Checherov, Konstantin Pavlovich

Konstantin Pavlovich Checherov (November 1947 - November 26, 2012) - Soviet and Russian nuclear physicist, specialist in the field of nuclear fuel and radiation materials, senior researcher at the Laboratory of Radiation Materials Science at the Kurchatov Institute . Member of the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident .

Konstantin Pavlovich Checherov
Date of Birth
Date of death
A country
Scientific field	physicist
Place of work
Alma mater

Born in 1947. In 1971, he graduated from Moscow State Technical University named after N.E. Bauman , after graduating from the university he worked as a researcher, then as a senior researcher at the I.V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy .

In May 1986, Checherov was sent to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. He became the first person to investigate the exploded fourth Chernobyl reactor from the inside. Many years of research directly in the mine of an exploding reactor led Checherov and his colleagues to conclude that the Chernobyl explosion is nuclear (that is, caused by a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction) and that the reactor mine is empty, since, in his opinion, approximately 90% of the nuclear fuel was thrown into the Earth’s biosphere during an explosion to a height of 1 to 15 km and are spread by winds around the globe. The fact that at the time of the explosion could not leave the reactor shaft partially melted the bottom of the reactor shaft in the weakest places of passage of various steel pipes several hours after the explosion and in the form of a fuel melt mixed with metal and concrete structures (known as LTSM - fuel-based lava colloquially - “lava”) spread over the subreactor rooms: at the bottom of the steam-bubbler pool, then filled with water, in the room under the reactor shaft, in the basement of the unit. All the fuel physically found to date in the ruins of the former reactor itself, and mainly under it, barely reaches 10%, which, according to Checherov, remained in the mine after the explosion. These findings sharply contradict the official point of view. The results of many years of research are published in various Russian and foreign scientific journals and are repeatedly presented by Checherov in an interview.

For more than 10 years, Checherov regularly descended for research into the shaft of the fourth reactor, while receiving huge doses of radiation. According to him, the total dose received officially amounted to 2200 rem. He participated in the extraction of valuable artifacts from the premises of the Chernobyl station heavily infected with radiation in the first, most dangerous weeks after the accident. At this time, the background radiation in places reached 300 R / min (that is, in two minutes of being outside the shelter it was possible to get a lethal dose). On behalf of the government commission for the elimination of the consequences of the accident, Checherov obtained tape recorders on which the parametric performance of the reactor before the explosion was recorded. These tapes were necessary to study the progress of the accident.

He died in Moscow on November 26, 2012, at the age of 65, after a long and serious illness caused by radiation ^{[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [ 10] [11] [12] [13]} .