WEBVTT - Akademgorodok: Siberia's Super Science Town 0:00:03.200 --> 0:00:06.240 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from housetop works 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:15.240 dot com. Hey, wasn't the stuff to blow your Mind? 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.120 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christie Sager. Robert, 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.840 did you ever see uh this movie from the nineteen 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.360 eighties starring John Travolta called The Experts. I have not know, 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:28.120 so my memory of this movie is John Travolta and 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:30.880 his co star whose name I can't remember, our nightclub 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:33.760 managers in like New York or something like that, and 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:35.839 they think they're going to Nebraska, but they end up 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:40.519 going to Soviet Russia, Uh, to a fake town that 0:00:40.720 --> 0:00:43.720 is built there solely by the KGB to like make 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.680 like a spies like the Americans, like Americans, where they 0:00:47.680 --> 0:00:51.199 blend in perfectly and exactly. They're Russian agents who are 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:56.880 trained to understand American culture. And Uh. Anyways, those guys, 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:00.280 John Travolta and his pal end up teaching them about 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:02.560 all the great things about American culture. They love it 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:05.840 so much that they turn against Soviet Russia. Anyways. It's 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.120 kind of a proto American, it is, very much so. 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.680 So I couldn't help thinking about that movie The Experts 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:16.280 the entire time. I was researching for today's episode, which 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:19.320 is about a little place. It's actually not so little, 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.080 it's surprisingly so and it's in Soviet but it's not 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.080 no longer in Soviet Russia. It's in Siberia. Uh. And 0:01:27.360 --> 0:01:31.120 it's called Akademgorodok, I believe, is how you pronounce it, 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:35.240 which translates from Russian into academy town. Yeah, you can. 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:37.679 All you can really think of it as the Russian 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.399 Hogwarts for science. Yeah, yeah, you mentioned that earlier, and 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.560 I think that that is like the perfect analogy. It 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:50.240 is where Russia sent all of its smartest wizards to train. Uh. 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:54.000 And it's been around since the late fifties. And so 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.120 basically we discovered this through an article that was in 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:01.160 The Guardian that was really well written. Uh. It's sort 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.320 of just like a biopic thing about it. And I said, 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.120 let's do let's do an episode about this thing. It 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.440 just sounds so weird and perfect for the show. Yeah, 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.120 it's great, it's weird, it's fascinating. And the thing that 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:14.080 really surprised me is that I could not find any 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:18.079 examples of fiction or even creepy pasta that takes place 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:21.000 here like this seems like the perfect setting for all 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:27.040 manner of weird paranormal, creepy science, mad science shenanigans, especially 0:02:27.080 --> 0:02:29.480 like you know, you mentioned Creepy Pasta. We we did 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.600 an episode in the last year at least about that 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.720 creepy pasta Russian science experiment, and then we you know, 0:02:36.760 --> 0:02:40.639 we've done episodes recently about the space Mirror project with 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:46.200 project as in Maya and also the human z episode. 0:02:46.400 --> 0:02:50.239 Russian Science too academic garodoc didn't come up in any 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.200 of these things, no, um, So it's kind of fascinating, 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:58.480 especially because this place seems to be like the place 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.960 for Russian science. Yeah, and I mean not only like 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:05.040 mad science e stuff, but like spies, like why hasn't 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:11.440 James Bond run through the streets of uh So, Yeah, 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:13.840 let's keep that in mind. And hey, Hollywood producers, if 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:15.840 you're out there listening, I don't know, it's a little 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.040 late for like some Cold war mad science shenanigans, but 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.480 I don't know. Maybe that movie, oh that was sent 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:25.880 in World War two, Frankenstein's Army. Did you ever see that? Yeah, 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:28.680 Frankenstein's Army is a lot of fun. It's essentially haunted 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.760 attraction as a film, like it's not if you go 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.320 into it with that that mindset and realize you're not 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:38.080 watching like a true like character engagement film, but you're 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.480 going on a haunted house, right Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:43.240 For the listeners, franknin Stein's Army Josh Clark from Stuff 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.520 You Should Know, turn me onto that. Uh uh Yeah, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:50.280 it's basically Frankenstein creates a bunch a bunch of like 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.920 zombie monsters for the Nazis as they like pour through 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:55.520 Russia or is it the other way around? Is the 0:03:55.600 --> 0:03:59.160 Russian ones? I can't remember, but it's it's basically set 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:03.600 during the invasion of Russia. Yeah, I believe that's right. Okay, anyways, 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.080 go watch that, guys. I think it's on Netflix. Okay, 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.600 So let's get down to basics about what this place is. 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.480 It is hidden away in the cold Siberian forest, and 0:04:13.520 --> 0:04:18.680 it's actually been called Russia's Silicon Forest as an alternative 0:04:18.720 --> 0:04:23.440 to Silicon Valley. Uh. It's located three thousand kilometers east 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.719 of Moscow. And the weather they are ranges from thirty 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:32.520 degree celsius summers to negative forty degrees celsius winters. So 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.080 it's like all over the place like brutal cold, and 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.200 then like apparently like there's like a real mosquito issue 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:40.200 in the summers, Like it's it's hot, and there's just 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:44.400 mosquitoes everywhere. It's right on alongside what's called the I 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.120 believe it's ob river. Anybody out there who knows Russian 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.760 or has like a familiarity with Russian, I apologize in advance. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.039 I'm gonna butcher a number of things here. And the 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:56.719 only way that I was able to figure out how 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.479 to pronounce Akademgorodok and Novas Abersk was by watching a 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.640 YouTube video by a dude who is American that just 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:06.760 happens to live in Nova Sabirsk and teaches Russian to 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.480 people over YouTube. And speaking of Siberia here, I mean 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:12.560 anyone who doesn't have that have much familiarity with Russia. 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.080 You might be thinking of Siberia. You're thinking like waste lands, 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.040 thinking like tiny camps, and maybe you're imagining this strange 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.920 artificial place in the forest there and and not that 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:26.200 that part. Maybe he isn't completely off, but it is 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:31.599 worth stressing that Nova Sabirsk is a major metropolitan area. Yeah, absolutely, 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:33.719 like that was a mistake I made. I would say 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.320 like through the first half of the literature. I didn't 0:05:37.400 --> 0:05:40.600 quite have that understanding until like I ran across the 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:45.120 statistic that Nova Sabirsk is the third largest most populated 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:48.800 city in Russia after Moscow and St. St. Petersburg. So yeah, 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.480 it's Siberia, but it's not the middle of nowhere. It's 0:05:51.960 --> 0:05:57.039 you know, it's pretty populated. And Academgorodoc is like Koters 0:05:57.120 --> 0:05:59.160 just outside of Nova Sabirsk, and it's it's like it's 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:02.800 his own little end to tea, but it's connected. Yeah. Uh, 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:05.800 in fact, it's kind of I guess, like the best analogies, 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.919 it's sort of like Cambridge to Boston, right, Like Cambridge 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:13.680 is often used as a as a like analogy for 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.120 academic Gara doc because of you know, Harvard and m 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.760 I tear there. But in academic Garads case, it's uh, 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:22.960 you know, the state universities and then now like a 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:26.039 lot of science and tech oriented companies are moving there. 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:31.599 So okay, novas abers was founded in eight so even 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.520 the city itself isn't that old, especially for European city. Yeah, 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.440 this kind of falls on the long standing Russian trend 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:40.640 of this is the place we will build a city 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.960 regardless of it's uh, you know, Siberia or a swampy wasteland. Yeah. 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.880 Sometimes I feel that way about Atlanta where we live, 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.920 Like I'm like, why why did anybody start like set 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.279 up roots here? And it was I think in Atlanta's case, 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:56.320 it was just it just happened to be where trained, Yeah, 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:01.600 where the trains, right. Yeah. Um. So by the nineteen thirties, 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:06.480 Novas of Beersk itself had already like garnered a reputation 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:12.239 as like having several educational institutes very focused on physics. Uh, 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.200 and it it really didn't like the academic Gora doc 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:21.280 experiment didn't really come about until the late fifties. And 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.760 the way I like to think about it is kind 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:26.440 of like if our listeners are familiar with the TV 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:29.280 show Eureka. I think it's a little bit like that, 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:32.400 although less science fiction e and then um, some of 0:07:32.440 --> 0:07:34.880 our listeners actually turned Joe and I on. I don't 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:36.920 think you've listened to it yet, right, Limetown, I know 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:39.480 I've heard mention of it. So Limetown is a podcast, 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.640 uh that is about a fictional American science town kind 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.400 of like this that I highly recommend Anyways, those were 0:07:47.400 --> 0:07:50.040 in my head as well as John Travolta's classic The 0:07:50.120 --> 0:07:54.560 Experts while we were studying this place. And it's also 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:58.680 worth pointing out through the realization of Gora doc Uh, 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.480 it's all a part two of the seven Year Plan 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.000 from A fifty to sixty five, which was a big 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:07.080 initiative in Soviet Russia. Yeah, so what we're looking at 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:10.760 here is basically a team up between a mathematician named 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:18.160 Mikhail Lavrentiev and uh, everybody's favorite premier Nikita Krushchev, and 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:21.240 their idea was basically, they're going to take the USSR 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:23.920 smartest scientists and put them all in one place so 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:27.800 they wouldn't be distracted by Moscow. Like apparently both the 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.360 like you know, metropolitan nature of Moscow, but also all 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.280 the politics going on in Moscow was becoming a problem 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:37.360 for these scientists. They weren't getting their work done. So Sai, 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.440 let's send them off from the middle of nowhere. This 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:43.320 Novis appears, that's perfect, we'll build something right us side there. 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.360 Thats all you have to do is distance yourself from 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.720 the politicians and they'll leave you alone. Right. Yeah, And 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.920 in fact it happened, but then it turned against too. 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.240 And yeah, and we'll get into some of the the 0:08:55.240 --> 0:08:57.840 the the ups and downs. That's what you progress here. 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.240 Uh So, you know, if you're a scientist and you're 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.319 in Russia in the fifties, and this is actually pretty 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.720 attractive to you because one you've got the freedom, but 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:09.400 also you have like large, spacious quarters and everything super 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:12.800 cheap and apparently even today, like it's relatively cheap. Like 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:14.880 I'm the this this guy that I'm talking about from 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.760 the YouTube video. He he was saying, you can rent 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.160 like a huge spacious apartment in Nova Saverisk nowadays for 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.720 like five U s. Dollars a month or something like that. 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.360 Um so he recommended going to visit there. And in fact, 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.640 didn't you say, like you you looked at trip advisor 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:33.800 to get some information. Yeah, yeah, trip advisors. Trip Advisor 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:35.760 was a great way to sort of give up to 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:38.320 get an idea of what what kind of offerings are 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:39.840 in the area. You know, like you can head on 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:43.040 over to to Nova Saverisk, can go to the zoo, 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:46.640 you can go to the awesome zoo. Yeah, like like 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.679 it the way it was written about in that Guardian article. 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.040 I thought, oh, this is just like this city in 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:55.240 the middle of nothing, but actually, like there's there's a 0:09:55.280 --> 0:09:58.080 lot going on there, you know, it's it's relatively metropolitan. 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:00.680 And even that, they were saying, Um, there's a service 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.240 that's not Amazon, but it's like Amazon in Russia now, 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.080 where you you know, get next day delivery or two 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:10.120 day delivery on like basically anything you want to order, right, 0:10:10.160 --> 0:10:13.640 So any DVD that you couldn't find in a local 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:16.120 shop or something like that, or stream you can get. 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.400 You know, this isn't it's not that isolated. So uh. 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.320 The other things that were there was they built an 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.680 artificial beach to try to make it more attractive. And 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:28.360 I actually saw pictures I was I was looking for 0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.920 pictures for this episode, and there are pictures of from 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:34.360 the sixties of Russian women just hanging out on this 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.760 fake beach. So they just dumped a lot of stand 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.240 on the water. I don't know. I don't know how 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:43.480 they put it together. Um that was that wasn't in 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:46.560 any of the research, but I would imagine given the 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.720 feats that these people were performing with science, that making 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:54.160 a fake beach was like pretty easy comparatively. Uh yeah, 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.120 so the and and they also this is interesting the 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.200 whole design of it was set up to preserve the 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.800 natural environment of Siberia. So that's fascinating too, right, I 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:07.400 mean you're considering the fifties like they were thinking ecologically 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.360 back then too when they're setting this up. Yeah. Now, 0:11:10.760 --> 0:11:14.440 it's worth noting that the original plans called for what 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:19.160 for what is called wedding cake style Stalinist architecture. Uh. 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.840 And the word the Russian for that is Zuker Baker 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:27.440 steel and uh. At any rate, luck that would have 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.560 been you know, a lot more boxy communist looking buildings 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.280 and less of a reliance on trees that got scrapped, 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.920 and they ended up going with this uh this uh, 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.920 this more natural look, or at least it's more natural 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:43.560 when you when you factorate all the trees and mean, yeah, 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.480 the um, we'll talk about it later. But there's like 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.720 a main building there now that has been built recently 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:51.840 for the sort of modern day version of this place. Uh, 0:11:51.880 --> 0:11:54.840 And it's this kind of fascinating architecture style. I have 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:56.439 to say, like, after doing all the research, I was 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:57.640 kind of like, this seems like it would be a 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.079 fun place to go in vacation. Like it may be 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:02.880 that's something only the people who host science podcasts think 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.040 when they read about this, it's the building your thing? 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:08.079 Is this the one that looks like an upside down you? Yeah, 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.040 it's pretty crazy. Yeah, it's just this. The whole area 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.040 just seems sort of fascinating and um and like it 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:15.720 would be fun. But you know, I'm also not the 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.240 type of person who goes to the beach on vacation, 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:20.840 even if it's an artificial beach. And in terms of 0:12:20.840 --> 0:12:22.960 getting actual institutes in there, I want to point out 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:28.240 that Mikhael Labyrintev's Institute of hydro Dynamics was the first 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:32.679 to really become operational, uh intim Cora doc. Yeah, And 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:35.440 as we'll talk about later, like there's basically like any 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.720 university type situation, there's little silos all over this place, 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:43.440 and there's like little institutes there. I say little, they're 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.360 not little, but there's probably like I don't know, ten, 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:50.400 maybe twelve of them, um that just have all the 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.040 different disciplines that were studied there. And it's it's intense 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.560 when you think about like how much was all being 0:12:56.600 --> 0:13:00.480 focused on in this different area and still is now. 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:03.800 It took them ten years to actually build the Center 0:13:03.840 --> 0:13:07.960 of academic Gara doc. But it was essentially built with 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.360 the idea being that it would be a campus for 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:13.880 Nova SEVERERSK State University. Okay, and here's the answer to that. 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:17.600 It's fourteen institutes, not twelve. Uh that and they were 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:20.880 all set up as part of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Now, 0:13:20.880 --> 0:13:24.840 at its height, there were sixty five thousand scientists there. 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.480 Uh Now that I would imagine the height would be 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.839 the mid sixties given what we've read. Um, although it's 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.400 getting back up there again now, it's not as much 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:36.160 of a public institution anymore. It's a combination of public 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:39.440 and private enterprise. In terms of the amount of money 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.840 spent on building this up initially, a nineteen two article 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.240 from Lauren g Lytton published in the Bulletin of Atomic 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.199 Scientists put it around two hundred million roubles or two 0:13:50.840 --> 0:13:54.960 million dollars in bucks. I saw some figures that said like, 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.440 over the years, the combination of money that went in 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:01.959 there was close to a billion um that they just 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.280 they really wanted to make this thing work, and they 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:07.720 just pumped a lot of them. Yeah, a lot of 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.199 the money is going in from the state and then 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.600 initially eventually they get to the point where there's actually 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:16.960 some money coming in from industrial ventures as well. So, um, 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:19.800 Mikhail Lavrentev, who we've mentioned, who sort of like the 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:23.360 father of this place. He was important to cybernetics and 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:25.920 genetics that was like his field of study, but he's 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:29.840 mainly known as a mathematician. Now this is important before 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.600 we go forward. At the time, genetics was considered a pseudoscience, 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.680 especially in Moscow. I don't mean genetics like worldwide. I 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.240 mean like in terms of the Russian science community. It 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:45.040 was kind of looked down upon, and a lot of 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:48.640 the genetics studies, especially those that went on with Foxes 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.280 that we're going to talk about, which was my favorite 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.600 study that came out of this place, Uh, would not 0:14:54.680 --> 0:14:58.080 have happened if it was in Moscower anywhere where the 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.720 Communist Party in particular would have been aware of what 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:03.360 it was up to. So this was also a nice 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.760 way for him to sort of um hide some studies, 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:09.480 and it allowed a certain amount of freedom for these scientists. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:13.000 And also my understanding is that like it was almost 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:16.080 like a touring destination for artists and what they were. 0:15:16.160 --> 0:15:20.560 They actually referred to them as bards coming through the town, 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:24.200 who would you know, give performances or uh do poetry 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.720 slams Like it sounds like I'm joking with the way 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:30.200 they described it. They weren't called poetry slams. That they 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:33.480 were like poetry readings at like local coffee houses and 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.680 in academic guard dog So very much in line with 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:39.160 some of the Silicon Valley as stuff that we hear 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:41.680 about or you know, imagine some of you actually experienced 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:46.960 with your serial stations and your your your meditation workshops 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:50.640 coming through through the workplace totally. And so this was 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:55.400 like this place where all like Russian creatives could sort 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.680 of like flow through and distribute their ideas to the 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:03.440 scientific community they air uh without fear of repercussions. And 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.720 one last thing before we go into the problems with 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:09.560 this place when things started to fall apart, is the 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:12.640 logo is super cool? Yeah. Um, so that the logo 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:14.640 they came up with. The idea was that it was 0:16:14.680 --> 0:16:17.840 the Greek letter sigma and it was emblazoned on top 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:22.200 of a shock wave UH. And the design thinking here 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:25.480 was basically that it would suggest the synergy of a 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:30.040 broad range of disciplines uh while bringing a quote flash 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:32.600 of lightning to the area. It's a pretty good logo. 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:34.440 I have to admit, Yeah, it's cool. I wonder if 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.800 you like, there's probably like a collector's market for like 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:40.960 old Russian academic Gara doc like lapel buttons or something 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:42.880 like that. I should hope so, But then again, you 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.400 can get them on eBay. Yeah, may it would look 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:47.840 great on a T shirt. So if it's not already 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:49.640 on one of these, you know, the millions of T 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:53.240 shirt websites out serious needs to be so that that 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.200 article that I mentioned earlier by um loreng G. Lighton 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:58.560 and the Bolton of Atomic Science, it's from seventy two. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:02.360 The title on that is another view of a cat 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:05.400 Imgora doc. Yeah. It was sort of like a response piece, right, 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.040 because there was one that had been previously published like 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.040 a year earlier in the same journal that was fairly 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:15.399 critical I think, right, well, yeah, and this to a 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:18.080 certain extent maybe not being critical enough, like kind of 0:17:18.640 --> 0:17:20.200 not not really dealing with the kind of the nuts 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:22.800 and bolts, so they think we're coming together. My understanding 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.000 was it was sort of like h Western scientists trying 0:17:26.040 --> 0:17:28.560 to come to grips with what this might mean. Yeah, 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:30.840 and this is and this ends up being I like 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.119 this paper because it's a little more like I mean, 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.600 it's certainly not demonizing and saying, oh this is evil 0:17:35.800 --> 0:17:39.080 Soviet science town, but it's but it's laying out just 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:43.080 some of the basic logistical problems and human problems of 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:46.280 trying to build what is sometimes referred to as a 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:49.200 science utopia. And everybody knows what happens when you're trying 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.639 to build a utopia. It falls apart because of dystopia. Right. 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:55.280 If science fiction has taught us anything it's that we'll 0:17:55.320 --> 0:17:58.720 never have a perfect world. And I mean, at the 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.920 very least, like this was often held up as being 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:06.399 sort of an unlimited funds, unlimited talent, unlimited opportunity for 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:09.920 scientific inquiry. And of course, anytime someone is trying to 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:12.679 sell you something that is unlimited, uh, you know, there 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:15.080 are limits. It might be that might be an all 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.560 you can eat see food buffet, but there is a 0:18:17.680 --> 0:18:21.680 finite amount of steamer tray shrimp you can eat. There's 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.640 only so much. Yeah, so you know what I'm already thinking, 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:26.840 Like we've we've talked about this on the show many 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:31.040 times before, Like all of our ideas for AMC dramas 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:35.359 historical period pieces that come up throughout the show. So 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.440 we've we've already talked about how there should be one 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.040 that's sort of about like the the science psychedelic set 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.040 of like um, Timothy Leary, et cetera, those those types 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.680 of folk. There should be like an AMC type mad 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:51.720 Men show that's set an academic Guara doc in the 0:18:51.840 --> 0:18:54.600 big sixties. That would be That would be fantastic, would 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.600 be good, especially especially taking in some of these details 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:01.359 that come from that light and article. And specifically she 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:08.040 interviewed one uh Ganadi Loveovich Paspalov, who was director of 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:11.760 the Institute of Geology and Geophysics and UM and so 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.479 he had a, you know, an insider view of how 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.320 things were coming together. And my understanding from the readings 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.800 was that that that institute, the GEL Geology and Geophysics 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:25.280 Institute in particular, was like one of the big successes 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:28.400 for this place in particular because it was the first 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.040 one to bring together all of the sub disciplines of 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:37.120 geology and geophysics into like one organization. But then also 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.600 like they uh somehow like came up with a new system. 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.600 It's in the notes, so we'll get there later, but 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:45.399 they came up with a new system for discovering oil, 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.720 and they found major oil plots in Siberia cool And 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:51.960 that's an example of things working the way you would 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:54.480 hope they would. You're bringing these these all these talented 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.400 individuals together. They're gonna have coffee at some point, They're 0:19:57.400 --> 0:19:59.760 gonna go to the water cooler. You know, they're gonna 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.440 go to the Yeah, minds are gonna gonna come together, 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.640 and new ideas are gonna be generated. But as possible 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:08.680 Off pointed out, first of all, it was difficult to 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.040 get things off the ground and moving. After all, everything 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.040 was done from scratch here. There wasn't I think the 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.840 example that was mentioned in the article was that, you know, 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:18.920 it's one thing to build a factory. You know, you 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:21.119 know that that the components that have to come together, 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.800 you can put that together with relative ease. Because we've 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:28.000 been doing them for a while. This was something entirely new. Um. 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:31.960 And then they wound up with three types of scientists. 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:35.760 According to possible Law, three types of scientists that ended 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.679 up at caught him degoradac. The first was let's call 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:42.800 them idea men. The quote here is, on the one hand, 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:45.240 you've got the clever ones who give birth to new ideas, 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.000 each one more interesting than the other. But they expect 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:51.240 everything to be done right away and want it done 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.080 with a wave of the hand. And they're not known 0:20:53.160 --> 0:20:55.879 for their persistence or their love of tedious labor, so 0:20:56.080 --> 0:20:58.760 nothing comes from them. Okay, so you have those. This 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:03.399 already sounds like just any public university to me, but okay, 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:07.040 keep going. And then there they let's call them time servers, 0:21:07.080 --> 0:21:11.000 he says, toilers who are not by God endowed. But 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:13.280 for all that, they are a stubborn lot, and you 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:15.800 just might get something out of them. Only they don't 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:19.640 have ideas. Familiar with this style of academic as well. 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:23.240 I call them turtles when I was working in academia. 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:26.960 And then there are the enthusiastic quote, those who are 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.600 neither clever nor toilers, but rather those characters who believe 0:21:30.680 --> 0:21:36.080 mistakenly there and this is his by God endowed. But 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:38.680 don't you be in a hurry to dismiss them as ballast. 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.000 These people are quite often such enthusiasts for science that 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.320 you can't bring yourself to write them off as ballast. Yeah, 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:48.400 So if this works out the same or worked out 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:53.240 the same way, that politics in you know, my experiences 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:55.280 with public universities. I'm sure it goes on in private 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.880 universities as well, But there's I imagine that these factions 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:00.760 sort of broke off, right, and there's like they're like 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.159 ven diagrams. Is a little bit of overlap, it's a 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.080