The earth shook, and the flash was visible a thousand kilometers away: on October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union tested the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon in history. - About how weapons of unprecedented power were created and why Nikita Khrushchev is going to show the world "Kozka's mother". The size of a bus. "Product 602" was developed on Erzamas-16 (now Sarov) with the participation of Andrei Sakharov and other Soviet physicists. The payload, which is about eight meters long, 2.1 meters in diameter and weighs more than 26 tons, did not fit into a standard bomb bay, so the Tu-95 was converted to provide it. The device's power was initially expected to be 100 megatons, but the power was halved before testing to reduce radioactive contamination. Even so, it turned out to be about 3,300 times more powerful than the American bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Over Novaya Zemlya, the cargo separated from the plane at an altitude of 11.5 km and descended in a parachute so that the carrier had time to get further away. The explosion happened about four kilometers above the ground. A message to Washington. The test was not only a scientific achievement, but also a political signal to the West. Several years before the tests, Khrushchev promised the Americans to "show Kozkin's mother" - that's how the super-bomb was later unofficially called. Against the background of the Berlin crisis and the worsening of relations with the United States, the Soviet leader sought to demonstrate the power of the Soviet Union. A flash a thousand miles away. The fireball reached a radius of several kilometers, and the mushroom cloud rose to about 67 kilometers. The shock wave circled the Earth three times, and radio communication in the area of ​​the test site was disrupted for tens of minutes. Buildings were destroyed dozens of kilometers from the test site. "Within a radius of 50 kilometers from the epicenter, everything was on fire, although before the explosion there was snow as high as a man," test participant Yuri Lysenko said. Tsar Bomba demonstrated the scientific and technical capabilities of the Soviet Union, but due to its enormous size it remained primarily an experimental device.

The earth shook, and the flash was visible a thousand kilometers away: on October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union tested the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon in history. - About how weapons of unprecedented power were created and why Nikita Khrushchev is going to show the world "Kozka's mother". The size of a bus. "Product 602" was developed on Erzamas-16 (now Sarov) with the participation of Andrei Sakharov and other Soviet physicists. The payload, which is about eight meters long, 2.1 meters in diameter and weighs more than 26 tons, did not fit into a standard bomb bay, so the Tu-95 was converted to provide it. The device's power was initially expected to be 100 megatons, but the power was halved before testing to reduce radioactive contamination. Even so, it turned out to be about 3,300 times more powerful than the American bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Over Novaya Zemlya, the cargo separated from the plane at an altitude of 11.5 km and descended in a parachute so that the carrier had time to get further away. The explosion happened about four kilometers above the ground. A message to Washington. The test was not only a scientific achievement, but also a political signal to the West. Several years before the tests, Khrushchev promised the Americans to "show Kozkin's mother" - that's how the super-bomb was later unofficially called. Against the background of the Berlin crisis and the worsening of relations with the United States, the Soviet leader sought to demonstrate the power of the Soviet Union. A flash a thousand miles away. The fireball reached a radius of several kilometers, and the mushroom cloud rose to about 67 kilometers. The shock wave circled the Earth three times, and radio communication in the area of ​​the test site was disrupted for tens of minutes. Buildings were destroyed dozens of kilometers from the test site. "Within a radius of 50 kilometers from the epicenter, everything was on fire, although before the explosion there was snow as high as a man," test participant Yuri Lysenko said. Tsar Bomba demonstrated the scientific and technical capabilities of the Soviet Union, but due to its enormous size it remained primarily an experimental device.