Anatoly Alexandrov

Anatoly Alexandrov was a Soviet physicist who became one of the central figures directing the Soviet Union's nuclear power program. From 1960 he served as director of the Kurchatov Institute, the country's leading nuclear research center, succeeding its founder Igor Kurchatov, and in that role he oversaw the development of both major Soviet power reactor lines, the VVER pressurized water reactor and the RBMK graphite-moderated reactor. He also served as president of the Soviet Academy of Sciences from 1975 to 1986, and remained closely associated with the RBMK program even after the 1986 Chernobyl accident exposed serious weaknesses in the reactor type he had championed.