the conference at which reports were stated both chromium and maxim. He came to such conferences more than once, but each time, with the exception of Albani-1983, the declared speakers did not appear due to the iron curtain. But in 1988, luck was waiting for him in Spain.

Chrome - Mensch

In the Jewish environment, about a worthy person of rare spiritual qualities, they say that he is Mensch (literally “man” for Yiddish). So was Valera. When Luda dumped the disease (“benign” brain tumor), chrome for seven years up to its death selflessly fought with her. All conversations with often visiting friends took place at the bed of the patient with her participation. It was a pair of “hand in the hand” to the end. And in life, and in work, in joy and in trouble.

After the death of Luda, Chrome visited Israel, with Edward, once again, in order to somehow restore strength. He brought with him a nanny who looked after Luda, in gratitude for this. Valera himself was also struck by the disease of the brain. The last six months he could not speak.

All these last very difficult years of life, numerous friends of chromium, both in Russia and scattered around the world, helped him (and earlier Luda) than they could. It is especially necessary to note great help from his faithful many -year employee Elvira Minat and a close friend of Valentin Noskin.

In conclusion

Chrome spent most of his life and his scientific career behind an iron curtain. Never entering into a deal with the devil, he was able to go to the real abroad to Gorbachev only once, in 1983. And he managed to extract from this short trip the maximum benefit, not only for himself and his group, but for the entire DNA community in the USSR. Although Chrome was very ill for science in Russia and in the USSR, he was completely not a patriot in the perverted sense in which this hackneyed word is used in the modern Russian vocabulary. He felt at home, wherever fate had thrown him. He spent several years at the University of Alabama and really wanted to get a position there. But this dream was not destined to come true, obviously because of his age, and he returned to Russia, which he also did not spare at all. In general, Chroma was characteristic of an unusually bright worldview, it was, perhaps, the basis of his huge human charm. In this, he is very similar to his long -term chief in the laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Biology Mikhail Vladimirovich Volkenstein, about the unusually bright attitude of which one of us had to write 1 . It is no coincidence that M.V. and chrome with great sympathy were treated to each other.

Despite the iron curtain and life under the commies, Khrom was fully realized as a scientist and as a teacher and as an individual. Опыт его жизни показывает, что даже при советской власти можно было оставаться самим собой, никогда не прогибаться и, тем не менее (а в значительной степени благодаря этому), полностью реализоваться в профессиональном плане. Нужно «всего лишь» быть по-настоящему преданным науке, не гоняться за чинами и материальными благами — вот этого у Хрома никогда не было.

Всю жизнь Хром вместе с группой своих единомышленников (куда входили авторы этих строк) фактически строил здание биофизики ДНК в СССР. Он участвовал в организации бесчисленных конференций, школ и семинаров по этой теме в разных уголках страны. В результате этих усилий советское сообщество биофизиков ДНК получило мировое признание еще до падения железного занавеса. Но парадоксальным образом именно сила этого сообщества послужила причиной его стремительного распада после падения занавеса. Все основные участники быстро нашли себе применение на Западе, в основном в США, и сообщество переместилось из бывшего СССР за океан. Мы по-прежнему много общались (и продолжаем общаться) и даже часто сотрудничали (и продолжаем сотрудничать, чему свидетельством данная публикация), но это уже происходит преимущественно вне России и вне бывшего СССР. Это и не хорошо и не плохо — такова реальность.

Но всё же, хотя наука и не знает государственных границ, хотелось бы, чтобы она обитала, в частности, и в России. Работая за рубежом, мы гордились тем, что прошли советскую школу, и нам было больно наблюдать, как деградировала наука в России за последние четверть века. В последние годы вроде бы появилась надежда. Явно увеличилось финансирование, развивается грантовая система. Правительство при президенте Медведеве начало привлекать научную диаспору обратно в страну при помощи программы мегагрантов и проекта Сколково. Какое же наступило разочарование, когда узурпировавший всю власть в стране кагэбэшник спустил все эти начинания в унитаз, ни с того ни с сего решив рассориться со всем миром. В результате полным ходом идет реконструкция железного занавеса под бурные аплодисменты толпы.

Вот и хорошо, скажет молодой патриотически настроенный ученый. Вот и мы будем, как ваш герой, да и вы сами в свое время, авторы этих строк, создавать свое сообщество в изоляции от остального мира. Зачем нам быть маленькими рыбешками в большом пруду? Лучше мы будем большими рыбами в маленьком пруду! Ведь ваш Хром умудрялся и из-за железного занавеса посылать в международные журналы выдающиеся работы, причем не только теоретические, но и экспериментальные: например, его экспериментальная статья 1973 года, опубликованная в специальном биофизическом журнале Biopolymers , процитирована более 700 раз. Вот и мы так хотим.

Что ж, ответим мы, флаг вам в руки, молодой человек. Если вы сосредоточитесь на теории, на компьютерных моделях, то вполне можете преуспеть. В эпоху Интернета не имеет значения, где территориально находится теоретик, если, конечно, он не в Северной Корее (а ведь национальный лидер под бурные аплодисменты толпы легко может пойти по стопам столь уважаемого им Ким Чен Ына). Но сильную экспериментальную работу в области биомедицины вряд ли удастся сделать за железным занавесом. За прошедшие с падения занавеса четверть века эксперимент в биомедицине настолько неимоверно усложнился и требует такой поддержки со стороны громадной индустрии, обслуживающей биомедицинские исследования, что уже и без занавеса российские экспериментаторы практически не могут соответствовать, если не работают в тесном сотрудничестве с лабораторией на Западе (или на Востоке), а уж при наличии железного занавеса, когда такое сотрудничество станет невозможным, у них никаких шансов не будет. Уж поверьте нам, молодой человек, это действительно так. Нам довелось хорошо посравнивать.

Хайфа — Тель-Авив — Яффа, март — апрель 2015 года

1 Франк-Каменецкий М.Д. Он был счастливым человеком // В сборнике: «Михаил Владимирович Волькенштейн. Memories of colleagues and students. К 100-летию со дня рождения» под редакцией Бирштейн Т. М., Шароновой Н. А. — М., 2012. С. 70–82. http://macro.ru/img/Volkenshtein_tetrad.pdf