Chapter 9 – Legacy

The death of Sakharov shook the country.

Funeral rallies with thousands of people took place in many cities of the Soviet Union: Novosibirsk, Kyiv, Vorkuta, Yaroslavl, Odessa, Lviv.

In Moscow, the farewell to Sakharov continued for two days. On 18 December 1989, Andrei Sakharov was buried in Moscow at the Vagankovo Cemetery.

“Andrei Dmitrievich was an absolutely normal thinker, with thinking as old as the world, that is, thinking based on reason. His intellectual activity, whether it concerned science, politics, or the struggle for human rights, corresponded totally to those qualities which in fact define a real scientist. These qualities, in my view, can be summarized as three qualities: fearlessness, selflessness, and impartiality”.

Sergei Kovalev, first Ombudsman for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, human rights defender, friend of Sakharov

In January 1990, at the initiative of Elena Bonner, the Public Commission to Preserve the Legacy of Academician Andrei Sakharov was founded.

In August of that same year, in the US, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation was founded. Human rights defenders, civic figures, and scientists — friends and colleagues of Academician Sakharov — joined both organizations.

In 1991, in the city of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) in the apartment where Andrei Sakharov and Elena Bonner lived almost seven years during exile, the Andrei D. Sakharov Museum was opened.

Public Commission

The Andrei Sakharov Foundation

Andrei D. Sakharov Museum

Elena Bonner. Moscow. February 1990.
© Yury Feklistov

Archive
and Memorial
Apartment
of Sakharov

The Sakharov Archive was created by the Public Commission to Preserve the Legacy of Academician Sakharov on the basis of materials donated by his widow Elena Bonner. Opened in 1994, it remains the chief Russian center for the collection, archiving and study of documents, memorabilia and photo, video and audio materials related to the life and activity of Academician Sakharov.

sakharov-archive.ru
Moscow, Zemlyanoy val St., Bldg. 48-B Apt. 62

Space for the housing of the Archive in the building where Sakharov lived from 1971 until his death (except for his exile in Gorky) was provided by the Government of Moscow.

At the Archive, there is a museum exhibit open to the public, devoted to Sakharov's biography. In 2013, access was opened to the Andrei Sakharov Memorial Apartment.

Section of the Museum Exhibit of the Sakharov Archive

Bella Koval, director of the Sakharov Archive at the Sakharov Memorial Apartment

The Sakharov Center

In 1996, the Public Commission to Preserve the Legacy of Academician Sakharov in Moscow opened the Andrei Sakharov Peace, Progress and Human Rights Museum and Civic Center, known now as the Sakharov Center. It combines the functions of a museum, library, civic and volunteers' center. Public lectures and discussions, film showing, theater shows, exhibits, and charity events take place in this facility, and educational projects are implemented. There is a permanent museum exhibition titled “The History of Totalitarianism and Resistance

sakharov-center.ru
Moscow, Zemlyanoy Val St., Bldg. 57 Section 6

to Tyranny in the USSR”, and also electronic resources are available — data bases devoted to the history of political repressions and the human rights.

Each year in May, the Sakharov Center holds a Festival of Freedom on the day of Sakharov's birthday, May 21.

Monument of Freedom (Fragment of the Berlin Wall) in the Square at the Sakharov Center

The building of the Sakharov Center

Section of the Museum Exhibit at the Sakharov Center

Conference: "Freedom, the Public Role and Responsibility of Intellectuals". 2019

Scene from the performance “Nadya and Osya: A Love Story”. Based on the memoirs of Nadezhda Mandelshtam and the poetry of Osip Mandeshtam. 2018

Defense of human rights and the struggle for freedom inspires more and more people in Russia and the entire world.

Moscow, Sakharov Avenue, 2019. © CBS Media

“The strength of the struggle for human rights lies not in the organization, nor in the number of participants. It is a moral strength, a strength of unconditional rightness. This movement cannot disappear without a trace. Once spoken, a word lives on, and new people with their unique destinies and hearts bring in new words”.

Interview with Sakharov by the UPI wire service, 1982

сoncept

design and development

project staff

Sergei Lukashevsky — concept /

Natalya Samover — script /

Bela Koval — consultant /

Andrei Bakhmin — coordinator /

Pavel Dergachyov — creative director /

Alexander Rastegayev — technical director /

Ilya Zhelamsky — project manager /

Elena Romanova — lead designer /

Vyacheslav Sheikin — designer, developer /

Artyom Fokin — WebGL /

Ilya Polyakov — 3D /

Ilya Isayenko,

Sergei Bisenov — video /

Catherine A. Fitzpatrick— translator.

sources

Sakharov Archive / State Central Museum of Contemporary History of Russia / Institute of National Memory (Poland) / Memorial Museum of Peace in Hiroshima (Japan) / Boris N. Yeltsin Presidential Center Archive / East News / ABC News / NRK / United Nations Photo Archive / Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (FIAN) Archive / Pugwash Movement of Scientists Archive / All-Russian Scientific Institute of Experimental Physics (VNIIEF) / Getty images / AP Photo / TASS / RIA / Personal archives of Valery Gende-Rote, Mark Markov-Grinberg, Matthew Rakola

special thanks

Andrei Sakharov Foundation

Tatiana Yankelevich

Marina Sakharova-Liberman

Alexey Semyonov

Ekaterina Shikhanovich

Boris Altshuler

Anna Khorash

Tatiana Gende-Rote

Andrew Rushailo-Arno

Alexei Makarov

Robert van Voren

Yury Rost

Oleg Klimov

Andrei Sakharov’s original drawings are used on the site.