Patriarch

Probably, no foreign scientist had such an influence on the development of molecular biology in the USSR, as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Alexander Rich. He was a patriarch of molecular biology, belonged to a handful of people standing at its very origins. Everyone called him just Alex, and I will follow this tradition.

To say that I knew Alex well is to say nothing. Over the years, we have been close friends, and Alex played a very important role in my life. This caused the need to tell about him now that he was gone, a Russian -speaking audience: there are many friends and students of Alex who can tell about him in English.

The point is not so much in the language as in accents: I will talk about those aspects of the multifaceted personality of Alex Rich Rich, who are associated with his contacts with Russia and Russians and who are not so interesting outside the Russian -speaking scientific community.

Alex's parents came from the Russian Empire, and they were Jews. As often happened, the surname turned out to truncate a Jewish surname, but not Rabinovich, but some other, it seems, Ryklik. Alex was born in 1924 in Hartford (Connecticut, USA) and did not speak Russian at all. More surprising is his interest in Russia and a deep knowledge of Russian history.

One of the reasons for his interest in Russia was his concern to world problems, which led him to the ranks of the Pagoosh movement. Alex was a distilled case of a Jewish-American liberal-intellectual. He did not shy at all his Jewry, but his first and main identity was still an “American”.

In this, we were very different with him: I am primarily a Jew; And what a Jew, Russian or American, I am not so important. (If an adjective is required, then I would choose the “Ashkenazi.”) I probably associate myself with Israel most of all, although I do not have Israeli citizenship. However, in the question of Israel, Alex and I came closer; He was very involved in Israeli affairs, for many years he was in the scientific council of the Weizmann Institute.

American patriotism (in the good sense of the word) Alex appeared very clearly for me when I moved to Boston and Rich began to enlighten me in matters of American history. He drove me along Boston and showed the historical places related to the war for independence - such places and museums in Boston a lot. He talked about the significance of the holidays that are celebrated only in New England, such as the Patriot's Day (when the annual Boston marathon is held, which has become a famous world thanks to the Tsarnaev brothers, who made explosions during its holding in 2013).

There is another day of evacuation - in memory of the day when the defeated British set off back to their home. No one outside of New England knows about these holidays, and here the Patriot's day is a day off. I can’t consider myself to be experts in American history, but I know the little that I know, I know thanks to Alex.

But of course, any topic for Alex was always connected with science. I learned from him for the first time (during the lessons of American history that he taught me) that Count Rumford, aka Benjamin Thompson, who had overthrew the phlogiston and opened the mechanical equivalent of warmth, was a kind from New England and in his youth, during the independence war, turned out to be a real traitor to the American people and a spy that crossed the side of the enemy. He “evacuated” along with royal soldiers and made his scientific discoveries already in Europe.

Another reason for Alex’s interest in Russia and Russian science was his friendship with Georgy Gamov (who, by the way, like Thompson, was a defector: he became a defector when he was released from the USSR in a scientific business trip in 1933). Alex told me a lot about Gamov, who often came to Cambridge (Boston’s suburbs, where Harvard and Mit were located and where Rich lived) and invariably stopped with Richies in the same house where they continued to live when I knew them.

This is Gamov, shortly after the opening of the double spiral, founded the club of carriers of rnak ties, in which, in addition to himself and Rich himself and Rich, Watson and Scream, Richard Feynman - of a total of exactly 20 people, according to the number of canonical amino acids. Alex was associated with a very close friendship with Francis Crick, which continued until the death of the latter in 2004.

When did the countless trips of Alex in the USSR began, thanks to which we ultimately met him? I have a short video recorded about this, recorded in the following circumstances.

In November 2011, I once again visited Alex and mentioned the upcoming centenary of Mikhail Vladimirovich Volkenstein, with whom we were both very friendly, and asked if he would share his memories. Alex eagerly agreed and began to immediately remember, and I put an iPhone on the video. This is what he told. (I have already published this printout in my memoirs about Volkenstein 2 , but here it is also appropriate.)

“All this began in 1959, when I had a correspondence with Bresler in Leningrad and during this correspondence I invited him to visit my laboratory in MIT. And he soon arrived, but there were two of them. (Smiles.) It was an ordinary Soviet practice. I placed them on the third floor of our house. But he, the other, as it turned out, did not have an imagination, and I had to attach him to another laboratory, to chemists. And Bresler stayed with us, and we talked about everything in the world. He was (laughs) inimitable. Once he flew into the house with the words: "Soviet polymer science made a great jump." "What's happened?" I asked. “Kargin died”. (Laughs.) ".

Then Alex clearly confused something: Kargin died 10 years after the events described. But that he was a major obstacle to the development of a number of areas of polymer science in the USSR - I heard many evidence. Once I asked my chief, Yuri Semenovich Lazurkin: how did it happen that the most important book in the field of polymers-the book of Flores “The Principles of Chemistry of Polymers”-has not yet been published in Russian? He said: "Kargin blocked." Photocopy (shot and printed on a photo paper all pages of the book in English) of this very main book about polymers was stored in Yu. S. in the bookcase in his office, and it was allowed to read, just without taking it out of the office. But we will continue Rich's story.

“After returning home, Bresler invited me to visit his laboratory in Leningrad. I first visited the USSR in 1960. Then in Moscow a Paguosh conference was held, for the first time in the Soviet Union. This was the largest event in the Paguosh movement. There was a very large Chinese delegation, a very large American and, of course, huge Soviet. No one knew what it would result in. At the beginning of the conference, we were told that we were all invited by Khrushchev to a final dinner. And in the end it was announced that Khrushchev would not be. We did not know at that time that there was a very large quarrel between the Chinese and the Russians: the Chinese demanded nuclear weapons from the Russians, and the Russians refused them. Therefore, Khrushchev did not want to meet with the conference participants.

After the conference, I got on the train and went to Leningrad to Bresler. I was driving in a sleeping car, there were four of us in the compartment, very inconvenient. One way or another, but I got to the institute in Leningrad. There I met a colleague Bresler Volkenstein. I was greatly impressed by how these people managed to make a pretty decent science in conditions very far from optimal. Volkenstein struck me with the breadth and the depth of his knowledge and the power of his spirit. Subsequently, Volkenstein moved to Moscow.

They have a terrible system there when elections to the Academy, when an open competition between candidates for [one and] the same place takes place and all this is discussed. As a result, these two worthy persons who had long been close friends for a long time suddenly begin to hear the nasty things from all sides, which one allegedly said about the other, which, perhaps, is true, or not, most likely not. But as a result, friendly relations were completely spoiled. It is absolutely pointless why they do this? They don’t do that at the Academy. Of course, we also have a competition, but everything happens quietly, people do not even know that they are participating in the competition. I never understood why they were making a public discussion. Maybe they in their painful imagination believe that this raises the prestige of the academy?

From that first visit, I began to regularly travel to the USSR, mainly to Moscow, once every two or three years. Frank Press, the then president of our Academy, introduced me to the Committee on Relations between the two Academies - ours and them. And each time I met with Michael and Stella (Volkensteins). But I tried to do it imperceptibly. After all, the KGB was always on the alert. How did I do? In the evening, I seemed to leave the hotel for a walk. And suddenly he stopped a taxi and rode part of the road towards Volkenstens. Then he went out and caught a new taxi and already drove up on it to their house.

Having walked a little near their house, I quickly entered the staircase and pressed the call button. And of course, my parish was a complete surprise: after all, I could not warn them. But they were always unusually glad to me. We talked about everything: about politics, about science, about life. As soon as I appeared, Stella ran into the kitchen to cook ... God knows what. And so we bite, and talked about everything in the world, and I lit up up to two, and sometimes until three in the morning. Leaving them, I first walked on foot, and then I caught a taxi and returned to my hotel. ”

Unfortunately, on the last phrase, my video breaks off: the iPhone battery was discharged, but I did not take the charger with me. We agreed that we will continue the recording another time. But I could not find time to visit Alex again, and then he got sick. It didn’t work out to continue Rich's memories ...

Mentioned in the story of Alex Semen Efimovich Bresler (1911–1983) was one of the founders of molecular biology in the USSR. He, like Volkenstein in those years, worked at the Institute of High Molecular Molecular Compounds in Leningrad. One of his main achievements was the theoretical article at the 1939 ZhETF about a semi -wire model of a polymer chain, written in collaboration with the famous Soviet physicist Y. I. Frenkel.

Exactly 10 years later, the same model was proposed by the Austrians of the briefings and breeds, apparently not knowing about the work of Bresler and Frenkel. For a long time in polymer science, the term "model of short - breed" has been established. Now it, as a rule, is called the “Worm-Like Chain Model model”, DNA biophysics are based on it. Probably, the work of Bresler and Frenkel would be forgotten in general if Landau and Lifshits had not reproduced it as a special section in one of his famous textbooks - in “statistical physics”. In modern literature, the article, but a textbook is often quoted.

Trying to restore justice, A. Vologda in a DNA biophysicist, published in 2013 in the leading journal on this topic Nucleic Acids Research , began the presentation of the Bresler and Frenkel and Landau and Lifshitsa textbook. We generally decided not to refer to the work of brief and breed.

Each appearance of Rich in Moscow was a major event for everyone who was engaged in molecular biology. He talked, like all visiting celebrities, mainly with the academic authorities, which carefully watched that all sorts of ordinary scientific employees were not borne there. But Alex was characterized by insatiable curiosity, and he tried his best to communicate with as much as possible by the researchers.

So, in one of his visits to Moscow, he met Alik Varshavsky. Like Gamov in 1933, Warsaw became a defector in 1977, when he was released at the conference in Finland. In the trunk of the car, he crossed the border between Finland, which gave out fugitives from the USSR, and Sweden, which the fugitives did not give out, and arrived in Boston, where Alex accepted him with outflowing arms and achieved to Warsaw to be invited to the post of Assistant Professor to MIT.

Like I later, Alik Varshavsky, ending in Boston, experienced fully the stunning hospitality of Alex. Their friendship continued until the death of Alex. Alik Varshavsky is an outstanding biologist and an interesting person. I know him well for many years, from the time when he had not yet escaped from the USSR. But unfortunately, in Boston, we practically did not intersect: literally on the eve of my move from Moscow to Boston Alik moved from MIT to Caltech (California Technological Institute).

Gradually, the line came to me. I don’t remember how we met Alex. But I well remember how Alex, being in Moscow, asked me to help him to spend his rubles already in the 1980s. He was paid a fee in rubles, and it was forbidden to take out rubles from the country, it was necessary to spend them. But for what? It was already an era of empty stores. My imagination was only enough to take Alex to the Amber's company store. There he bought a bunch of female jewelry. Many years later, his homemade told me how they were amazed when once Alex appeared from Moscow almost with a suitcase of amber female jewelry. It so dissonated with his usual behavior!

I will not crucify here about the scientific merits of Alex Rich: they are completely colossal. I only note what he became most famous for. After the opening of the double spiral, only a few structures were found that the DNA molecule can form under certain conditions. The first of these unusual structures, the leftospiral Z-form, was opened by Rich. The opening of the Z-form in 1979 was one of the most important events in the field of DNA biophysics in the history of this science. It was impossible to stay away from the excitement around the Z-form, and my employees and my employees were also infected with this fever. Alex himself enthusiastically engaged in the Z-form until the very end, when the hype has already completely passed.

When the iron curtain fell, I began to ride a lot around the world, remaining a Russian scientist, and, of course, often intersected with Alex, which further strengthened our friendship. Arriving in Boston, I usually stayed in the big house of Richy in Cambridge. This house remained the same as Gamov saw him many years before my appearance there. And in those first my visits, and then, when I moved to Boston, until today there was practically nothing changed there: the same Spartan situation, a spacious kitchen with a large oval table, at which they came and they were offered tea with cake.

Nearby on the wall - a random set of photographs and cutouts from newspapers: Einstein, Scream, Pauling (Pauling was a teacher of Alex); Alex in his youth, one or with Jane's wife; Alex and Roman dad; President Clinton in the White House rewards Alex with the Order of Honor for Scientific Merit; The children of Alex and Jane, etc., etc. The situation was not much different from the kitchen in the Sakharov House, which I was used to in Moscow. Only the kitchen of Richies was spacious, of course, and the same thing. And the topics of conversations were very similar: about scientific news, about what was happening in Russia. Alex began his day - and he got up late - with the reading of The New York Times , so he was always aware of all the events, and we began to discuss the latest news from Russia on the move.

And in Boston I was largely thanks to Alex. It was like that. In the fall of 1992, I was at a conference in Washington, and my colleagues from the Weizmann Institute began to persuade me to move to them. In general, I did not mind: it was almost impossible to work in Russia, and my closest employees parted. Since in the summer of 1992 I had an extensive heart attack, I needed an operation of coronary noise. At that time, I had a temporary position Distinguished Visiting Professor (I don’t know how to say Russian) at the University of Ohio in a column. This provided me, in addition to a decent salary, medical insurance.

During January 1993, in a fire man, I reported my course according to the structure of DNA, while undergoing a preoperative examination, and on February 10, “there was a dispatch”, according to Brodsky. A month later, I already gave a seminar in Cornell, and in April I visited Rehovot, where I gave a seminar and negotiated the possible relocation to the Weizmann Institute.

Soon I flew to the States again. It was then that Alex was looking for me on the phone. As a member of the Academic Council of the Weizmann Institute, he learned that my candidacy is being considered there. "Maxim, can you really lure you from Moscow?" He asked. “Why not,” I answered, “it became almost impossible to work in Moscow.” «Тогда я хочу, чтобы вы были в Бостоне», — тоном, не терпящим возражений, заявил Алекс.

С подачи Алекса со мной вскоре связался Чарльз Кантор (Charles Cantor), который меня хорошо знал (у нас даже уже была совместная публикация) и который незадолго до того перешел из Беркли в Бостонский университет (BU). Уже в июле я проходил интервью в BU, а в первый день учебного года меня с молниеносной скоростью провели через все необходимые комиссии и вручили формальное приглашение на должность полного профессора.

Я не сомневаюсь (хотя ничего не знаю об этом), что Алекс пугал BU тем, что, если они будут мешкать, я сорвусь с их крючка и уплыву в Вейцман. Приняв предложение, я назначил начало своей работы там на 1 ноября 1993 года и уехал в Москву сдавать дела: я был в то время завотделом в Институте молекулярной генетики РАН и завкафедрой в МФТИ. Я чуть не застрял в Москве, когда начались разборки с участием танков между Ельциным и парламентом. Не представляю, что бы было, если бы победила антисемитская сволочь в лице Макашова и сотоварищей, а не Ельцин. Честно говоря, я сильно перепугался, что застряну в Москве и мой переезд в Бостон сорвется.

Вскоре после того, как я обосновался в Бостоне, ко мне присоединилась моя младшая сестра Мария. Мы поселились в еврейском пригороде Бостона Бруклайне. Точнее, это когда-то была ирландская деревня, там родился Джон Кеннеди; но постепенно ирландцы «рассосались», и их место заняли преимущественно евреи, многие из которых были недавними иммигрантами из бывшего СССР. Если Кембридж, где жил Алекс, — это северный пригород Бостона, то Бруклайн — западный. С самого начала Алекс и Джейн приняли живое участие в нашей жизни. Они регулярно приглашали нас на семейные праздники.

Разумеется, Алекс был на сто процентов атеистом, и никаких еврейских религиозных праздников Ричи не отмечали, тем более что его жена Джейн не еврейка. Однако на Christmas они собирались всей семьей — все дети (их у Алекса и Джейн четверо) с женами/мужьями и внуками. Вот на эти посиделки нас с сестрой и приглашали, наряду с просто вечеринками без особого повода.

В русской среде существует стереотип, что только русские умеют по-настоящему дружить, а иностранцы-де народ черствый, и на настоящую дружбу они не способны. Есть даже рационализация этого представления, что, мол, в России в одиночку не выжить, необходима помощь и поддержка друзей. В этом есть своя правда, и на бытовом уровне у русских всегда было гораздо больше причин дружить, чем у иностранцев. Но ведь есть и совершенно другая потребность в дружбе, основанная на том, что Сент-Экзюпери назвал «роскошью человеческого общения».

Безусловно, далеко не каждый обладает способностью (и потребностью) к такого рода дружбе, это особый дар. И надо сказать, что Алекс обладал этим даром в колоссальном избытке; по крайней мере, мне другого такого человека не довелось знать ни в Штатах, ни в России.

Круг общения Алекса был невероятно широким. Он перезнакомил меня с кучей научных знаменитостей — и местных, бостонских, и заезжих. Представляя, он всегда характеризовал меня одними и теми же словами: “Maxim is keeping eye on DNA”. Не скрою, мне было приятно это слышать

В наших отношениях с Алексом был такой ритуал. Я знал, что в воскресенье после полудня я, если нет неотложных дел, должен быть дома, чтобы не пропустить звонок Алекса. Он звонил всегда на домашний телефон — до самых последних дней, уже когда давно все звонили друг другу на мобильники. Алекс так и не освоил электронную почту: всякая связь по компьютеру шла только через его секретаршу. Так вот, мог раздаться звонок и в трубке неторопливый голос Алекса: «Максим, как насчет прогуляться вокруг Свежего пруда?» "With pleasure! — отвечал я. — Скоро буду».

Я парковался у дома Ричей, и мы на его огромном кадиллаке (он за рулем) совершали короткую поездку к пруду, парковались и не спеша обходили пруд по периметру в течение часа, может, двух. Свежий пруд (Fresh Pond) — это резервуар в Кембридже, из которого делается водозабор для снабжения всего пригорода. Вода поступает по трубам откуда-то издалека, чуть ли не с Аппалачей. Мы гуляли и обсуждали всё на свете — прежде всего науку, конечно, но не только. Потом мы пили чай на кухне у Ричей, и беседа продолжалась.

Когда Алекса не стало и его коллеги, друзья и многочисленные ученики собрались на конференцию в MIT почтить его память, практически каждый выступавший упоминал о его (или ее) прогулках с Алексом вокруг Свежего пруда. Каждое воскресенье, если погода позволяла, Рич составлял список тех, с кем он хотел бы прогуляться, и начинал их обзванивать, пока не находил партнера. Это позволяло Алексу поддерживать живой контакт с огромным количеством людей и давало ему возможность в полной мере воспользоваться, для удовлетворения своей ненасытной любознательности, невероятным научным потенциалом Бостона. Когда-то подобным средоточием научного потенциала была Москва, и я еще застал это время, так что могу сравнивать. Но в отношении Москвы этот период расцвета науки давно в прошлом.

Алекс был крестным отцом самой крупной международной конференции по биомолекулярным структурам, организуемой в июне по нечетным годам Университетом штата Нью-Йорк в Олбани вот уже без малого 40 лет. Пока мог, Алекс всегда участвовал в этих конференциях, на которые приезжают многие исследователи из России. Гвоздем неформальной программы конференции неизменно бывает Russian Party с водкой и традиционными русскими закусками, которые привозят из русского магазина в Бостоне израильтянин Эдуард Трифонов и автор этих строк.

В самые последние годы Алекс всё лето проводил на даче на воспетом Бродским Тресковом мысе (Cape Cod). Дача расположена в начале мыса, в Вудсхоле (Woods Hole), куда от Бостона всего полтора часа езды. Так что я пару раз за лето навещал Алекса, тем более что на Кейпе, как мы здесь называем Тресковый мыс, у меня куча русских друзей. Именно там летом 2014-го я видел Алекса в последний раз. Дело в том, что осенью того года я уехал на sabbatical в Москву, а весну 2015-го провел в Израиле и вернулся в Бостон как раз к похоронам Алекса.

Хотя Алекс был слаб физически во время нашей последней встречи, он, как всегда, расспрашивал меня обо всем. Он лежал на кушетке в гостиной своей скромной дачи, а я сидел в кресле, и мы долго беседовали. Я рассказал ему о новом прорыве в молекулярной биологии — возникновении методики редактирования генома в живой клетке, и он просил меня прислать ему соответствующие статьи.

Потом он вдруг сказал: «Максим, как насчет немного прогуляться?» "With pleasure!" — ответил я. Опираясь одной рукой о палку и держась второй рукой за меня, Алекс мог медленно идти. Мы вышли из дома и прошли немного туда и обратно, продолжая беседу. Так прошла наша последняя прогулка…

Максим Франк-Каменецкий,
профессор Бостонского университета (США)
Бостон, 2015–2017

1 Прожив много лет в Америке, я привык всех русскоговорящих называть русскими, независимо от их этнической принадлежности. The difference between “Russian” and “Russian”, so significant in modern Russian reality, completely disappears when translated into English: both are translated as Russia. As a result, in the Russian -speaking environment in America, we call Russians all for whom the Russian language is native.

2 Франк-Каменецкий М. Д. Он был счастливым человеком . С. 70–82.