This year marks fifty years since Andrei Sakharov received the Nobel Peace Prize. Fifty years on – and the prize to Sakharov as well as his ideas remain as relevant as in 1975.
To mark the anniversary of his Nobel Prize, the ASF donated a few personal items, which belonged to Andrei Sakharov, to the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm. The items – a metal glass holder, a wooden spoon used with a Teflon-coated pan, and a slide rule – were the objects that Sakharov used extensively.
A wooden spoon, slightly burnt and heavily used, was his daily companion in Gorky, a city where Sakharov spent nearly seven years in exile (1980 – 1986). A near teetotaller, Sakharov enjoyed his tea, often drinking it from a glass with this glass holder. As for a slide rule, Sakharov had a few. Usually, one would be on his desk, while another one would be taken around in his briefcase – Sakharov was immersed in scientific problems most of the time, so having a slide rule at hand came in handy.
Nobel Prize Museum is located in a historic building of the old Stockholm Stock Exchange in one of the most beautiful squares, Stortorget in Gamla Stan (Old Town) in Stockholm. Created in 2001 to mark the centenary of the Nobel prizes, the Museum sets out to present “reflecting and forward-looking and spirited memory of Nobel laureates and their achievements, as well as of the Nobel Prize and Alfred Nobel.” It is one of the most visited museums in Sweden.
