Although Roald Sagdeev was born in Moscow, he studied at school in Kazan; by the way he was the writer Vasily Aksyonov's classmate. Then Sagdeev returned to Moscow and entered Moscow State University – by the way, it happened the same year as Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev did. After graduating from the university, he got a job at the Institute of Atomic Energy, while its director Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov was still alive. Under Khrushchev, the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences was established in the USSR, and Akademgorodok was founded. Together with other young scientists, Sagdeev went to Novosibirsk. There he worked at the Institute of Nuclear Physics. And very successfully: at the age of thirty-two, he became a corresponding member, at thirty-six – an academician. And when he returned to Moscow, he received an unexpected appointment as director of the Institute of Space Research. Together with other major Soviet scientists, Roald Sagdeev was a member of Gorbachev's team, accompanied him to all major summits, and handled the issues of nuclear disarmament scientific justification. Member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Hero of Socialist Labor, winner of the Lenin Prize, and author of numerous scientific works, Roald Sagdeev left his homeland in 1990 for the United States. Brain drain? No. Heart drain. This was how Sagdeev himself defined this move. He happily married for love to President Dwight Eisenhower's granddaughter, Susan. But he has not abandoned his scientific work: the University of Maryland professor is still engaged in plasma physics research, and now also looks for antimatter in space.
