Sanat Urnaliev is a correspondent in RFE/RL's Kazakh Service.
Forty years of Soviet nuclear bomb tests have left a toxic wasteland in Kazakhstan. The nuclear explosions have stopped, but Russia still rents vast swathes of Kazakh territory for missile tests that critics say are devastating for the environment and its inhabitants.
Kazakh villagers living close to military test sites struggle with "mysterious" illnesses and a toxic nuclear legacy.
Kazakh schools have reinforced a ban on the Islamic hijab, a move that has prompted some female students to give in to pressure and remove their head scarves. Others, however, are asking courts to cancel the ban.
