In the late 1950s, Sergey Afanasyev worked in top management positions in Leningrad, and in the early 1960s in Moscow as Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

Sergey Afanasyev's Ministry not only took part in developing his country's pioneering space programme but was a key player in the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States.

But as the Cold War dragged on, Afanasyev's Ministry managed to sufficiently increase and almost match the number of nuclear missiles and warheads its main rival had and thus reach a fragile balance of military might.

Oddly enough, just like many elements of the Soviet economy, the Ministry of General Machine Building at its numerous plants spread from the western part of the USSR to the far east coast also produced TV sets, refrigerators and other home appliances.

During his long career, Sergey Afanasyev dealt directly with top Soviet leaders, including Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, Yuri Andropov and Mikhail Gorbachev, discussing with them and getting funding for both space and defence programmes and projects.

Beria's first reaction was to arrest the young engineer, but he was later told that in that case the production would be delayed for over a year because Afanasyev was the only person on the ground knowledgeable enough to take charge.