Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology

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The Sukhumi Institute of Physics and Technology ( Russian Сухумский физико-технический институт , transcription Suchumski physicomechanical-technitscheski institute ) was originally near Sukhumi , Abkhazia, resident, physical-technical research institute. It was created after the Second World War as part of the Soviet atomic bomb project . It became famous there in the 1950s when German scientists, partly forcibly deported to the Soviet Union as part of the Ossawakim campaign , partly also emigrated voluntarily, worked with Soviet colleagues on nuclear fission processes to develop a nuclear bomb.

history

The SIPT and the SFTI go back to two secret institutes that were founded in 1945 in Sinop and Agudsera near Sukhumi as part of the Soviet nuclear project. The leaders of the two working groups were two prominent German nuclear scientists - Professor Manfred von Ardenne and the Nobel Prize Winner in Physics Gustav Ludwig Hertz . They had a team of other famous scientists at their disposal: Max Steenbeck , Peter Adolf Thiessen , Heinz Barwich , Max Volmer , Werner Schütze, Nikolaus Riehl and Werner Hartmann . The researchers developed technologies for the construction of nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, and they also worked on projects in plasma physics, solid-state physics, special forms of energy generation and physical electronics.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there was a military conflict between Abkhazia and Georgia, as a result of which Abkhazia split off from Georgia. The former Sukhumi research institute also split in the wake of the conflict.

Parts of the team and a large part of the materials were then taken to Tbilisi , the capital of the now independent Georgia. The part of the institute that remained in Abkhazia continues to work independently to this day. Its headquarters are at the company's old location in the Black Sea town of Agudsera near Sukhumi. The research institute exiled to Tbilisi today bears the official English name Ilia Vekua Sokhumi Institute of Physics and Technology SIPT . It is named after the Georgian mathematician Ilia Wekua and sees itself as the successor to the old institute.

The institute today

The Tbilisi Institute SIPT tries to use its experience to attract western investors who can fall back on highly technical processes. It is also part of a conversion program sponsored by western states . The current director of the institute, Garam Bokutschawa, repeatedly suggested that the "sister institute" that remained in Abkhazia contained nuclear materials that could possibly fall into the hands of terrorists. The director of the part of the institute that remained in Abkhazia, Anatoli Markolija, denied this and assured him that the materials were checked and locked up.

According to its own statements, the SIPT has switched from nuclear weapons technology to the production of radionuclide batteries , high-temperature generators , heat-resistant alloys and protective containers for radioactive material. For budget reasons, the institute had to reduce its staff to 61 employees, and some of the 100 or so dismissed people were placed in universities.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Homepage of the "Closed Nuclear Cities Partnership" (CNCP) ( memento of November 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), cooperation of more than a dozen " closed cities " on the soil of the former Soviet Union to limit the production and non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
  2. ^ Georgian War Increases Nuclear Terrorism Risks , by Richard Weitz, Caci Analyst, October 29, 2008.

Coordinates: 42 ° 59 ′ 5 ″  N , 41 ° 3 ′ 39 ″  E