Having being rigorously trained by Isaak Brook, Matyuhin went on to become a great scientist and the founder of his own scientific school. He was born in Leningrad in 1927. His father, Yakov Vasilievich was born in 1880 into a peasant family, and he had worked as a factory electrician in Petrograd until the 1917 revolution.^[12] His wife, Margarita Fedorovna, was a housekeeper.

Yakov Matyuhin participated in the revolutionary movement, was a member of the regional committee of the Socialist Democratic Revolutionary Party (SDRP) between 1909 and 1910, in the Vyborg district of Petrograd. He was well acquainted with Kalinin, Dzhugashvili, Ordzhonikidze and other famous members of the SDRP.^[13] They all used Matyuhin's apartment as a secret meeting place. After the revolution, Matyuhin abandoned political activism and worked again as an electrician. In 1932, Kalinin secured a job transfer to Moscow for him, and the family was given an apartment in a government house on Granovsky Street. At the time, the Matyuhins gave little thought to what might come of this, because they were happy to be living in a nice apartment in the capital.

In 1935 Nikolai Matyuhin started school. He was a fast learner and his parents were happy with his academic success. His mother Margarita was a highly educated person, well read, and a wonderful storyteller; she supported the comprehensive development and education of her son.

This happy childhood was destroyed by Stalin's repression. In 1937 Yakov Matyuhin was arrested and the family never found out what happened to him (in 1957, he was posthumously exonerated). The family was evicted from Moscow. After selling their personal belongings, his mother managed to rent a small room in a wooden house at the outskirts of Moscow, in the village of Solntsevo. At the beginning of the Second World War in August 1941, the Matyuhin family was evacuated to the city of Penza, where they lived with relatives.

After graduating from secondary school in 1944, Nikolai Matyuhin entered the Moscow Energy Institute's radio technology department. He received only excellent marks and during his third year became involved in the invention of a new radio transmission system with improved electric power efficiency. He received two invention certificates for his work on this system. In February 1950, he graduated with honors and in accordance with the recommendations of the State Examination Commission, sent his application for post-graduate work to the Moscow Energy Institute's transmitter's department, a naive move on his part.

The Energy Institute personnel commission rejected his candidacy because his father had been repressed by Stalin. Thus he came to Brook's laboratory, where he took on the role of the project manager for the M-1 and later, the M-3 computer.

I wanted to find some of Matyuhin's personal reminiscences about this period. Searching my archive, I found an old issue of Power, the Moscow Energy Institute's newspaper, from October 23, 1976. The entire issue was dedicated to the department of computer technology celebrating its 25th anniversary, and there I found Matyuhin's article, "First Steps." When it was first published, Matyuhin was already a professor with a PhD in Technical Sciences. He wrote:

During my final semester at the Radio Technology Department of the Moscow Energy Institute, I became seriously interested in the field of meter-wavelength radio transmitters, and never expected that after finishing the Institute it would lead to a sharp change in the direction of my career. Within a month of defending my diploma project, I got to meet the Energy Institute's Assistant Rector, Chursin. He introduced me to a rather short, but very lively and energetic man, who immediately started asking detailed questions about my interests and my work. Finally, he invited me to join some 'cutting edge' work at one of the Academy of Science institutes. The man was the academician Isaak Brook, my future chief and mentor.

At that time, the Academy of Sciences seemed like Mount Everest to me, inaccessible to ordinary mortals. Just being there seemed incredible. I should explain that placement of post-graduate specialists from the Radio Technology Department was 'harsher' than that of normal higher education institutions. Most of our post-graduates were not sent to research institutes, but to factories, primarily in faraway Soviet cities.

I accepted Brook's proposal without hesitation, although I could not imagine exactly what 'cutting edge' work meant. From my point of view, any work at the Academy of Sciences would be fascinating! And that is exactly how it turned out – I became a part of a team that created of one of the first Soviet digital computers.

Computer development in Moscow was handled by three very different groups in terms of their organizational structure: academician Lebedev's group at the Institute for Precision Mechanics, Brook's group at the Power Engineering Institute, and Bazilevsky's group at SKB-245.

Our group was the smallest of all, which was the most likely reason why Brook directed our efforts towards small (for that time) computers. He had assembled about ten post-graduates from the Energy Institute, the Moscow Aviation Institute, and Nizhniy-Novgorod University. Naturally, none of the recruits could possibly imagine the complexity of the work, and had no fears about building the computer, while the seasoned specialists, knowing the level of radio-electronic technology back then would have had serious doubts about the feasibility of our task. Luckily, we were not familiar with the reliability theory, and had no idea that vacuum tubes and other electronic parts malfunctioned quite often. Hence, we started the work unencumbered by doubts.

My first job was assembling combination three-entry adders for 6X6 diode vacuum tubes. After an initial search for the correct combinations of zeros and ones, I remembered learning something similar in O.A. Goryianov's course, "Automation and Telemechanics," at the Energy Institute. When I originally took it with my classmates, also radio operators, we considered it secondary to studying radar or impulse technology. In those days, technical literature was in a very short supply, so I always kept scrupulous notes from all of the lectures on technical subjects. I remember searching through them and using some Boolean algebra equations in the progress report for Brook, which highly impressed him.

It was extremely interesting to work with Brook, especially since all of us were very young. He personally managed our group's activities, and that was truly inspiring. However, conversations in his office were rather rare. Usually in the morning, he swept into our room and started talking right there at the workbench. It seems to me that the success of our first computer and its rapid development was partly due to Brook's decision to use large-scale semiconductor elements. At that time, these were available only in the form of miniature copper-oxide rectifiers, which were produced for the needs of measurement technology. Brook agreed to develop a specially modified rectifier that was same size as a typical resistor, and we came up with a set of circuit designs. We prepared and assembled the units in the laboratory workshop, and in less than a year the computer had already begun "to breathe" (with its several hundred vacuum tubes and several thousand copper-oxide rectifiers).

During M-1's construction, we were compelled to examine a wide variety of issues – from voltage regulators for powerful direct-current motor generators (that supplied the computer's secondary power) to the instructions system design and programming.

Our choice for the instruction system was not easy. Back then, the generally accepted and widely used method was a three-address instruction system based on von Neumann's work, which required categorical register equipment with a rather large word length and memory. Our limited options drove us to look for more economical solutions.

As it generally happens in hopeless situations, an accident helped us. Brook invited the young mathematician Yuri Schrader to work with us, and during a joint hands-on training session in programming, Schrader noticed that in many approximation formulas the calculated result of one operation was used as an operand for the next operation. From there, it was a short leap to the first two-address instruction system. Our proposals were approved by Brook and after the M-1, they were developed further in the M-3 computer. The next round of events led the M-3 to Minsk, where the building of the Ordzhonikidze factory, the first computer manufacturing plant in Belarus, was just completed. The original small batch of machines was made there, practically by hand, and later the plant began to develop and produce the well known Minsk computer series.

And that is how the genealogical roots of the Minsk series were found in the modest premises of the former electrical systems laboratory at the Power Engineering Institute. Finally, I would like to note that I intentionally limited myself here to the discussion about my teachers and senior managers. Much more could be said about my colleagues during those years, many of whom are well-known specialists in computer technology now, but that really requires a larger framework that goes beyond the mention of one or two names in a small article such as this.

In 1957, Nikolai Matyuhin transferred to the Scientific Research Institute of Electronic Computing Technology at the Radio Industry Ministry.^[14] Being the chief engineer at the Institute, he participated in building a computer for the Soviet Union's air defense system, and was the principle designer of mass-produced computers and special control computer complexes. In 1962 Matyuhin successfully defended his Candidate's thesis, and in 1972 received a Doctorate of Technical Sciences degree. In 1979, in recognition for his role in the development of computer technology and as one of the founders of Soviet Union's computer industry, he was elected as a Corresponding Member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Later in the year, he was awarded the State Prize of the Soviet Union for his work on control systems. He successfully combined his scientific research with teaching by becoming a professor at the Moscow Institute of Radio Electronics and Automation.

Some of Matyuhin's most important scientific achievements in computer theory and systems were the development of computer architecture principles and installation design for complex, widely separated, computer-aided real time control systems and their data transmission.

Matyuhin was the chief designer of a number of computers and complexes that played an important role in national defense. Under his guidance, families of sophisticated second and third generation computer complexes were designed. They were mass-produced and successfully put into operation. One such complex, for instance, was manufactured and used for more than ten years, thanks to its superior operational, technical, and architectural characteristics, which guaranteed effective system performance in various mobile and stationary air defense services.

For the first time in the Soviet Union, during the period from1968 through 1971, multi-complex computer systems were created under Matyuhin's supervision. They were based on ES-type computers, and showed their effectiveness for the applications in the developing systems. Between 1972 and 1975, further development of these principles enabled Matyuhin to build a center of data exchange for information networks. It was also the first large-scale Soviet effort in the rapidly changing field of science and technology during those years. Matyuhin published over one hundred scientific papers (including seven inventions) and in 1980 was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. His wife, Alexandridi, recalled, "In his private life, among colleagues, friends and family, Nikolai Matyuhin showed himself to be an extremely kind, modest and attentive person. He was very loyal to his friends, family and children."

She continued:

As far his character is concerned, he was a very enthusiastic and emotional man, who captivated people with his ideas. This could be said not just about his work, but also about his leisure activities – sports, entertaining friends, or travel.

Nikolai's favorite leisure pursuits were mostly amateur sports. In the summer during holidays, it was kayak boat trips with family and friends through the rivers of central Russia. Sometimes, it was car trips or bicycling. In the winter, he liked alpine skiing. He started skiing rather late, at the age of 40, but really took to it and quickly reached a high amateur standing.

Matyuhin died on March 4, 1984. Like many of his colleagues, Matyuhin had been deeply involved in the development of computers for military purposes, particularly at the Radio Industry Ministry. During the Cold War, most of the projects carried out under the Radio Industry Ministry's auspices were "closed," top-secret endeavors that intended to protect the Soviet Union from air attacks and other possible military conflicts. I will discuss some of these projects in the next chapter.

^[12] Editor's note: Tsar Nicholas II changed the name of St. Petersburg to Petrograd in 1914 in order to inspire patriotism during World War I. After the revolution in 1924 the communists changed the city's name again to Leningrad. In 1991 the Russian government change the name again changed back to St. Petersburg.

^[13] Editor's Note:Dzhugashvili was Stalin's family name. The name Stalin (steel) itself was a party alias, like Lenin, whose actual last name was Ulyanov. Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin was one of the Lenin's fellow revolutionaries who took an active part in Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 and later became a member of the Politburo. He became part of Stalin's inner circle after Lenin's death and between 1930 and 1940 sanctioned massive repressions in the Soviet Union. Kalinin was one of the most faithful Communist Party servants yet his own wife was punished on Stalin's order. Kalinin served as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet beginning in 1938. Grigory Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze (Sergo) was a fellow Georgian and long-time friend of Stalin's. From 1932 he headed the Soviet heavy engineering industry. He was also a member of the Politburo, an ardent communist, and a popular figure. At the peak of Stalin's repression's in 1938 Ordzhonikidze committed suicide with his own revolver.

^[14] Translator's Note: Despite its name, the Radio Industry Ministry was mainly responsible for design and production of electronic equipment for the Soviet Army Air Force, accounting for more than 80% of its products.