Applied Physics and Mathematics Annotation << Back 110 years of professor Alexander Leypunsky who was the first candidate in the scietific chief of the Soviet uranium project Gorobets B.S. Leipunsky Alexander Il’ich (1903–1972) – the first nuclear physicist-experimenter in the USSR, member of Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (1934), Hero of Socialist Labor (1963), winner of the Stalin (1949) and Lenin (1960) Prizes, one of the founders of neutron physics. In 1926, he graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (LPI), then worked at the Leningrad Physico -Technical Institute (LPhTI), a student of professor Abram F. Ioffe. One of the organizers of the Ukrainian Physico-Technical Institute (UPhTI in Kharkov, now the National Scientific Center «KhPhTI»). He worked in UPhTI (1929–1941), was its Director (1933–1937). In 1938, Leipunsky was arrested and spent two months in prison. After his release, he again headed laboratory in UPhTI. In 1939, he became a consultant and member of the Scientific Council of the Radium Institute (RIAN) in Leningrad. In 1941–1946, Director of the Institute of Physics and Mathematics of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the evacuation (in Ufa, then in Moscow, finally returned to Kiev). In 1944, he creates the Department of Nuclear Physics in his Institute. The Soviet governement considered Leipunsky as one of the candidates to be nominated as academic chief of the USSR Atomic Project. After Igor Kurchatov was appointed the chief of Atomic project, Leipunsky, in 1946–1949, became the Deputy Chief responsible for Science of 9th (atomic) Departement of the Interior Ministry of the USSR, in the rank of colonel. He simultaneously was Member of the Technical Board of the First Chief Directorate (PGU) of the Special Committee attached to the State Committee of Defence of the USSR. He was responsible for creation of a network of secret laboratories “A”, “B”, “C” and “D” (in Sukhumi, in the Urals and in the Kaluga region) which included German scientists, engineers, designers, technicians and workers as well as a few Soviet specialists. Years later, «scientific giants» arose on the basis of these laboratories: Sukhumi Physical-Technical Institute (SphTI), Physics and Power Engineering Institute (PhEI) in Obninsk. Scince 1952, Leipunsky was working in PhEI. In 1959, as its scientific chief. Since 1946, he became founder and head of new chair of physics of nuclear reactors, and in parallel the dean of new Engineering Physics Department of the Moscow Mechanical Institute, which, in 1953, became the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), the first nuclear higher school in the USSR. The main scientific achievements of Leypunsky are as follows: for the first time in the Soviet Union, in UphTI, nuclear fission was urged and observed (1932); regardless of Enrico Fermi, he put forward the idea of fast nuclear breederreactor; he first built the physical, and then the industrial fast reactors (in Obninsk, in Kazakhstan, in the Urals); he applied liquid metal (sodium, lead-bismuth melt) as refrigerants in heat exchangers of nuclear power plants set in nuclear submarines. Leipunsky was awarded the Order of Lenin after the first Soviet atomic bomb test (1949). In 1963, he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. He died in 1972 of a heart attack and was buried in the city of Obninsk. Physics and Power Engineering Institute was named after AI Leipunsky as well as Leipunsky street in Obninsk. Key words: Alexander Leipunsky, Piotr Kapitsa, Lev Landau, Sergey Kaftanov, Igor Kurchatov, atomic bomb. Contacts: Email: bgorobets@rambler.ru Pp. 84-98.