Many Contacts Paved the Way to Two-Nation Conference

When the Cold War was still in deep-freeze mode, it could never have happened….

In May 2006, a team of Russian computer scientists from VNIIEF, a laboratory in Sarov, Russia, sat down with a room full of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) scientists from the Transport Methods Group (CCS-4) and other computer science organizations and talked—through translators—about the problems they work on and how they approach their tasks. Each team gave a presentation on its work, and as the conference continued, little groups of three—a Russian scientist, an American scientist with a laptop, and a translator—huddled in adjoining rooms to share knowledge.

Robert W. Kuckuck, then interim director of LANL, dropped by on one of his last days in Los Alamos and visited at length with those attending the conference. The response from the Russians was warm and friendly, and before he left, Kuckuck asked them what he should pack for a planned visit to Sarov.

How did we reach this rapprochement?
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In a recent interview, Todd Urbatsch, group leader of CCS-4, said that he knew two of the Russians—Rashit Shagaliev and Igor Belykov—before the conference began. “I met
them in their hometown, Sarov, when we went over in 2003,” he said.

Urbatsch recalled that a former Laboratory Director, Sig Hecker, began to be deeply involved in exchanges with the Russians in the 1980s.

Los Alamos, New Mexico, and Sarov became Sister Cities, and a whole series of visits began. Medical doctors from Los Alamos went to Sarov. People from Sarov visited Los Alamos businesses, including the Los Alamos newspaper, and a science writer from the paper visited Sarov. One visiting Russian group held a public meeting at Fuller Lodge, sharing photographs and describing Sarov in detail, telling about the city’s background as a religious center venerating St. Seraphim before the Communists ruled Russia (and changed the city’s name to “Arzamas-16”).

In the 1990s, Urbatsch said, “They started a numerical methods technical exchange.” It died out—but in January 2003, it was revived.

Irv Lindemuth, a Laboratory scientist who was leading the Russian-American exchange, had set up a visit to Sarov for late 2002. Ray Alcouffe of the Transport Methods Group planned on attending, but lack of Department of Energy approval postponed the visit twice. Alcouffe could not participate in the final scheduled time, so he got Urbatsch involved. Urbatsch said that Jim Kamm and Bill Rider (of CCS Division at that time, X Division now) were involved in the computational physics exchange, and, “There were a bunch of materials guys”—Tony Zocher, Walt Atchison, Dean Preston, and Bob Reinovsky from X and P Divisions and Jim Goforth (now in DE-9). Go forth had made over a dozen trips to Sarov by that time.

Urbatsch said that in his January 2003 trip to Sarov, in addition to exchanging information on mathematics and computer science work, he visited Red Square, shopped at GUM (the state-owned indoor mall), and went to a giant flea market outside of Moscow with Zocher, who speaks Russian.

Later, in a nine-page report on his trip, Urbatsch observed that at VNIIEF, “The 900-person strong division, led by Dr. Rashit Shagaliev, consisted of three departments, pertaining to methods and algorithms, code development, and computer hardware.” Urbatsch wrote at length about “several interesting and surprising observations” on the radiation transport efforts at VNIIEF.

He described extensive meetings at which he and other LANL delegates gave three talks and the Russians gave many presentations. He spoke in detail about how VNIIEF and LANL used different approaches to some of the same problems, and he recalled with amusement that one talk was introduced as “‘Dessert for Dr. Urbatsch, who wants to apply Monte Carlo to everything!’”

Urbatsch wrote in detail about two proposed contracts between VNIIEF and LANL.

He also included considerable description of Sarov, its history, and his experiences as an official tourist. Following are a few excerpts:

“…The monastery in Sarov was a major monastery in the network of monasteries throughout Russia. The network consisted of a monastery every 30 miles … During World War II, the director of Sarov decided to remove any tall structures that might attract an air attack. He destroyed many of the monasteries in Sarov … He wanted to remove the bell tower, but the bell tower also housed the water supply, so it was allowed to stand. He wanted to destroy the St. Seraphim Monastery, but it was being used by the Theater, so it was allowed to stand—a very interesting comment on Russian priorities.Fortunately, the director got promoted to Moscow before he could do more damage. For the celebration (of the 100th anniversary of the canonizing of St. Seraphim on July 31, 2003), Sarov is hurriedly refurbishing the St. Seraphim Monastery. They began by building a Drama Theater in order to get the artists out of the monastery. As is often the case, they are rediscovering beautiful artwork behind false ceilings, etc.”….

“…We ate lots of beef, but I never saw a single cow….”

“…Our tour of Sarov included the plaza, the statue of St. Seraphim, and the bath house. The bath house is where Nicholas II … came when his wife could not bear him a child … (She) bathed in the Sarov waters and, one year later, produced the prince. Sarov’s water comes from a glacier-fed, underground reservoir. They bottle the water (natural and carbonated) and ship it all over Russia and abroad. I’ve always thought Los Alamos’ water was good, but Sarov’s was better….”

“…I often use the phrase ‘degenerate analytic test problems’ here at home. At VNIIEF, ‘degenerate’ got translated as ‘mentally retarded,’ and they all laughed at me…..”

Urbatsch toured the Sarov Nuclear Weapons Museum and was interested to note that their version of Fat Man was on display. He said the Russians responded with good-natured amusement when he asked them whether the model was “on loan from Sandia.” There were also pictures of J. Robert Oppenheimer and Gen. Leslie Groves.

Urbatsch wrote in detail about the décor of the “House of Scientists,” where the Americans and Russians met together, and about the three elaborate meals each day— good, but very unusual by American standards.

He noted that the Americans attending the meeting in Sarov were lucky to experience relatively warm weather.
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Urbatsch also attended a transport methods meeting at Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2004.
“Igor and Rashit were there,” he recalled.
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Fast forward to May 2006.

Urbatsch said that during a recent trip to Sarov, Bill Feiereisen (then division leader of CCS) and James Peery (now in Hydrodynamic Experiments) invited the Russians to visit
Los Alamos. Originally, the meeting was supposed to be in January, but the visas were delayed, and the date slipped four months.

Kamm did a lot of work for the hydrodynamics talks. Bryan Lally of CCS-2 helped. A long list of speakers participated. Peggy Vigil of Protocol handled thousands of essential details. Mike Stevens, in charge of foreign programs for the associate directorate for weapons programs, participated, as did Paul White from the Director’s Office. There were three translators.

The major goal was “to write contracts for collaboration,” Urbatsch said, noting that in the past, the two laboratories had shared contracts involving materials, and contracts involving numerical methods for radiation transport and hydrodynamics. This time, he said, “We added a lot of computer science topics,” notably those involving “huge, parallel computers.”

“We will be sharing information about computer techniques,” he said—“how we do our numerical methods and computer methods.” We will look for “shared ways to advance the field.” And, he said, “We’re still looking at methods that can be analyzed on test problems (in numerical methods).”

“In the near term,” he said, “I’m hoping that each party can benefit without homogenizing both programs.”

“In the long term,” he added, “we’re going to continue to have to have world alliances. Diplomatic relations are so important….”

Asked if the conference was successful, Urbatsch said, “It did go well.” He said he especially enjoyed a contest called the “Buggy Pageant.”

He admitted that the Russians told him that they didn’t sleep well the night that he told them about the proposed contest. As a result, he couldn’t sleep the next night—but the pageant turned out well.

On the day of the pageant, he asked the Russians to talk together during lunch and come back with the hardest “bugs” they could think of to insert into the Milagro code.

Urbatsch, Aimee Hungerford, and Tim Kelley quietly inserted the Russian bugs into the code and handed it to Tom Evans, Jeff Densmore, and Scott Mosher, who sat down across the big conference table from the Russians. In less than an hour, the American team had found the four bugs. The Russians seemed impressed. One key to the success of the game, however, was that the translators explained emphatically that it was just meant to be fun….
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The world has changed—but not entirely. People from different countries still have much in common—and a few interesting differences.

Protocol provided the Russians with a tour of Santa Fe, an ancient city in which the downtown plaza is dominated by Bishop Lamy’s beautiful cathedral.

The Americans scheduled the conference in University House, a comfortable, beautiful facility featuring New Mexican art.

Everyone noted how lovely the weather was—warm and sunny.

The food was abundant and excellent—but exotic by Russian standards.

And translators were still essential, although it was clear that several of the Americans spoke a little Russian and some of the Russians spoke a little English.

During a break, one of the Russians—who had gotten separated from the translators— tried to ask a Protocol representative about a chafing dish filled with something that smelled just wonderful. Her answer, like the food in question, was complex. She mentioned “leeks.” Looking baffled and a little desperate, he turned to another American who happened to be sitting nearby, and she whispered, “Onion soup.” He broke into a smile, turned back to the table, and dipped himself a portion….