History

The history of Sarov started in the 12th–13th centuries, when a large Mordovian settlement was found on its spot. In 1298, the town was taken over by Tatars.

The town took its original name from being the site of the Sarova monastery next to the Sarovka River, the waters of which thought to have healing powers. In 1664, monk Theodosius first settled on Sarov mountain. The first Church of Sarov tenement was found in 1706. Saint Seraphim was living in Sarov from 1778 to 1833. In 1903, the town was visited by the Russian royal family. At that time it had nine churches, including one underground. Around 320 monks lived in the monastery.

In 1923, the monastery was completely closed, the monks faced bolshevik repressions, and many were executed. During WWII, the monastery buildings were used as factories for producing rockets for BM-13 "Katyusha" rocket launchers.

In 1946, the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics—a nuclear weapons design facility that would become known in the West under the acronym VNIIEF—was built. The town was called Arzamas-75 at first, because it is 75 km outside Arzamas. Because this name was deemed to give too much information as to its location, the town received a code name of Arzamas-16 and was removed from all unclassified maps. In 1954, Arzamas-16 was given a town status.

Much of the town was built by German POWs and the architecture has a definite German/European flavor. The town houses the Russian Federation Nuclear Center and "Atomic Bomb" museum which has a number of casings of Soviet-era nuclear weapons and photographs of those involved in their production. Most access is by train, which, after a security stop and inspection, is allowed into the town to disembark passengers. A small airport on the facility is generally for government aircraft only, and visitors usually fly to Nizhny Novgorod airport and then drive three hours.

The town is surrounded by fences patrolled by the military. Foreigners, and even Russians who do not live in Sarov, are not allowed to enter the town without permission. Foreigners who visit on business must surrender their passports, phones, and cameras to security while they are in the facility, though some documentary filmmakers have shot footage inside the town walls.

The location of the closed town is difficult to find on the maps. This is because a large portion of it is located on the grounds of the P.G.S. State Park in adjacent Temnikovsky District of the Republic of Mordovia.

In 1993, it became a sister city to Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site of the U.S. nuclear weapons design laboratory (Los Alamos National Laboratory, or LANL). Scientists from LANL and VNIIEF have cooperated on various arms control and nuclear safeguards programs, under which the Los Alamos scientists learned, to their amusement, that their Russian colleagues paid homage to their American rivals by irreverently calling their own laboratory "Los Arzamas."

Boris Yeltsin changed the town's name back to Sarov at the request of residents in August 1995.

In the present day, the Russian Federal nuclear center is responsible for important decisions concerning the development, production, storage, and utilisation of nuclear weapons; the recycling of radioactive and other materials; and research in fundamental and applied physics.

Sister cities

Los Alamos, United States.
New Athos, Abkhazia, de jure Georgia.

See also

• Saint Seraphim of Sarov
• Igor Kurchatov
• Andrei Sakharov
• Lavrenti Beria
• Soviet atomic bomb project
• Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction
• Oleg Taktarov

References

1. Федеральная служба государственной статистики (Federal State Statistics Service) (2004-05-21). "Численность населения России, субъектов Российской Федерации в составе федеральных округов, районов, городских поселений, сельских населённых пунктов – районных центров и сельских населённых пунктов с населением 3 тысячи и более человек (Population of Russia, its federal districts, federal subjects, districts, urban localities, rural localities—administrative centers, and rural localities with population of over 3,000)" (in Russian). Всероссийская перепись населения 2002 года (All-Russia Population Census of 2002). Federal State Statistics Service
2. The value of density was calculated automatically by dividing the 2002 Census population by the area specified in the infobox. Please note that this value may not be accurate as the area specified in the infobox does not necessarily correspond to the area of the entity proper or is reported for the same year as the Census (2002).
3. Государственная Дума Российской Федерации. Федеральный Закон №145-ФЗ от 14.08.1995 «О переименовании города Кремлёв Нижегородской области в город Саров». (State Duma of the Russian Federation. Federal Law #145-FZ of August 14, 1995 On Changing the Name of the Town of Kremlyov of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast to the Town of Sarov. ).
4. "Los Alamos and Arzamas-16: The 'Sister Cities' Relationship". Los Alamos Science 24: 44–47. 1996.
5. Борис Забываев. "Любимый город". Саров в Internet.
6. James Risen's State of War

External links

• Sarov main web portal (Russian)
• Sarov website (Russian)
• Sarov Information from the Nuclear Cities Initiative Website
• More on Sakharov (and some photographs of Sarov), from the Center for History of Physics
• The Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program (and more photographs of Sarov, including from the "Atomic Bomb" museum)
• Annotated bibliography for Arzamas-16, Russia from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
• Russian nuclear weapon production - Sarov
• Secret / Closed Cities