OREANDA-NEWS. It is a bonus for good work: a one-week bus tour of St.Petersburg and its suburbs. The tour manager is Russian Society (Hungary), the sponsor — Paks NPP. The two are partners: Paks sponsors some of the society’s projects – and the above tour is one of them.

Chief Engineer of LNPP Oleg Chernikov told the guests about the plant’s phased modernization since 1989. LNPP has spent a lot on this project but it was worth while: today, the 1st and 2nd units meet the highest Russian and international safety standards and their lives have been prolonged till 2018 and 2020.

After answering the guests’ questions Chernikov and his deputy for nuclear safety Konstantin Kudryavtsev took them to the 1st unit. After the excursion Kudryavtsev told us about his impressions of the visit of the Hungarian colleagues:

- Is there any difference between visits of specialists and people who are not professionals in nuclear power engineering?

- Specialists ask more specific questions, they compare and analyze. The key objective of such visits is to show that our plant is open to the views of specialists of different levels. And they see right away what is true and what is not if somebody at other plants tells them some unclear things. Today, we have answered all of their questions. If a specialist sees that we are honest to him, he will go home and tell ordinary people good things about us.

While bidding farewell to LNPP, the life prolongation expert of Paks NPP Zoltan Visthaller said:

- Thank you for your open, detailed and clear information. On behalf of my colleagues, I would like to congratulate you on the prolongation of the lives of your 1st and 2nd units. It was interesting to see an NPP working on another type of fuel. All we have seen was well managed and clean.