EARLY LIFE AND CAREER

After graduating 1961 from Mendeleev, Legasov worked as a secretary in the Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology until 1962 when he joined the department of Molecular Physics of the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy to do a Phd for chemistry.

Early Life

Legasov was born in a small town of ‘Tula’ in Soviet Russia on September 1, 1936. During his early years of childhood, he was an excellent student and a born leader, excelled in both academic work and social activities being elected secretary of his school’s Komsomol committee and later elected as a bureau of the soviet district committee of the komsomol and to the Moscow city’s komsomol committee. He graduated with a gold medal from school No.56 in Moscow.

He later studied at the Faculty of Physicochemical Engineering at the Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemistry and Technology in 1961 where he learned how nuclear fuel is processed, handled and disposed of.

His career there thrived from then on, even adapting and fully cooperating with the regime’s standards. By 1972, he was awarded with a doctorate degree in chemistry. He later joined the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union, the youngest member to ever join there and worked as a professor at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology in 1983. From there, Legasov built his name as one of the most prominent scientists in the field of inorganic chemistry most notably for the BartlettLegasov effect, Valery received numerous state awards.

Legasov married Margarita Mikhailovna and they had two children, Inga Legasova and Aleksey Valeryevich Legasov. In his personal life, he composed poetry and encouraged its publication. He often visited the theater with his wife, having a love of reading Russian and foreign literature, particularly the works of Yuri Bondarev. He frequently made excursions with his wife and children by car and saw many parts of the country while on trips to other regions