On the initial stage of the Soviet nuclear project in the Urals

Despite the presence of a number of published materials on the problem of choosing sites for the construction of the first nuclear industry facilities in the Urals and the participation of various contingents of builders in it, the author for the first time introduces still unexplored declassified archival documents that allow us to clarify some aspects of the initial stage of construction of the first two plants for obtaining components for atomic bombs in the Urals and make new additional scientific conclusions. The novelty of the studied material is to justify the presence of the pre-project stage of creating domestic nuclear weapons, to identify the actual deployment of construction work even before signing official government documents on the selection and approval of the site for the construction of the future plutonium plant. The comprehensive analysis of published and unpublished sources allowed us to expand the General understanding of the beginning of construction work on the implementation of the Soviet nuclear project in the Urals, to clarify the sequence of events and activities carried out with the help of new archival data.