Oleg Lavrentiev

Oleg Alexandrovich Lavrentiev (; – ) was a physicist who worked on the Soviet atomic bomb project and whose research contributions were fundamental to the understanding of thermonuclear fusion.

He was a self-taught physicist who was allowed to attend the Moscow State University but did not secure graduation from. Eventually, the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology awarded him the doctorate in 2004.

Early life Lavrentiev was born in Pskov, into a family descended from peasants. His father, Alexander, completed 2 years at a parochial school, worked as a clerk at the Vydvizhenets factory in Pskov, his mother, Alexandra, completed 4 years and worked as a nurse. The family lived on Pogankin Lane. The future scientist attended the Second Model School.

During the war, at age 18 he volunteered for the front as a reconnaissance observer. While in the military on Sakhalin, Lavrentiev educated himself, using the library of technical literature and college textbooks. With his military allowance he was able to order books from Moscow and subscribed to the scientific journal of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Uspekhi Fizicheskikh Nauk (Advances in Physical Science), which was intended for researchers, graduate students, and physics teachers. From Moscow came an order to create for him an environment where he could work. In a guarded room dedicated to him, he wrote his first article, which he sent in July 1950 via secret mail to the department of heavy equipment engineering of the Central Committee.

His proposal consisted of two parts. Firstly, he proposed an implementation of a hydrogen bomb, based on lithium deuteride.

On July 22, 2011, a memorial plaque to Oleg Lavrentyev, an "Honorary Citizen of Pskov" and nuclear physicist, was unveiled on building No. 3 of Muzeyny Lane in Pskov.