Evgeny Zavoisky Lab-Museum

The Memorial Laboratory of Ye.K.Zavoisky was opened in September 1997. It was there, in Room 253 of the Main Building of Kazan State University, where in 1944 Yevgeny K. Zavoisky observed signals of magnet spin resonance for the first time. The idea of restoration of the scientist's apparatus for observing the effect of absorption of the radio frequencies field in a substance (when radio frequency field is perpendicular to a magnet field) was completely approved by S.A.Altshuler, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Head of Magnet Radiospectroscopy Department. Later on the idea resulted in the establishment of the Memorial Laboratory.

A lot of arrangements were made before the laboratory was opened: for 15 years the enthusiasts had been working in the libraries and archives, museums and research institutes, universities of Kazan and Moscow, in particular, the stores of KSU, Kazan Branch of the Academy of Sciences, the Institute for Physical Problems named after P.L.Kapitsa, the USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University, in Zavoiskys' family archive and the National Archive of Tatarstan. 
The collected materials include memories of Ye.K.Zavoisky's colleagues and contemporaries, professors of the Kazan State University, among them there were S.A.Altshuler and B.M.Kozyrev. The stories told by Zavoisky's relatives, his daughter Natalya and brother Vyacheslav, are especially important.

The equipment, used by Yevgeny Konstantinovich, was looked for at Kazan University, Aircraft and Veterinary Institutes, Medical, Teachers' Training and Agricultural Institutes, School No 131 and Plant No 16 of Kazan City, and in private family archives. The results of the search and investigation were published and presented at exhibitions, including numerous reports made at the conferences, in particularly, at "Zavoiskiye Chteniya".

A large exposition of physical equipment of the period from the XIX to the beginning of the XX century, timed to the 50th anniversary of the EPR discovery, was held at the Kazan State University. Among the devices there was also a functioning apparatus for magnetic resonance described in Ye.K.Zavoisky's laboratory notes.

The displayed materials evoked great interest of the participants of the "AMPERE" International Congress, held in Kazan City in 1994. Professor Hahn, Nobel Prize Winner, greatly impressed by the displayed devices, said that such collection of equipment could be seldom seen in another country.

Academic circles suggested establishing the Memorial Laboratory of Ye.K.Zavoisky in the Kazan State University. The idea, confirmed by subs­cription lists carefully kept in the museum, was supported by scientists from Russia and the USA, Great Britain and Germany, France and Japan, and many other countries. However, only in four years they passed a resolution to open Zavoisky museum in Room 253 of the Main Building of Kazan University, where EPR was discovered.

The assistance in the museum establishing was provided by staff members of Physics Department. The EPR device, shown at the exhibition in Brussels, was presented to the laboratory by professor A.M.Nasyrov and associate professor Yu.A.Gusev. One should mention the informal support given by the Department of Human and Animals' Physiology. Financial support to the newly-established museum was provided by the biggest instrument engineering companies "Bruker" (Germany) and "Varian" (USA).

The official opening ceremony of Ye.K.Zavoisky's Laboratory took place in September 1997 in presence of scientific community and local authorities headed by the Mayor of Kazan K.Sh.Iskhakov. The staff of the newly-opened museum was to recreate the interior of the laboratory of the 1930-1940-s, repairing old parquet floor, windows, doors, walls, the ceiling and chandeliers of "Lutezzi" style as well as the laboratory equipment, including physical devices of the XIX and the beginning of the XX century and those, used by Ye.K.Zavoisky, and continue their work on collecting books from the library and family archive of the scientist.