full support. Several months later, the Soviet government approved plans to build a semiconductor city in the outskirts of Moscow. “Microelectronics is a mechanical brain,” Khrushchev explained to his fellow Soviet leaders. “It is our future.” The USSR soon broke ground on the city of Zelenograd, the Russian word for “green city”—and, indeed, it was designed to be a scientific paradise. Shokin wanted it to be a perfect scientific settlement, with research laboratories and production facilities, plus schools, day cares, movie theaters, libraries, and a hospital—everything a
