State Prize Ryzhov Yu. Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Ryzhov: "The country's intellectual potential has been completely destroyed under Putin!" What did Burbulis say?

04.05.2021

Yuri Ryzhov. Photo: Yuri Rost

When I came to visit Yuri Alekseevich Ryzhov, he seated me on the sofa and told me about his life. He talked about the bicycle races of the post-war years (he was a strong cyclist in those years), about how, as an ambassador to France, he drove a car at a terrible speed, about how he was persuaded to become prime minister, but he refused. Moreover, he was more willing to talk about sports and bicycles than about tricks around the premiership.

It had the old Moscow hospitality and cordiality. “Well, what else would be interesting to show you?” he asked, leading me to the bookshelves.

“Come back often, I’m a dying person,” he said in our last telephone conversation.

So interesting, so juicy were his stories that I, returning home from him, wrote down something. Here are the entries.

There is something childish in his language. Either he will call the head of the KGB Kryuchkov “Hook”, then Chernomyrdin “Chernomor”. He met with Chernomyrdin when he was still a minister gas industry THE USSR. Financing Ryzhov's project, the Thermoplan aircraft, was entrusted to three vice-premiers of the union government, the ministers of the gas industry, ferrous metallurgy and medium machine building. Academician and rector of the MAI Ryzhov went to Chernomyrdin when there was a need for funding. Chernomor answered the phone, and Ryzhov listened as the minister, swearing, sorted out problems, and then energetically summed up: “I wanted the best, but it turned out as always!” It turns out that this phrase was coined by the gas minister back in the Soviet years and even then accurately and succinctly described what was happening.

Ryzhov speaks about the thermoplane with a touch of bitterness. Calls it "my project". Shows a photograph standing in the hallway behind glass, on a bookshelf. In the photo, Yuri Ryzhov with a young face and noble gray hair against the background of a black board with drawings of an airship and formulas. He explains his ideas at some seminar. A thermoplane is a type of airship that uses helium as a lift and warm air from running engines. A prototype thermoplane with a diameter of 40 meters was built in Ulyanovsk. “Oh, what a big one! “No, not big,” he corrects me dryly. “To carry 500 tons, it must be 160 meters in diameter.” This was planned by Academician Ryzhov. But the cyclopean machine that was supposed to surpass Zeppelin's "Count Hindenburg" was never built. The project arose at the end of the Soviet era and died with it.

40-meter model of the Soviet thermal plane, assembled in Ulyanovsk

In 1968 he came to Paris as a tourist. They told him: “We need to go to the embassy, sign up there!” He came to the old hotel of the Comte d'Estre and found that everything there was filled with old cabinets. Everything was dull and miserable, like in the housing office, and some kind of bloke was sitting in the middle. “I am Professor Ryzhov, they told me I should go to the embassy. Professor? Okay, let's go..."

It must be said here that the professor and academician does not just tell me this everyday and, in general, insignificant scene. Standing next to me, he plays it with his voice and face. The word "khmyr", with which this resident of the old Arbat courtyard and the head of the "red-kid team" (as he himself calls his company of that time) solder the bureaucrat, sounds impudent, young, impudent energy. He does not play anything, there is nothing acting in him, but at the same time, for some reason, I see so clearly, so distinctly an official with hair slicked over his bald head, with shoulders almost lying on a rickety stationery table, an official writing with a quill pen in a thick ledger in in the column the surname "Ryzhov" and in the column the position "professor". Of course, even in a dream he could not have dreamed that he would return to the Comte d'Estre's hotel, and not by anyone, but by an ambassador.

The first visit of Russian President Boris Yeltsin to France. Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia Yury Ryzhov is on the right. 1992 Photo: RIA Novosti

At the same time, he and a friend went to Monte Carlo. At night, they went to two slot machines, having a franc for each brother. They quit. A friend got a zero, a lucky Ryzhov got a lot of money. They immediately put all the money into the game and this time they lost both and everything.

Yuri Alekseevich Ryzhov tells with such accuracy to the smallest details and details that one would like to call his memory "photographic". This is the smallest and continuous factography of life, which includes events of all levels - from meetings with statesmen to meetings with grandchildren.

On the eve of the putsch in August 1991, on aviation day, he took his grandchildren to an air parade in Zhukovsky, where the three of them - two boys and a cheerful gray-haired academician - watched, as he puts it, "luxurious aerobatics." Details multiply, crumble, each stand in its own hole, forming a dense picture of the day. The name of the driver, calling the car, plans for the day, a visit to the White House and a call to Arkhangelskoye on the Kaluga Highway, where Yeltsin, Burbulis and others were writing a statement. Yeltsin was going to go to Moscow, Ryzhov dissuaded him, saying that the roads were blocked. But Yeltsin arrived, and then Korzhakov appears for a moment in the picture of the day, who ordered Ryzhov to stand alone, "for safety." An incomprehensible instruction, Yuri Alekseevich does not really understand it even now, sitting in a deep easy chair in his apartment on the 12th floor of the building inhabited by academicians. But it doesn't matter. Another, more significant detail is important, namely: the connection was not turned off, the turntables were working, the HF connection was working, through which it was possible to call the regions. There are no windows in the corridors of the White House, they are illuminated by electric lamps, and so Rutskoi ordered the lights to be turned off in the corridors, and at the same time Captain Lopatin in a black naval uniform began distributing weapons.

"Now in the dark someone will fire from the nerves, and there will be a bloodbath."

He insisted that the lights be turned on again.

Then some people asked him - a specialist - to check if helicopters could land on the roof. He went up with them in the elevator to the top floor, then through the attics to the roof. Everything was wired. “No, no one will sit down here, it’s impossible, they will beat you.” He manages to say this with such an intonation and such a face that you understand very well the helicopter pilot whom the order sent into the sky above the White House, but he doesn’t need this putsch, and he sabotages this order as best he can, and plays heroism in these August days, planting the car between the wires, it will not be in any case.

After the coup, he was a member of the committee to investigate the actions of the KGB. "We were sitting in the KGB building, the last building on Kuznetsky Most." With some strange subservience, KGB colonels ran around the members of the committee and organized separate offices for them. “Why did we need them? We still gathered in Bakatin's office." Defense Minister Grachev and General Lebed came there to testify. “Pasha didn’t say anything interesting… But there was something interesting in Lebed’s testimony. He said that on the afternoon of August 19 he arrived at the Ministry of Defense, and there was a meeting. The generals sat at a large table, and at the end of the table stood a man in civilian clothes, in a black suit and gold-rimmed glasses, and demanded from the generals that they immediately take control of the city. The generals did not want to do this, but just in case they did not object, but called the colonels into the hall and ordered them to develop a plan. The meeting went on for three hours. The colonels left and returned an hour later with some terrible, unthinkable, poorly executed plan. Lebed said that if his subordinates had come to him with such a plan, he would have torn off their epaulets.”

To the Committee for the Protection of Scientists ( a public association that defends the interests of scientists accused by the FSB of treason without evidence — Ed.) he brought two KGB generals in civilian clothes. At the meeting with the KGB generals were, in addition to Ryzhov, Academician Ginzburg, his housemate, and six more physicists from Moscow State University and other institutes - everyone who dealt with the topic and understood it. More, except for the sitting Danilov ( Valentin Danilov, physicist, sentenced to 14 years in a strict regime colony in 2004 for spying for China, — Ed.), There was no one. Ryzhov specially selected literature on the topic and showed the books to these two in civilian clothes. Everything that Danilov conveyed and could convey to the Chinese was published. “We have our own experts,” the two in civilian clothes answered everything that those gathered said to them. Two academicians were for these people from Lubyanka not their own. Their word and opinion meant nothing to them.

When describing this scene, Ryzhov's voice changes noticeably. Everything changes, intonation, tension, sound. The way he talks about the KGB men, one can talk about some underground creatures. Yes, he does not hide. “Nits…,” the academician and plenipotentiary ambassador prints these two in civilian clothes, without names or faces. “KGB punks…” Here is a personal and not only personal, but also hereditary, genetic aversion of the intellectual to the gray slime that envelops the country through centuries and decades. And no longer hiding anger, hatred, disgust, despair: “The country, like a mine horse, with its eyes closed, walks in a circle ... Again it goes in a circle ... Again, the same thing.” This is from a man who is 82 years old. He remembers so much.

“Yuri Alekseevich, how do you yourself explain why they do this, what do they need?” “But it’s very difficult to catch a real spy, it’s dangerous to catch a terrorist ... but to grab a bespectacled man by the scruff of the neck and get hit here and there for it (he points to his chest and into his pocket) they can.”

Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Ryzhov: "The intellectual potential of the country under Putin has been destroyed to the ground!"

Speaking at a meeting of the Council for Science and Education on November 23, Vladimir Putin criticized civil servants who, contrary to his recommendation, were elected academicians and corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences. "So they are great scientists, right? I think that I will have to give them the opportunity to do science, because, apparently, their scientific activity is much more important than the performance of some routine administrative duties in government and administration," - the president of the Russian Federation was indignant. On November 25, in the program of Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr. on Radio Liberty, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Ryzhov spoke about the degradation of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Education in the country, as well as about this statement by Putin. Here are excerpts from this show.

Yuri Ryzhov. www.novayagazeta.ru

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Academician Yury Ryzhov joined our conversation. Yuri Alekseevich, I know that you do not really approve of the combination of civil service and academic status.

Yuri Ryzhov: It is a private question - to approve or not to approve. The fact is that the Academy has been destroyed for a long time. Because immediately after the election of Vladimir Evgenievich Fortov, FASO was hung around his neck, quite worthy academies merged, which as a result destroyed all three. And in parallel, there was a devastation of the science of the middle and high school. And I, as a former rector, and now the head of the department of aerodynamics at the Moscow Aviation Institute (once almost the main technical university for aviation, space and military missiles), I note that it was not "perestroika" that destroyed all this. Already before Gorbachev, there was no money for education, science, including defense, and advanced technologies. And it's not his fault. That state came, against which I tried to object.

I suggested to Gorbachev, within the framework of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, where I was chairman of the Committee on Science, Education and Culture, to develop a National Security Concept to say that we spend big money on missiles, tanks and all weapons, which then, as they say, become dead in warehouses or given to some satellites on credit or free of charge - and there was no longer enough money for science, including defense.

So, that year the Russian Academy of Sciences is no more. What the Academy is now is some kind of vinaigrette or olivier. Dominance in the FASO, and in the Ministry of Education, and in the Ministry of Culture of officials, whose level is below the plinth in any respect, crushed everyone with senseless reporting. As the head of the department, I know that there are a huge number of questionnaires and documents that need to be filled out. The rectorate lowers them to the deans, and the deans lower them to the departments. And my teachers, instead of doing their own thing, sit and fill out these meaningless papers. And tomorrow they are returned to them and they say: "But our uniform has changed." Submit new forms. And again the same crap. This is an absolutely amazing suppression of everything that still exists, in particular, in my pulpit.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Does the title of academician give any security? At one time, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov could not be deprived of his title, when he was sent into exile, he remained an academician.

Yuri Ryzhov: Well, what do we want? When the person who started all this, leading my Motherland to a catastrophe, is crafty (and now it sounded very cool), blatantly accusing Fortov of what he himself did with the country, science and education, the clericalization of society - what questions can there be?! What has just been said is not even demagogy, it is much worse! This is scum! Everything that happened with the Academy of Sciences... I already said that the officials loaded us with papers. I am talking about the university. But I know that the same thing happens in academic research institutes and in industrial ones. Now new "spy scientists" have again been found, whom we tried to protect with Vitaly Ginzburg, with Sergei Kapitsa, with Lyudmila Alekseeva. Well, the listeners of "Freedom" all know what I should tell them?! In May, on Bolotnaya, I barely escaped from the shields, batons of the so-called "cosmonauts". But most importantly, all this is just a consequence of what happened in political life after 2004. This is where we all eat! The country has turned 180 degrees, the country borders on the modernization of the Middle Ages in the project for the XXI century. What are we talking about now, what kind of science?!

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Or maybe the president "cut off the oxygen" to some gifted scientists, and now they will not be able to reveal their scientific talents?

Yuri Ryzhov: Your interlocutor has just said a very interesting thing, which would be nice if professionals headed this or that area of science or technology. What happened? The so-called "managers" even came to branch institutes. In their academic, thank God, no. But behind them is FANO, and this is worse than a director-manager. And about the academy. I immediately said that this organization does not exist. I have been at the academy for 35 years (if not more) and I know what happened there. And I know exactly what the influence of the state is. The state understood ... only once - about Lysenko - did not understand, and in all other natural sciences it understood the role of science in the country's defense capability. And never put pressure on the natural branches, but the pressure was on the so-called humanitarian branches, which had to obey the dominant ideology. Well, God be with him. But now we have in one of the main universities of the country - MEPhI, which trains personnel for nuclear scientists, there is a department of either Orthodoxy, or something else.

Alexander Osovtsov: Department of Theology.

Yuri Ryzhov: In my opinion, even under Osipov (my old friend, whom I recommended to Yeltsin when he offered me to head the Russian Academy), agreements were already concluded with the church. The same agreement was concluded by Sadovnichiy. Now clericalization, union with the church. And the church and science are the same as including in science as a regulating moment not obscurantism, but some kind of wild, backward past.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: And what does the president want? So that he personally approves the lists for promotion to academics?

Yuri Ryzhov: Of course not. I object to one very important topic that we touch on today. We're talking about an academy that doesn't exist. It is necessary to talk about the situation in the country with science, education and so on. And the academy, I repeat, is long gone. As soon as it fell under the FASO academy, when the ministers of education, culture, science and something else, mediocre people, headed, as they say, the intellectual potential of the country, they destroyed it to the ground - education, science and culture. Today they are discussing some minister, whether he is worthy of the title of doctor. This is bullshit! Someone awarded him. Money starts to work, administrative resources... the presidential administration or three floors below, when they give degrees and titles, and now they choose. And now our Dresden major from the First Main Directorate ( foreign intelligence) The USSR reproaches Vladimir Evgenievich Fortov for what he is not guilty of. Because everything that happened was done by one person who, unfortunately, has been in charge of everything for many years. And all this is some kind of toy under the carpet. But even in the Soviet Union it was. There were some 3-4 people who made a terrible decision to enter Afghanistan, and you know what sacrifices and losses it cost us. I don't know if today's Lieutenant Colonel of the First Main Directorate has such people who could discuss something with him on an equal footing. And then there were Ustinov, Gromyko and so on. But the decisions that have been taken recently in the internal and foreign policy, is worse than the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Today's Duma is just some kind of riffraff. Guys, forgive me, but I'm already carried ... I'm so tired in this life, I've lived too long, and I remember too much. Excuse me.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Yuri Alekseevich, perhaps there are some latent forces within your institute or your department that would revive domestic science? Or are you more pessimistic about everything?

Yuri Ryzhov: Of course, I am more pessimistic. But I want to object when today Volodya Fortov is accused of something. I accuse him of only one thing - when he understood all this, he had to slam the door and go to the brilliant Institute for High Temperatures, which he headed, which was created by Sheindlin, a wonderful person. I would slam the door. And I have either a sin, or guilt, that I refused to head the Russian government three times. Well, that's nonsense. But when Yeltsin offered me to head the Academy of the RSFSR in the existence Soviet Union, I told him: "This is nonsense!". But at that time it somehow happened that my good friend from Sverdlovsk was here - Yura Osipov came to lecture. And when Yeltsin put pressure on me, I said: "Your compatriot is here now." And after some time, Yuri Sergeevich called me and said: "This is what I am offered ..." I say: "I consider this stupidity - at the same time the Union Academy and the Academy of the RSFSR." After some time, Yura Osipov accepted the offer. Elections were even held in 1991. And then he called me: "Okay, they chose, including Khasbulatov ... And what to do?" I say: "Yura, elections to the Soviet academy have never been ideal. And now you just need to merge those whom you have chosen and those who are." And then everything went.

RAS Academician Yuri Ryzhov gave an interview to Moskovsky Komsomolets correspondent Natalya Vedeneeva. In the 1990s, Boris Yeltsin offered Ryzhov several times to become Prime Minister of Russia and head of the Russian Academy of Sciences, but he refused each time, remaining devoted to his favorite business - the creation of aircraft and the education of young aviation industry engineers at the MAI. Yuri Alekseevich is an outstanding scientist, a prominent specialist in the field of surface-to-air missiles, a former member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the first ambassador of the Russian Federation to France.

Yuri Ryzhov. Photo: Mikhail Sokolov / Radio Liberty

- Yuri Alekseevich, in the "revolutionary" year of 1991 you were the rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute, a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, headed the Committee of the Armed Forces on Science and Technology - a pretty decent track record for the post of prime minister. Why did you still refuse to head the Government of Russia?

“Because, frankly, I didn’t understand economics very well. And I understood that, firstly, in that situation of real economic devastation, which was in the country in those years, some scammers could easily fool me, and what would this lead to the whole country? Secondly, I could just overstrain, and then we would not talk to you today (smiles).

- And then Yeltsin chose the candidacy of Ivan Silaev ...

- Yes. Silaev, the former Minister of the Aviation Industry, I advised him for the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, because I knew him well. He held out until the complete collapse of the USSR, after which he was replaced by Yegor Gaidar, and soon after that by Viktor Chernomyrdin. But each time, Boris Nikolayevich first offered to take the vacant vacancy to me. Until now, every year on November 15, members of the Gaidar government gather in Moscow, where they invite me, and each time Gennady Burbulis (the closest ally of Yeltsin. - N.V.) says the same words to the general joyful hum and jokes, which became, seems to be already a tradition: “If back in 1991 this person (points to me) had accepted the post of prime minister, then we would not be here with you.”

- But you also refused the post of President of the Russian Academy of Sciences! Here you would be exactly in the right place, but for some reason again refused.

- When I was offered to head the newly created Academy of Sciences of the RSFSR, I replied: “What nonsense? Now the Government of the RSFSR has been created, which sits in the White House, and who needs it when the Government of the USSR sits in Moscow and decides everything? I also don’t understand the role of the Academy of the RSFSR under the existing Academy of Sciences of the USSR.”

What were the counter arguments?

- As I understand it, Yeltsin already wanted to separate from the central government: the RSFSR had to be with its own government, with its own academy, etc. And again, I proposed to him instead of myself another candidate - Yuri Sergeevich Osipov. I once said to Yeltsin: "My good comrade, your countryman from Sverdlovsk is now in Moscow, he could head the academy." Yeltsin quickly found him. Soon Yuri Sergeevich calls me and says that he was offered the position of president of the academy. Before the putsch, he managed to hold elections to the new Academy of the RSFSR.

- Who entered it?

- Russian scientists - members of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR entered it automatically. Some were taken - for example, Ruslan Khasbulatov was then elected a corresponding member (he was then chairman of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR). Many voted for him.

— What about the members of the “big” Academy of the USSR from other republics?

— They became academicians of their national academies.

- It turns out that Yeltsin was a separatist?

— He wanted to head an independent administrative unit. Then there were a lot of quasi-Yeltsin slogans like: “Stop feeding the periphery!”, “How long will everyone be subsidized by us?” etc. Of course, this was demagoguery: in fact, locally, in the republics, the local "shahs" were only happy about the division, because they became full-fledged and sole rulers.

Whose side were you on during the ensuing coup?

- Of course, on the side of Yeltsin! We were together in the Interregional Deputy Group, which also included Andrei Sakharov and Gavriil Popov. We thought about the fate of the country. When the coup broke out, I had just returned to Moscow from vacation. In the morning, having called the driver, I decided to call on Burbulis at the White House to find out what was happening, and then to the Moscow Aviation Institute. However, I had to get stuck in the Government House for all three days, everything turned out to be more serious than I thought.

What did Burbulis say?

- He was not in the White House, he was in Arkhangelsk. Yeltsin, Silaev and Khasbulatov were also there. I was connected to Burbulis, but suddenly Yeltsin snatched the phone from his hands and said loudly: “Yuri Alekseevich, we are preparing an appeal against the putschists, gather journalists, people, we will drive up now.” I told him: “There are tanks in the city, people. You probably can't get through." "No, we'll break through!" - answers. They were miraculously released by the special services that were on duty near Arkhangelsk. If Kryuchkov (the last chairman of the KGB of the USSR Vladimir Kryuchkov. - N.V.) had been more decisive then, they could have been killed there, but they arrived. We took the stage inside the White House, in front of which there were about two thousand people, and Silaev began to read the famous appeal against the putschists, signed by President Yeltsin, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Khasbulatov and Chairman of the Council of Ministers Silaev. When the chairman of the Council of Ministers finished reading, Yeltsin pushed us apart, who were standing on the stage, and told the people: "Now scatter and spread all this to the people." And then he asks me: “Were there foreign journalists in the hall?” “Of course,” I say. “Enough!” Well, after Yeltsin got out on the street on the tank, and I stood next to him. Korzhakov, his bodyguard, for some reason reminded us all the time that there should be a meter and a half from each of us to the nearest person for security reasons, but no one listened to him ...

- Well, what good did Yeltsin offer? What were you fighting for?

— I supported democracy and was against the Soviet power.

What did the word "democracy" mean to you? As we understood later, the country completely switched to importing food, equipment ...

“We had a complete economic collapse then, there was no food. Speculators held products and sold from under the floor. But Gaidar legalized this business, he said: if there is a product, put it on the market, and how much you will be paid, sell for that much! If this had not been done, we would have Civil War.

- What, in your opinion, was the mistake of the then government?

- I later reproached Gaidar in hindsight: “You decided that if you liberate the economy, then it will create correct system state institutions that are necessary to protect personal property, society and the state. But that didn't happen." In 1990 we had an attempt to create a concept of national security. I came up with this idea to Gorbachev, and he said: “Here, let’s develop it!” He appointed me chairman of the commission of 19 people's deputies ... But, alas, we worked for only 40 days, having managed to proclaim two theses. First: security is not only a state-political concept, it also has such components as economic, environmental and information. And the second: the priorities of the rights and freedoms of the individual, and only then - society and the state, if the latter is able to provide the first two.

What happened after 40 days?

- We were told this: "The Ryzhov Commission has completed its work, the president takes over the country's security issues." As I learned later, in the summer of 1990, three security officials came to Gorbachev, talked to him, and he began to roll back.

- From 1992 to 1998, you worked as an ambassador to France, and upon your return, you began to actively engage in human rights activities. Why?

— Yes, I started doing this when scientists-“spies” began to be imprisoned. There were five of us, human rights activists from science, then: your obedient servant, Nobel laureate Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vitaly Ginzburg, my good friend and comrade Seryozha Kapitsa, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Alekseeva and human rights activist Ernst Cherny. Unfortunately, Ginzburg and Kapitsa are no longer alive, but we continue our work: we write letters in defense of scientists to various authorities and to the president. Two sonorous names of our wards were actively exaggerated in the press: this is a Krasnoyarsk scientist, a former director of the Thermophysical Center of KSTU, a well-known specialist in space plasma in Russia, Valentin Danilov, who was sentenced in November 2004 by a court to 14 years in prison for spying for China. Fortunately, he did not have to serve a full term: on November 24, 2012, the 68-year-old scientist was released on parole and came to visit us in Moscow. Our second client is 51-year-old Muscovite Igor Sutyagin, former employee Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, candidate of historical sciences. In 2004, despite the fact that he did not have a formalized access to classified materials, he was convicted under article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for high treason. In 2010, after spending almost 11 years in prison, he was released as a result of an exchange of convicts between Russia and the United States, after which he moved to the UK. (He was exchanged for Anna Chapman. - N.V.) ...

- Did you take part in the fate of Vladimir Lapygin, an employee of TsNIIMash, who was sentenced by the Moscow City Court in September of this year - 7 years in a strict regime colony?

We fought for it for a long time. He, like me, was engaged in aerodynamics all his life, he worked in the rocket and space complex for 46 years. On the day he was taken to the pre-trial detention center, the directorate of TsNIIMash issued an order: “In connection with his retirement, for high merits, express gratitude to V. Lapygin ...”

- As far as we know, he, like Danilov, was accused of selling secrets to the Chinese. But what could they sell, how?

- I know that Danilov, as a researcher at the Krasnoyarsk Physicotechnical Institute, concluded a preliminary agreement with the state Chinese organization. I saw these papers in Chinese, English and Russian, where he suggested that they make a vacuum chamber to simulate two or three conditions in the space environment, such as ultraviolet radiation and an electron beam. To understand the issue, I will say that there are a thousand such phenomena in space, and only two countries can now simulate them on a full scale using two installations. One is with us (it is capable of simulating everything, including nuclear radiation), the second is with the Americans. Danilov, on the other hand, received a $300 advance ... And one of his employees, who were aware of the matter, but were not included in the group of performers, “snitched” on him.

— You say that Danilov acted officially, on behalf of the Krasnoyarsk Technical University. Isn't that what our engine specialists from Khimki are doing, manufacturing and selling our unique space engines in the USA?

“Wait, are you looking for logic in all of this?

- Certainly!

- Useless! I will tell you this: there is nothing in our country that would be of interest to a potential enemy. Except maybe some strategic possible plans. But in the field of technology and science - definitely not.

- Well, you are probably not quite right here: at the last MAKS (International Aviation and Space Salon in Zhukovsky), contracts were concluded for the purchase of our Superjets.

“It's all nonsense. This project was laid down in the 80s, and the implementation was delayed right up to our time. Here they write that a contract has been signed for a hundred pieces, for several years at a stretch ... The question is: there is an internal market here - will any of our airlines buy it? There are no such companies.

Why won't they buy?

- When I saw it for the first time, I asked: “Is this a medium-haul liner?” - "Yes". - "Can he land on any of our more or less decent airfields?" - "Yes". So, I say that you can not hang the engine under the wing, when the lower edge of the input device is 50 cm from the strip - any bump, and it will fly off! Hit and fly off. Therefore, it is safe only in good lanes, which we do not have very many. This is first. Secondly, the aircraft does not satisfy the company under the guaranteed service system - they would rather lease a used Boeing or Airbus. All our leading airlines fly on them. Thirdly, the "Superjet" lagged behind technologically - it took too long to make ... Fourthly, all its components are foreign: from engines to electronics. Once I was in TsAGI, and there they showed me excellent German equipment for testing the panels of the Superjet aircraft for fatigue (when the part is subjected to strong vibration). I look, the carbon fiber panel is shaking. I was delighted, I say to Chernyshov (general director of TsAGI. - N.V.): “Is this a panel of our, Khotkovo production?” “No, no,” he says, “Holland.” And I thought that at least we are responsible for the shape of the apparatus, because the aerodynamics in our Union was the best ...

In Zhukovsky, contracts were signed for a hundred Superjet aircraft with delivery within two to three years (they cannot be made faster under our production conditions). But we must not forget that the liner has foreign competitors, not necessarily even American or European - Brazilian and Canadian. Their companies produce aircraft by the dozens, if not hundreds, a year, and there are queues behind them all over the world. I'm not talking about Boeing and Airbus, which produce large long-haul aircraft. They "stamp" them by 300 cars (!) per year. And what are the chances after that for our unfortunate "Superjet"? ..

As an ambassador to France, I fought to make a huge A-380 airliner together with Airbus. The project was laid in the mid-90s. We sought to be commissioned to make large wing panels. We then had large presses that allowed us to stamp them very accurately. But, unfortunately, I failed to come to an agreement, the French did without our help. They made it. I managed to see him in the air even before my departure, in 1999. Our aviation industry, alas, has died irreversibly - I guarantee you that.

- What way out do you propose from the current extremely difficult situation?

- None! Technology has lagged behind since the early 1970s, when R&D spending plummeted, even in the defense industry.

- What was the reason for this?

- Backlog!

- To you, as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the question is: why did the backlog arise?

- I came to the USSR Armed Forces when everything was already dead, before that I was the rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute and was a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. But I'll tell you why they fell behind. Firstly, we underestimated the "enemy" science of cybernetics, therefore we very quickly rolled back in microelectronics, in information systems. BESM-6 (Large electronic calculating machine. - N.V.) existed in the country since 1950, but only in two copies and was loaded exclusively with calculations for nuclear scientists. It was a tube, but when we switched to semiconductor circuits, here we already degraded step by step. And this despite the fact that our academician, Nobel laureate Zhores Alferov stood at the origins of the development of semiconductors. “Here,” he tells me at one of the meetings about ten years ago, showing the Nokia gadget, “this is me.” I answer: “I know that your discoveries of 30 years ago could not have done here. Only I have one question: why is it written here “Nokia” and not “Jores”? .. "

- In your words one can hear continuous pessimism. Do you tell your students the same thing? But they and we still have to live and live in Russia ...

- The answer is simple. When Mr. Medvedev invited our young people, mostly scientists, to return from abroad, I wrote an article entitled "Don't Return!", and all the arguments in it are a reminder of which country they left. The country is on the verge of a terrible collapse. It just won't be that easy.

It's easy to say - leave. What if someone can't or doesn't want to?

- Then get ready for what happens in Russia at the time of a systemic crisis (in Russian - unrest). There have been two in the last 100 years. The first systemic crisis began to accumulate even under Alexander III, who tightened the screws until a crisis arose in the armed forces, dissatisfaction with the catastrophic loss of “some kind of Japan”, internal discontent among the elites and among the common people accumulated. And already under Nicholas II, the tsarist empire collapsed, and a new state arose, in which I lived almost all my life. The second turmoil was brewing with the complete collapse of the economy in August 1991 ...

- Let's go back to the present. The reform of the academy, which began immediately after the election of a new president of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2013, shocked scientists. Many did not believe in what was happening, held a rally near the State Duma, seeking the abolition of the bill on the merger of the three academies into one and depriving the RAS of the ability to manage academic institutions. However, nothing happened. Why do you think?

- It was necessary to actively, through the networks, spread the call for opposition. Then there would be more of us. But the information war was lost. After all, it was mostly ordinary employees who rallied. And of the members of the academy, only 70 people out of 700 signed the protest statement. It turns out that only 10% signed up - wonderful people, not accidental at the academy, naturalists: mathematicians, physicists, chemists ... It has always been an active liberal, democratic force.

- I would not say that Zhores Alferov, who was among the signatories against the reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is a liberal.

- Yes, Alferov is not a liberal. But we still acted with him as one front against the collapse of the academy. I said then that our views do not coincide politically in everything, but here we are united. We both defended science: he defended physics, I defended mathematics and mechanics.

- Some now reproach the current president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vladimir Fortov, with excessive political correctness in relation to the reformers. I would like to know your opinion on this matter.

- When Fortov went to the polls, he had two rivals who came out with thin pamphlets with trivial texts about the greatness of science. And only Fortov had a rather serious program, which included an analysis of the financial, organizational state of the academy with graphs, tables, as well as a plan for reforming the academy. Fortov was elected, as you know, easily. And then what happened happened - the destruction of the academy. I believe that it was precisely destroyed at the very moment when it became clear that an organization of FASO officials (Federal Agency for Scientific Organizations. - N.V.) was hanging over it.

Why did officials need it? It was evident that nothing good would come of such a reform; hundreds of academicians told them about it.

- The Academy has long had a huge material base, which was created in the USSR to support the military-industrial complex. These are buildings, test sites, and research ships. Imagine what wealth!

- Who was the ideologist of the collapse?

- What do you think, did you call from the Kremlin and give commands? Now most officials are oriented like dogs to the wind, and their main task is to predict what the authorities will like. Guessed or not in this case - who knows? I believe that as soon as Fortov was hung with a collar in the form of FANO around his neck, he should have slammed the door and gone to his brilliant Institute for High Temperatures, which he directs.

- But Fortov said in one of his interviews that he just cares about what remains after him. Well, if they put a functionary who does not care for the academy instead of him, he would still destroy it even faster.

- It's hard for me to judge Fortov. I will say for myself: I live in Okudzhava - my honor, conscience, dignity and reputation are more important to me.

- It's good you say, but someone has to pull the country out of the swamp.

- There is someone, there are 140 million people in the country ...

— Well, probably, Fortov is one of them?

- Of course, he is empowered, his position is equivalent to the position of a member of the Government Russian Federation. But nevertheless, everything happened… Institutes were kicked out from under the Russian Academy of Sciences, completely different scientific organizations are being united into single centers. The same is happening in education, with universities. Our MAI has already been merged with MATI ... But once our science was at such a high level that we successfully sent apparatuses to Halley's comet with the same Vladimir Evgenievich ...

(October 28, 1930 - July 29, 2017)

Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences "History of World Culture", member of the Scientific Council of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Sciences on the complex problem "History of the Russian Academy of Sciences"; Head of the Department of Aircraft Aerodynamics of the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) and Chairman of the Presidium of the Council of the MAI NanoCenter; Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Russian Federation

Outstanding Russian scientist in the field of aerodynamics, organizer higher education, a prominent state and political figure, diplomat and human rights activist.

In 1954 he graduated from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Dolgoprudny) with a degree in Aeromechanics.

Candidate of Technical Sciences in 1960, Doctor of Technical Sciences - in 1970.
Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR - 1981, full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR - 1987

His main works are in the field of aerodynamics of supersonic speeds, rarefied gas dynamics, interaction of atomic-scale particles with the surface, non-equilibrium processes in a gas flow, non-stationary heat transfer.

USSR State Prize in 1983 for the aerodynamics of a lander for Venus.

N.E. Zhukovsky Prize in 1985 for research on the aerodynamic hysteresis of aircraft with low aspect ratio wings.

Until 1958, he worked at TsAGI (Zhukovsky), engaged in experimental and theoretical aerodynamics of air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles.

1958-1961 - worked at the Research Center named after M.V. Keldysh (then NII-1), where he was engaged in research in the field of high-speed aerodynamics.

1961-1992 - at the Moscow Aviation Institute: associate professor, professor, vice-rector, rector. Headed the Department of Aerodynamics of the Moscow Aviation Institute.

1989-1991 - People's Deputy of the USSR, member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology. One of the organizers of the Interregional Deputy Group of the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR.

1992-1999 - Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to France.

Member of the Presidential Council (from 1990 to 1999).

1994-2000s - President of the International Engineering University.

Member of the National Pugwash Committee (2001-2012 - Chairman of the NPC), member of the Board of Trustees of the INDEM Foundation. Active participant in the Congress of the Russian Intelligentsia and " round table 12 December".

He was awarded the orders of the USSR - the Red Banner of Labor (1970), the Badge of Honor (1976), the October Revolution (1986), as well as the Order of the Russian Federation "For Services to the Fatherland, III degree" (1999). Knight of the Legion of Honor (France, 1999). Awarded with the medal "Defender of Free Russia" (1997)

Laureate of the State Prize of the USSR (1983), Prizes to them. NOT. Zhukovsky "For best job in Aviation Theory" (1988), MAI Prizes, Prizes of the President of the Russian Federation (2000), Prizes of the Moscow Helsinki Group in the field of human rights protection (2016)

According to him in January 2015, Russia “has reached a complete dead end. She entered a systemic crisis, which in Russian is called Troubles, somewhere around 2009-2010. In the last interview, taken a few days before his death, Yuri Ryzhov expressed the opinion that Putin would not leave power, and Russia would rot.

Yuri Alekseevich died on July 29, 2017. The farewell ceremony took place on August 2 at the Sakharov Center in Moscow. The urn with the ashes of Yu.A. Ryzhov was buried at the Vagankovsky cemetery.

SWOP members say

The Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy informs the members and friends of the SWOP with deep regret that on July 29, 2017, Yuri Alekseevich Ryzhov, a prominent Russian scientist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, public and political figure, passed away. Yuri Alekseevich stood at the origins of the creation of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy in 1992 and participated in the work of our organization until the last days. The last time he came to the annual SWOP Assembly was in April of this year, despite a serious illness. Everyone who knew Yuri Alekseevich, regardless of whether they shared his views or not, appreciated his will, adherence to principles, conviction, and most importantly, the feeling of absolute inner freedom, which never left Academician Ryzhov, no matter what he did. He was one of those people who should be equal and from whom one should take an example. This loss is irreparable and it is impossible to forget Yury Alekseevich.

Fyodor Lukyanov, Chairman of the Presidium of the SVOP

** *

An honest and pure man has left us, a great scientist, a tireless fighter for the democratic European path of development of Russia, at the origins of which he stood in the late 80s of the last century and in the choice of which he made a huge personal contribution.

A very good, warm and modest person, a dear comrade and colleague, has passed away.

May he forever remain a standard for the next generations of scientists and public figures, no matter how difficult it may be for them to continue the work of Academician Ryzhov.

Sincere condolences to the family and friends of Yuri Alekseevich.

Alexey and Nadezhda Arbatov

** *

Since May, together with Lev Shemaev (it was his initiative) they were going to visit a friend at the beginning of the democratic movement, Yuri Alekseevich Ryzhov ...

Academician, deputy, ambassador, failed prime minister. A sincere and intelligent person. Extremely sincere and sensitive to falsehood.

First his ill health got in the way, then my short rebound in the USA. During this time, Lev, together with Sergei Trube, visited.

I, too, was in a hurry, knowing that Yuri Alekseevich's health had deteriorated greatly.

July 22 agreed to meet. (To be honest, we agreed on Friday, but I mixed up the days - at the dacha they merge - and stunned him with a call on Thursday that we were going).

I called for Shemaev, and together we went to Zelinsky Street to visit.

The door to the apartment was open: the owner had bad feet, he didn’t have the strength to open the door, and he preferred to live in the “open door” mode.

The house was clean and tidy. Grandson Sergei had just left, and in general it was clear that, as often happens, he was not left alone with sores.

We met happily. I gave him a photo from a long time ago, and together, as it should be, we started to reminisce about the victories achieved and the missed opportunities.

I asked him why he refused several times Yeltsin, who offered him the post of prime minister. Avoiding answering (it was clear that since then he himself regretted it more than once, and therefore limited himself to the words “well, what did I understand in economics?”), He said: “You still don’t know that he offered me to head the Russian Academy” . We talked about the options for reforming the Academy of Sciences, which were in 90-91. Here we saw the situation somewhat differently. He was a supporter of the creation of a parallel allied Russian academy with the automatic inclusion of all Russian academicians in it (this is what they did in the end). I said how many quasi-scientists there were in the academy who advanced along the nomenclature line, and that it was necessary to create the Russian academy anew, fewer in number, higher in quality. He agreed. He told how he introduced Yeltsin to his countryman and future president of the academy Yu. Osipov. He was extremely dissatisfied with the current reform of the Russian Academy of Sciences (the creation of FANO, merging with the medical and agricultural academies, the breaking of hands in connection with the election of a new president).

I confess that I also had a substantive interest in this meeting: I wanted to discuss with an outstanding specialist in the field of experimental aerodynamics one idea that had recently come to mind. He was very pleased when Ryzhov grasped the essence of the proposal from half a turn and said that it did not look absurd, but that it required serious calculations. He immediately added that the industry is now in such decline that, as it seems to him, there is simply no one in Russia to entrust this. We talked about the problems of the industry, and it turned out that he, too, had been thinking for a long time about the fact that the combat qualities of aircraft today should be evaluated according to completely different parameters than yesterday (stealth, radar power, missile range, integration into an interspecific control system) and that the new medium-range aircraft for Russia must be executed according to the upper plan.

His monologue about research and achievements of the past years began. He very clearly avoided discussing issues that claim to be state secrets. And with great pleasure he remembered those with whom the aerospace industry brought him together. Suffice it to say that he defended his dissertation in the academic council, which was led (and chaired the defense) by M. Keldysh, and the defense itself almost failed due to the fact that his opponent, S. Belotserkovsky, an outstanding specialist in aerodynamics and head of engineering training, was late the first Soviet cosmonauts. The time was so hot that “Do you think after the defense I went to celebrate? Nah, I went to my place to complete the experiment!

They hardly talked about politics - everything is clear for many years to come, and what to spoil your mood.

Toward the end of the conversation on the phone, the singer and producer Elena Kamburova joined us, which gave the conversation a completely domestic character.

Warmly said goodbye and he asked to visit him again. They promised. I'm sure we won't cheat. We will visit, but talk - alas! - we can no longer.

On the way back, Shemaev told the story of Yeltsin and Ryzhov's acquaintance.

Early 1989. There was a campaign for the election of deputies of the first Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. The headquarters of the disgraced Yeltsin agreed to hold a meeting with voters at the Moscow Aviation Institute, of which Ryzhov was the rector (he was elected by the labor collective in the same year 1996, when Yeltsin headed the Moscow city committee).

Yeltsin was then unsure of himself, his future, and at first his assistants almost had to lead him out of the house by the hand.

While walking along the Arbat, they came across Ryzhov. “Are you sure that the planned meeting will take place? Yeltsin asked. “I know how much pressure is put on you by the city committee.”

The answer was clearly unusual for the former secretary of the Central Committee, who had known the “yawning heights”: “What am I to you, a boy or what? Ryzhov answered sharply. “Since I said there will be a meeting, then there will be.”

This is how their human relationship developed. They worked together in the last Soviet parliament, left the CPSU together, and were together during the 1991 coup.

I met Yuri Alekseevich during the work of the Moscow deputy group in May 1989. He was very smart and charming, with an irresistible smile and a great sense of humor.

It seems to me that he greatly underestimated his potential, which forced him to leave the stage whenever he could and should have been a soloist on it. He was one of those who are the only warrior in the field, but did not want to become a commander. As a result, the democratic movement lost a strong leader who would help its organizational unity and political survival.

When in 2000 I planned the last stage of my attempt to achieve this goal (organizational unity of democratic forces) and organized the signing of a "pact of united actions" by Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces (Yavlinsky and Kiriyenko), one of the guarantors of this process, along with Yu Afanasiev, S. Filatov and E. Yakovlev also invited Yu. Ryzhov, who readily responded to this request.

In subsequent years, he continued his scientific and teaching work, was extremely active in public life, trying to inspire hope in those whom the destruction of democratic institutions drove into despondency and support, who, growing up, sought to rely on past (and, no doubt, future) ideals.

An amazing person with an incredible mind, a scientist with a capital letter, and, moreover, an honest and fair politician - Yuri Alekseevich Ryzhov. The biography will be of interest to all fans of his works and will not leave indifferent even those who are not yet familiar with his activities.

Early childhood and youth

Yuri Alekseevich was born in 1930, on October 28, (he has already celebrated his 85th birthday) in Moscow (in the central industrial region). He grew up and was brought up in the very center of the capital, surrounded by courtyards and the identity of the famous Arbat street. Since childhood, he was very fond of reading fiction, often making various toys and was interested in the world order, constantly asking tricky questions to his elders. As a teenager, he became very interested in astronomy, began to study the questions of the origin of the Universe, and even specially signed up for the library to read more serious books.

School years

Ryzhov Yuri Alekseevich studied at one of the oldest gymnasiums in Moscow - in Medvednikovskaya (later renamed the 59th school named after N.V. Gogol). From elementary school to graduation, he studied with the famous Russian physicist and mathematician Viktor Pavlovich Maslov. They were friends and the two of them prepared for the lessons, and also very often argued on a variety of topics. His parents, in particular, his mother, did their best to educate him German although French was studied at school. At the end of the 10th grade, Academician Yuri Alekseevich Ryzhov received a certificate, which indicated knowledge of two languages (German and French). Although, as the academician himself says, they were not useful to him, because all scientific articles and books eventually began to be published in English, so he had to learn it as well.

Special Talents

Not everyone knows, but Yuri Alekseevich is an absolute left-hander, just like Leonardo da Vinci. But he knows how to write simultaneously with both hands at once, and with his left he is able to write the same text, only symmetrical to that written with his right.

During his school years, our hero was engaged in painting, and then the teachers noticed that he was left-handed. In the Soviet years, it was customary to retrain children, so he was forced to write right hand- he eventually got used to and acquired his talent to work simultaneously with his left hand. As Yuri Alekseevich himself admits, he is a little flattered when someone compares him with da Vinci himself, citing the fact that he also knew how to write symmetrical texts.

Years of study at the university and the first research work

After graduating from the 59th school, the future academician Ryzhov Yuri Alekseevich, without hesitation for a long time, decided to enter the country's most important and prestigious technical university at that time - the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Physics and Technology). In 1949, having passed all the entrance exams with honors, he was successfully enrolled in the very famous faculty of the Aeromechanics Institute. Starting from the second year, Yuri Alekseevich began to cooperate with the TsAGI Research Institute. Zhukovsky. There he studied aerostatics and aeromechanics of rockets in the air-ground-air system, and he also experimentally proved many theories related to aerodynamics. He worked at TsAGI until 1958, then the great scientist G.I. Petrov (who respected Ryzhov's research work) invited him to work in a more attractive place. For this reason, since 1958, he began working at the M.V. Keldysh Research Center, where he already studied more complex issues related to high-speed aerodynamics.

The best years spent at MAI

In 1961, Yuri Alekseevich Ryzhov (whose biography changed dramatically as a result of this act) decided to take up leadership work and left NII-1 (Keldysh Research Center). He was invited to take the post of vice-rector, to which he agreed. A few years later he became the chief assistant professor and then the rector of the most advanced university in Russia, the Moscow Aviation Institute. It so happened that he worked at the Moscow Aviation Institute from 1961 to 1992, and then again began active work at the same institute, but already in 1999.

During his leadership activities at the Aviation Institute, Yury Alekseevich Ryzhov did a great job of improving the quality of education and equipment for research work students. Thanks to his requests sent to the Ministry, in 1982 one personal computer was allocated to the faculty for collective work. After a while, the entire institute was equipped with the most advanced American computers at that time.

Activities of the scientist and academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Alekseevich Ryzhov

Even in his student years, Yuri Alekseevich began active work on the study of the aerodynamics of supersonic speeds. After some time, he defended his doctoral thesis and received the well-deserved title of academician of sciences. He dedicated all his work the most difficult problems, such as rarefied gas dynamics, various processes in the flow of gases and the interaction of atomic particles with other surfaces, as well as the processes of non-stationary heat transfer.

Ryzhov Yuri Alekseevich - Doctor of Technical Sciences, from 1987 to the present day is considered a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For all his work on the study of aircraft, he received prizes and awards several times.

As Yuri Alekseevich himself recalls, back in the 1980s he dreamed of reviving aeronautics in Russia. He even asked the government to allocate funds for the study and development of the aircraft. Scientists at the Ulyanovsk Aviation Complex developed a huge apparatus according to Ryzhov's plan, which is still in the hangar. Then the whole world, all foreign magazines only talked about the new plan and developments of the Soviet academician Ryzhov. However, a crisis began in those years, and the Ministry of Science did not have enough money to develop this industry.

After Yuri Alekseevich returned from Paris (he was the chief authorized ambassador), he developed the new kind aircraft and decided to build an airship. Unfortunately, it was also not completed due to lack of financial support.

Ryzhov Yuri Alekseevich: and titles

One can talk endlessly about the inexhaustible energy of dear Yuri Alekseevich, he held as many posts as no other Russian academician ever held. The scientist Ryzhov has an incredible talent for rational management, perhaps for this reason he was twice offered to head the Russian government (even under Yeltsin). Later, in 2010, (the left opposition of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation) offered to nominate him as a candidate for the presidency. However, each time he refused a high position.

From 1992 to 1998 he served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Russia to France. It was one of the most prestigious positions, because the one who possessed it had enormous power and influence on the solution of global international problems.

Since 1992, he has also become a member of the Presidential Council of the Russian Federation. In this position, he develops proposals and strategies to improve not only the economic condition of the country, but is also engaged in the improvement of the social life of Russians.

Perhaps the most memorable activity of Ryzhov can be called the period when he was elected to People's Deputies and won, significantly beating his opponents. From 1989 to 1992 he was a People's Deputy of the USSR.

At the same time, namely in 1990-1991, he served as First Deputy of the Supreme Political Consultative Council under the Government of the RSFSR. In 1991 he was elected Chairman of the USSR Council for Science, Education and New Technologies.

Proceedings of the Russian academician Ryzhov

Ryzhov Yuri Alekseevich is a Russian scientist who has invested all his strength and efforts in the development of aeronautical and aircraft in Russia. He studied many issues related to aerodynamics (this is both aeromechanics and aerostatics) of high supersonic speeds. All his works became the basis for the study and development of modern aircraft. In the development of the latest engines are used scientific works academician.

He has more than 50 years of studying aerodynamics behind him, more than 40 works have been written, the same number of scientific articles and publications in reputable foreign and domestic journals. Among other things, Yuri Alekseevich has several patents for the development of aircraft engines.

The merits of Yuri Alekseevich before the Fatherland

Ryzhov Yuri Alekseevich, whose services to the Fatherland cannot be counted, has the most a large number of awards and prizes in various fields. In addition to scientific activities, the scientist was also engaged in political activities, for this reason he can be considered one of the most active politicians our time. In the spring of 1999, he received the highest degree for his enormous contribution to and effective conduct of Russia's foreign policy.

During the Soviet era, he was awarded various orders several times. For example, in 1970 he received his first Order of the Red Banner of Labor (V. I. Lenin himself was awarded the same Order) for great labor services to the USSR in the field of science and public education.

In 1982, for his scientific work "On the dynamic hysteresis and aerodynamic characteristics of an aircraft wing" he was awarded the honorary prize named after N. E. Zhukovsky, 1st degree. In addition to these awards, Academician Ryzhov is a real winner of many other awards (USSR State Prize, Order of the Badge of Honor, Prize of the President of the Russian Federation, etc.).

Political views of the academician on the current situation in Russia

Ryzhov Yuri Alekseevich, whose awards he received for merits in various fields, ranging from scientific activity to political activity, has always been known as a true liberal in matters of politics and economics. Academician Ryzhov is known for his famous letters and signatures demanding the resignation of Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. He is now a member of the opposition party and always speaks openly about his views on the current situation in the country. He also made a statement demanding to stop the aggressive policy towards Ukraine, withdraw all troops from the territory and stop providing any assistance (material and military support) to the separatists who are active in the south-east of Ukraine.

In his opinion, Russia has fallen into decay, the country needs to be urgently saved, and it is necessary to change not only the current government (including the president himself and all responsible officials), but also the management system itself. By changing the political course, by directing all forces and resources into the development of science and education, medicine and industry, it will be possible to achieve at least some economic improvement in the country, Academician Ryzhov believes.

Academician Ryzhov's childhood memories of repressions

"Fortunately, the years of repression did not cause much harm to my family and loved ones," the academician recalls. However, in one of the interviews, Ryzhov shared a story about his father, who was nevertheless affected by the tough laws of that time. A classic story, when their family received an anonymous denunciation that employees of the Polish embassy were gathering in their apartment (and in those years Poland was considered one of the main enemies of the USSR). Of course, his father was immediately taken into custody and immediately to Butyrka for interrogation! It took a long time to understand, in the end, they released it. As Yuri Alekseevich himself says, both mother and father were people of iron will, and it was by their example that they taught children to be strong and responsible.