Civilian face of the nuclear program who chaired the State Atomic Energy Committee for 24 years
At the 1986 Chernobyl press conference, he declared: 'Science requires sacrifices.'
One of the founding generation of the Soviet atomic industry, Andranik Petrosyants began in the First Main Directorate administering the atomic bomb project and served from 1962 to 1986 as Chairman of the State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy, the civilian face of the Soviet nuclear program and its international spokesman for peaceful uses. He is also remembered for telling the world press after the 1986 Chernobyl disaster that 'science requires sacrifices.'
Career Timeline
- 1933–1939Foreman, technical department head, deputy chief engineer at Uralmash (UZTM), Sverdlovsk
- 1939–1941Deputy People's Commissar of Heavy Machine Building
- 1941–1943Deputy People's Commissar of Tank Industry
- 1943–1945Deputy to State Defense Committee (GKO) for tank industry
- 1947–1953Deputy Chief, First Main Directorate, USSR Council of Ministers — atomic project
- 1955–1962Deputy Minister of Medium Machine Building
- 1962–1986Chairman, USSR State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy
Related historical events
Petrosyants and Armenian Nuclear Power
As the highest-ranking Armenian in the Soviet atomic energy administration, Petrosyants played a decisive role in bringing nuclear power to his home republic. When plans emerged in the late 1960s to build a nuclear power plant in the Armenian SSR, he threw his full support behind the project as Chairman of the State Committee for the Use of Atomic Energy and helped secure Moscow's approval. Built at Metsamor and equipped with two VVER-440 reactors, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant began operation in 1976 and 1980 respectively, becoming the only nuclear power station in the South Caucasus and eventually supplying roughly a third of the republic's electricity.
To Armenians who feared a nuclear facility in the Ararat Valley, Petrosyants gave his personal assurance: "You will thank me one day for this plant." His prediction held. During the 1988 Spitak earthquake, the ground motion at the plant site reached magnitude 6.25 on the Richter scale. But the station, designed to withstand up to 9.5, emerged undamaged. Though shut down over safety concerns in 1989, Unit 2 was restarted in 1995 and proved critical to Armenia's survival through the severe energy crisis of the 1990s. A memorial plaque unveiled on Moscow's Povarskaya Street in 2020 commemorates this legacy.