Igor Kurchatov

Igor Kurchatov was a Soviet physicist who directed the USSR's nuclear weapons and nuclear power programs from World War II until his death, earning him recognition as the father of the Soviet atomic bomb. Under his direction the Soviet Union tested its first atomic bomb in 1949 and its first thermonuclear device in 1953, and the institute he led went on to build the Obninsk Nuclear Power Plant, which began supplying electricity to the grid in 1954 and is generally recognized as the world's first nuclear power plant to generate electricity for civilian use. The Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, Russia's leading nuclear research center, is named for him.