Wooden spoon · Welcome to the Nobel Prize Laureate Collection

ID-nummer

2025.001.003

Titel

Wooden spoon

Publik beskrivning

This spoon was used by Andrei Sakharov in the 1980s during the time he was banished to Nizhny Novgorod (then called Gorky).

Sakharov was a physicist but had been a human rights advocate since the 1960s. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975 for his efforts. The Soviet authorities prevented him from going to the award ceremony. To hamper his work, he was exiled to Nizhny Novgorod in 1980. The apartment where he lived was under constant surveillance from across the street.

Apart from visits from his wife, Yelena Bonner, he lived alone for long periods, cooking for himself. This traditional Russian wooden spoon was a utensil he used daily during his exile, for instance when he fried food in a Teflon pan, so as not to scratch it. One dish he liked to make was a kind of curd that he fried lightly, because he preferred hot food. He also used the spoon to make scrambled eggs.

The spoon was donated to the Nobel Prize Museum by the Andrei Sakharov Foundation in 2025.

Pristagare

Andrei Sakharov