To the 90th anniversary since the birth of Gadlet Andiyanovich Batyrbekov, first Director General of the NNC RK

Today, on January 10th, 2024, Gadlet Andiyanovich Batyrbekov would have turned 90 years old.

In the formative years, which was a difficult and important period for our country, Gadlet Andiyanovich took over the leadership of the National Nuclear Center RK (NNC), established in 1992 by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, by that becoming its first Director General and implementing the first important steps to preserve the scientific and technical potential of the former military-industrial complex located on the territory of the Semipalatinsk Test Site as well as to create a full-fledged scientific bases for the development of the nuclear industry. Under Gadlet Andiyanovich leadership the NNC has become well-structured enterprise with formed team of highly qualified specialists and identified directions and research programs.

In the realities of that time, the NNC took upon itself not only the role of city-forming enterprise, but actually afforded Kurchatov to survive by solving a wide range of local and socio-economic problems faced by local citizens. At a later time, thanks to the NNC activities, major international investments were attracted into Kurchatov’s economy and hundreds of additional jobs were created.

The development of international relations has become one more important step. Intense mutually beneficial cooperation was established with the U.S. national laboratories, Japanese and Russian research centers along with increasing attention to the NNC from research institutions of other countries. The first grants from the IAEA and ISTC were received that time. The international cooperation has made it possible to accelerate work on the study of the radioecological situation of the Semipalatinsk Test Site and other nuclear test sites (Lira, Azgir) on the territory of Kazakhstan. Special attention was paid to the monitoring of nuclear tests at operating test sites around the world.

Research in the field of the peaceful use of atomic energy has been developed, in particular, the experimental study of the safety of nuclear power reactors. Fundamental and applied research in the field of nuclear physics and technology, physics of solid state, reactor and radiation materials science has been intensively developing.

In the scientific journal “Man. Energy. Atom” we dedicated the article “Being the first is difficult, but interesting” to the bright memory of this remarkable man, a prominent physicist, doctor of technical sciences, professor and laureate of the State Prize of the Republic of Kazakhstan.