Reflections

Prophets brought people knowledge of morality and God; scientists bring knowledge of the laws of the universe. Both lead humanity from darkness to light.

I believe that a true scientist is an heir of the prophets — not by rank, but by calling: to lead people out of ignorance toward the light of knowledge. In our family this is expressed even in a name — Ilm (knowledge) and Nur (light).

When a discovery eases human suffering or nurtures the mind, it becomes a form of service. The Islamic tradition speaks of sadaqa — a ceaseless good deed: knowledge that people still use after a scholar's death remains such a good. And reason (aql) is the greatest gift of the Creator; to cultivate it in others is the path of wisdom.

Danger arises where material consumption becomes the only goal. A society that has lost its moral footing loses its immunity to the temptations of power and profit. Knowledge without conscience does not save — it arms.

This is seen most clearly in new technology. An artificial mind could free the world from hunger, disease and scarcity — and that would be a great good deed. Yet the same power, in the hands of greed, easily becomes a tool of control and inequality. The question is not the machine, but the human being who guides it.

History teaches that every action gives rise to a counter-action. Hope lies in keeping knowledge open and shared rather than the property of a few, and in letting conscience — not calculation — govern it. If reason prevails, along with that prophetic mission of the scientist, any technology becomes a shield rather than a poison.

We make history with our own minds — as our forefathers bequeathed to us.

It was a great honour for me to be a student of the legendary scientist, teacher and founder of the school of mechanics at MSU — Khalil Akhmedovich Rakhmatulin (1909–1988). Great people are often surrounded by legends, but for me the real experience of living communication with my teacher mattered more.

World recognition

His «unloading waves» were studied all over the world, including Princeton, where Einstein lived. Despite all his honours — Hero of Socialist Labour, laureate of the Stalin (1945, 1949) and State (1981) prizes — he remained an inwardly free man. He could allow himself irony toward the system he served, because he served not the «party», but Science and Truth.

About the formula of socialism

On 11 February 1981 he flew to Samarkand, to A. Navoi SamSU, to take me to Moscow, to MSU. We arranged a morning tea at the «Intourist» hotel, where prominent scientists of Samarkand gathered. I remember several moments of his speech.

Back then many believed the system was unshakable. But he already saw «cracks in the foundation». As a great scientist among his own, he allowed himself to be sincere and to assess the times honestly — and in effect predicted the future of an entire power. He sensed the dramatic finale of our Motherland, feeling responsibility for the fate of science and the country to his last day. It was then that he said with pain that creative energy was draining into empty ideology, and he saw the absurdity of certain dogmas through the prism of rigorous mathematics.

The anxiety we felt in him was characteristic of the best representatives of the technical and scientific elite of that time — for several reasons:

1. Technological lag. As a man responsible for defence projects, aerodynamics and complex systems (parachutes, aerostats, wave processes), he saw that bureaucracy and «stagnation» in the party apparatus were beginning to slow scientific progress. The ironic formula about «socialism minus electrification» was not just a joke — it was a bitter mathematical conclusion that ideology was ceasing to be backed by real development.
2. Criticism of the partocracy. Coming from the people (having travelled the path from a workers' faculty to academician), Rakhmatulin keenly felt the gap between the slogans of the CPSU and real life. His irony toward «certain party members» in 1981 is evidence that he saw the degradation of the party leadership, increasingly made up of careerists rather than creators.
3. Responsibility to the future. He often mentioned his grandson Sasha in the context of «difficult problems». Perhaps his worry for his grandson was not only about textbooks, but also about the world this child would have to live in if «stagnation» were not replaced by a qualitative leap. His grandson, Alexander Shamilyevich Rakhmatulin, later also took the scientific path, becoming a physicist-mathematician and continuing the dynasty.

Introduction

As of 2026, Uzbekistan’s uranium industry declares ambitious plans: under the state strategy, annual uranium output is to be raised to 7,200 tonnes by 2030.

Uzbekistan’s total uranium reserves are officially estimated at 139,000 tonnes. Yet the practising geologists and engineers whose research was carried out in the Central Kyzylkum know the hidden reverse side of these figures. Actual depletion of the key producing deposits has passed 40%, while the state geological survey’s data on C1-category reserves have historically diverged from the mining directorates’ rigorous production exploration by as much as 20%.

Problems of the modern uranium industry

1. Colmatation and depletion of the ore beds

As beds are mined out, the residual uranium is largely locked in low-permeability, clayey or highly carbonate zones. The extensive method — injecting above-normative volumes of sulphuric acid — leads to an environmental catastrophe for the groundwater. The acid reacts with the host calcite, forming gypsum. The bed goes irreversibly “blind” (becomes colmatated), well injectivity drops to zero, and the uranium concentration in the productive solutions falls to a critical minimum. In-situ borehole leaching (ISL) with reckless injection of sulphuric acid, in which barrier (cut-off) wells are not properly used, permanently destroys the strategic reserve of the Central Kyzylkum — the underground aquifers, whose remediation would require hundreds of millions of dollars.

2. Technological solutions

Solution No. 1. A method of in-situ uranium leaching (patent No. IAP 05336)

The fundamental basis of uranium chemistry is the conversion of the inert, insoluble tetravalent form (U⁴⁺) into the mobile hexavalent one (U⁶⁺).

Instead of purchasing pure acid, a brilliant synergy of the uranium and gold operations was introduced and tested in the deep beds of the Northern Mining Directorate (SevRU) deposits. The technology used the liquid sulphide waste of the gold-ore bio-oxidation complex at Hydrometallurgical Plant No. 3 (Kokpatas).

• A free bioreagent containing a culture of the bacterium Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans and ferrous iron (Fe²⁺) was fed into the bed.
• In parallel, technical oxygen and a balanced nutrient medium were injected through dedicated units to keep the bacteria viable in the anaerobic conditions of the subsurface.
• The bacteria continuously regenerated the iron into its ferric form (Fe³⁺), which acted as the most powerful, ideal oxidant, converting U⁴⁺ → U⁶⁺ without acidifying the bed.
• Result: stable permeability of the subsurface and an enormous yield — more than 80 tonnes of uranium oxide concentrate (U₃O₈) from a single production site.

Solution No. 2. Acid-free extraction with process water (the experience of Ketmenchi)

As long ago as 30 years back, in the mid-1990s, amid economic chaos, a geochemical fact was proved at the Ketmenchi deposit: the uranium there is originally present in its natural hexavalent form (U⁶⁺) thanks to centuries of natural infiltration by oxygenated waters.

The authors of the method introduced extraction with ordinary process water containing dissolved gases, without a single drop of sulphuric acid. The water gently washed out the ready uranyl ion, delivering practically zero reagent cost and absolute environmental cleanliness.