The MESM and the monastery

The first electronic digital computer in continental Europe was constructed not in Germany or France, but in the Ukraine. In the late 1940s, Sergei Alexeevich Lebedev began constructing the MESM (Malaya Elektronaya Schetnaya Mashina, or Small Electronic Calculating Machine). Although computer historians G.D. Crowe and S. Goodman (1994) trace the early career and work of Sergei Alexeevich Lebedev and the creation of the MESM in fine detail, many of the events and culture that surrounded this project deserve a closer look. The authors describe some of them.