The President said in particular, in his message:
“Russia’s influence and strength has always been based not only in its vast territory and natural resource wealth. The intellectual leadership and innovative ideas of our scientists, designers and engineers have always counted among our unquestioned merits. The workers of Russia’s atomic industry are deservedly counted in these ranks. You are top-class specialists who have made an immense contribution to developing our country’s scientific and economic potential. Your combination of great experience, fundamental knowledge and sense of purpose ushered in the era of the peaceful atom, created a science-intensive and high-technology industry and have placed Russia among the leaders in nuclear physics and nuclear energy and expanded the boundaries of science in the world.
It is important that today the sector continues its successful development and its effective work helps to make our country more competitive in one of the global high-technology markets. The scientific creativity of Russia’s nuclear specialists remains a source of innovative technology for Russia’s industry and energy sector.”
Atomic Industry Workers’ Day was made a professional holiday by Presidential Decree in 2005. The holiday falls on September 28. It was on this day in 1942 that the USSR State Defence Committee issued an order ‘On Organisation of Work on Uranium’ and approved the establishment of a special laboratory to study the atomic nucleus at the USSR Academy of Sciences.