On 29 July, a permanent exhibition “Hall of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research” opened in the Dubna Museum. The opening was dedicated to the City Day celebration and was the first event of the JINR additional programme to that of the International Year of Basic Sciences, one of the organizers of which is the Institute.

At the opening ceremony, JINR Acting Director Vladimir Kekelidze expressed gratitude to the museum staff and organizers of the exhibition. “Oftentimes, when we write in our articles or say at conferences the words “Dubna” or “JINR”, we mean absolutely the same,” Vladimir Kekelidze highlighted. “For us, they are not just synonyms, and it is no coincidence that they have similar birthdays. Today, we can show a piece of our JINR here, what is being developed now, the image of science that we are implementing within the framework of our Seven-Year Plan for the Development of JINR. What has been done here reflects the work of the multinational team.”

Head of the Dubna City District Sergey Kulikov noted that the new exhibition would contribute to the additional science popularisation in the city. “We wanted such an exhibition in our city for a long time. Ordinary citizens are not always able to get to the Institute’s sites and see that scale, those megascience projects that are being implemented at JINR. Here, people can get information in an interactive and understandable way. We really have something to be proud of in Dubna,” he said.

Director of the Dubna Museum Elena Chertovskykh said that the opening of the exhibition was a significant and long-awaited event in the life of the Museum. “We have been dreaming about our Museum to present the main city-forming enterprise thanks to which Dubna has become what it is now. This exhibition hall will be the centrepiece of our Museum and attract considerable interest.”

Head of the UC JINR Department Yuri Panebrattsev headed the creation of the exhibition on the Institute’s part. A VBLHEP engineer-programmer Nikita Sidorov together with other Institute’s offices and departments has significantly contributed to the exhibition.

Nikita Sidorov said that the intense work on the creation of the exhibition lasted for a year. “I want to express my gratitude to my colleagues who worked seven days a week. We have managed to do everything on time. In addition to the Institute’s representatives, a big team of the InterGraphics company and a number of Dubna organizations was involved in the creation process, helping us with stands,” he commented. Nikita Sidorov explained that unlike the first interactive exhibition “JINR Basic Facilities” in the JINR Cultural Centre “Mir”, this one would not be stationary but mobile. An exhibit called “JINR Business Card” is the principal innovation of the exhibition in the Dubna Museum. It is a stand with information about the discoveries, history, laboratories, basic facilities of the Institute and the history of the city of Dubna. In addition, the stand presents information about the JINR University Centre, which serves as an entrance point for students and teachers interested in JINR.

One of the exhibition stands is dedicated to the Superheavy Element Factory in the Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions and the DC-280 cyclotron, its new basic facility, at which scientists are going to discover new elements of the Periodic Table. An exhibit dedicated to the NICA megascience project presents an accelerator complex being constructed in the Laboratory of High Energy Physics, at which scientists from different countries are going to study the mysteries of the Universe. Information of this stand will be updated in accordance with the state of the art of NICA. Guests of the Museum will be able to take two virtual tours of the SHE Factory, the factory of magnets, and the Synchrophasotron using VR glasses, i.e. a virtual reality technology.

Moreover, the exhibition will present an interactive 3D map of the village of the Hydroengineering Laboratory in 1953, which started the history of JINR’s part of Dubna.

Head of the Dolgoprudny City District Vladislav Yudin, Chairman of the Council of Deputies of the Taldom City District Mikhail Anikeev, municipal deputies, representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Dubna, and JINR, honorary citizens of the science city were among the first guests of the exhibition at its opening.

The exhibition “Hall of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research” is located on the 2nd floor of the building of the Bolshaya Volga station and available to everyone until 1 September 2023.