Small museum of big science

On 18 April, the 30th anniversary of the Museum of History of Science and Technology of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research was celebrated in the JINR Scientists' Club.

Director of Museum Nadezhda Kavalerova addressed all the guests of the meeting with warm words. She spoke about the history of the establishment of the Museum and its current development, plans for the future, noted the great support of the JINR Directorate and the Directorate of Laboratories and departments in its work, the important role that the oldest natural science museum in Russia the Polytechnic Museum has played in the establishment of JINR Museum. And shortly before the establishment of our Museum in Dubna, when presenting the programme for the reconstruction of the Polytechnic, Director of the Polytechnic Museum Professor G.Grigoryan wrote: "Every person needs to learn about the Museum, regardless of whether he will be a technical specialist or not. It helps him to live in the world of technology as in a natural environment."

In many ways, this programme has been the basis of the concept of the Institute's Museum. Veterans of the Institute, representatives of the scientific community have helped with advice, exhibits and particular cases. JINR Directorate has allocated a cozy room that once has housed the party committee. And in this small building, next to the first Music School, a kind of information and cultural centre has been developed: for several years the Museum has shared premises with the editors of the Institute's weekly Dubna.

Members of the Museum council and its active assistants Vladimir Nikitin, Genrikh Vardenga, colleagues from the Museum of Archeology and Local Lore of Dubna and other participants of the festive meeting spoke with memories of how it all had started. Editor of the Dubna weekly from 1984 to 1996 Anna Girsheva that has come from St. Petersburg, spoke about the cooperation between the Museum and our newspaper. One of the first staff members of the Museum Vera Zakharova took part in the meeting.

A staff member of the Museum Anastasia Zlotnikova spoke about bright scientific and educational projects that attract many schoolchildren to the Museum, about the popular science lecture hall "Accessible science", "Laboratory of scientific experiments", "Mendeleev readings", historical and scientific seminars and many other forms of Museum work.

JINR Director Grigory Trubnikov highly appreciated the role of the JINR Museum in the promotion of scientific knowledge, the popularization of science among a wide Dubna audience and the organization of excursion activities. He presented letters of thanks to the Museum staff and their active assistants.

In the memoirs of a number of participants of the meeting, the following description was repeated: a small museum of big science. And hope was expressed that this Museum would have a great future.

Evgeny MOLCHANOV,
photo by Elena PUZYNINA