Kazakhstan

Radioactive Legacy: Kazakhstan's Abandoned Soviet Nuclear Test Site

Ruins of the barracks are seen at the site.

For 40 years, the Semipalatinsk test site was a massive experiment on the effects of nuclear explosions on land, water, animals, and people. A total of 456 nuclear explosions were held at Semipalatinsk test site over four decades. The total explosive yield was 250 times the bomb that razed Hiroshima to the ground in 1945.

A warning sign on the territory of the closed Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. 

The area around the mountain is a no-go zone monitored by CCTV cameras.   

Ruins of the town of "G" stand near Degelen Mountain, what locals call the abandoned military town on the site.
 

The locals took the buildings apart for construction materials that they could sell. Heavy machinery was used to destroy the town.

Tunnels and mines were built under Degelen Mountain. By the time of the site's closure, 181 mines were built, some of them the sites of numerous tests. Nuclear tests were either underground or airborne, but after 1963 were only conducted underground. The total number of nuclear explosions under Degelen was 215, while the total number at the Semipalatinsk site was over 450.  

Farmer Tolesh sits at his dinner table at home.

Thousands live near the borders of the test sites. Many live on contaminated land and struggle with illnesses that doctors say are linked to the test site's contamination. Residents receive government benefits for living in the contaminated area, but complain the benefits are hardly enough to allow them to make ends meet.

Farmers prepare forage for cattle in their settlement. Sometimes they accidentally enter the no-go zone, and guards arrive quickly to warn them away.  

There was a cemetery near the shepherds' settlement. Gravestones can still be seen.   

The farmers use artesian wells built in Soviet times, when there was a horse farm at the foot of the mountain in winter. Forage was prepared by the shepherds in summer. 

Water from artesian wells flows into the trough. This is the only watering place for horses in the district.
 

A heating system run with antifreeze is installed inside this mobile home. A solar energy battery is also used to power the household.

Old farm buildings built from bricks and stones near Degelen

People not only dismantled the buildings in the abandoned military site, but also dug up the pipes of the heating system buried between the houses.

Pipes were dug up and sold. Nothing remains of the heating and water supply systems.

This is the only surviving building in the town of G. The power station is still operational. Previously, the power station provided electricity to the town, now it provides energy to the village of Sarzhal, 70 kilometers away.