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In a suicide that has spotlighted the plight of Russia's scientists, the head of one of the nation's top nuclear research centers has shot himself, the police said today.

The death of the scientist, Vladimir Nechai, 60, the director of the top-secret Chelyabinsk-70 nuclear complex, shocked the nation. The authorities said he committed suicide on Wednesday evening after locking himself in his office and leaving a note for his wife.

Mr. Nechai's inner motivations in ending his life may never be known. But his death has already been portrayed as a national symbol of the decline of Russian science.

And today nuclear physicists seized on the suicide to demand that back wages be paid and that the nuclear research center receive sorely needed funds.

Secluded in the Ural mountains region, Chelyabinsk-70 has a storied history. Along with Arzamas-16, another Russian nuclear center, it played an important role in the design and development of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. Founded in 1955, Chelyabinsk was so secret that it was not listed on official Soviet maps.

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But as the cold war came to an end, Chelyabinsk lost its privileged place in Russia society -- not to mention much of its budget. Scientists from Chelyabinsk held angry rallies and sought, somewhat belatedly, to drum up civilian business.

In 1992, bomb designers from Chelyabinsk presented Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d, one of the first Western officials to visit the center, with a list of potential commercial projects. Mr. Baker promised to help set up an international scientific center to generate civilian projects for former weapons scientists. The United States later flew food aid to Chelyabinsk.

More recently, President Boris N. Yeltsin made a campaign trip in February, promising that wages would be paid on time and that the price of vodka would not be raised. But Chelyabinsk's fortunes have continued to decline, and workers there have not been paid since July.

According to the newspaper Izvestia, which reported on Mr. Nechai's suicide with banner headlines, workers at Chelyabinsk have been making due with a small stipend of about $30 per month. Some 16,000 work for the nuclear research center there, and the town has a population of 46,000, Izvestia said.

As the head of the All Russian Scientific Research Center of Technical Physics, Mr. Nechai was both a manager of the sprawling closed city and a weapons designer. He had headed Chelyabinsk-70 since 1988 and had been awarded the Lenin and other state prizes.

Chelyabinsk is hardly the only installation that is having a hard time getting by. Military leaders have openly talked of insubordination if wages are not paid, and scientists at the prestigious Academy of Sciences have gone on hunger strikes.

Vladislav Nikitin, a deputy director at Chelyabinsk, told Interfax that Mr. Nechai's depression was aggravated by the financial problems at Chelyabinsk-70 and that there is no chance the situation will improve.






위의 영문 요약 : '그 민주 머통령' 당시 비밀도시 첼랴빈스크 원자력단지 책임자 양반이 생활고 못 이기고 자살.



보시다시피 핵 좀 만든다는 양반들이 줄줄이 굶어뒤지거나 도망쳤는데


아직도 수습을 못하고 있음



현존 핵전력이 미국급이니 뭐니 해도


어디까지 발사체 개량, 유지에 집중해서 겨우 하는 수듄