1. Kirill Shchelkin was notable for his work on the detonation process of the first Soviet nuclear weapon, the RDS-1, and the first thermonuclear device, and for his role as the first scientific director of the Soviet nuclear weapons development center in the Urals at Chelyabinsk-70.
Kirill Shchelkin was born in Tbilisi, Russian Empire, and baptised at home by an Armenian Orthodox priest.
Kirill Shchelkin lived in the Caucasus as a young child.
When his father succumbed to the disease in 1926, the 15-year-old pupil Shchelkin had to work to support his family.
Kirill Shchelkin researched combustion processes, specifically the suppression of methane explosions in coal mines and suppressing the detonation of fuel-air mixtures in the cylinders of internal combustion engines.
Kirill Shchelkin wrote about experiments concerning the effect of irregularities in the walls of mine workings which caused turbulence that could accelerate flame propagation should combustion occur if the chambers were filled with combustible gases.
Kirill Shchelkin volunteered and was in the platoon of artillery intelligence of the 64th rifles division, engaged in the fighting to protect Moscow.
Kirill Shchelkin was engaged in research into combustion in jet engines.
Kirill Shchelkin was invited to be deputy director of the Institute for Physical Problems at the academy, but he turned down the offer to continue scientific research.
In 1949, at the test-site in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, Kirill Shchelkin supervised the placement of the first Soviet nuclear device on the tower, put the detonating cap on the sphere of plutonium himself.
Kirill Shchelkin was sometimes openly critical of directives, which upset first secretary Nikita Khrushchev, and he had a disputes with Efim Slavsky, the minister in charge of Ministry of Medium Machine Building which oversaw the nuclear programme.
Kirill Shchelkin received the Lenin Prize with his fellow researchers in 1958 after developing a new charge at NII-1011.
Kirill Shchelkin continued to publish in scientific journals, was active in popularising Science, and wrote books such as The Physics of the Microworld and Gas Dynamics of Combustion, both published in 1965.
Kirill Shchelkin died on 8 November 1968 in Moscow, and was buried in Novodevichy cemetery.