20 years have passed since the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site was closed. Radio Azattyk reporters visited places where nuclear weapons were tested. Here we learned about the fates of “Crystal Boy” and “Ant-Man”.

August 29, 2016 marked the 25th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. According to the roughest estimates, 1.3 million people suffered from explosions at the test site. More than 300 thousand square kilometers of land are polluted. This is slightly less than the area of ​​Poland and slightly larger than the area of ​​Italy.

FIRST NUCLEAR RANGE IN THE USSR

The Semipalatinsk nuclear test site became the first in the USSR. When choosing a location, several dozen options were considered.

The area of ​​the landfill itself is 18,500 sq. km. The total area of ​​affected territories is 304,000 sq. km. Due to the explosions at the SINP (this is the official abbreviation of the Semipalatinsk test site), 16.5 times more land was contaminated than the test site itself occupied. 304 thousand square kilometers is slightly less than the area of ​​Poland and slightly more than the area of ​​Italy.

To date, scientists have explored less than half the area of ​​the test site, 8 thousand sq. km.

– The main task is to understand whether it is possible to transfer these lands into economic circulation, – speaks Andrey Panitsky, Head of the Department of Integrated Ecosystem Research at the Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology (Kurchatov), ​​ininterview kommersant.ru, – We conduct large-scale comprehensive surveys of the territory. According to our latest data, 90% of the explored area, which is about 7 thousand sq. km., is quite suitable for safe living and Agriculture. An area of ​​about 300 kilometers is recommended to be used for industrial facilities. And only on lands with an area of ​​about 20 sq. km. Access must be completely restricted. We believe that almost the entire territory of the landfill can be transferred to economic use, except for some areas that will be contaminated for more than 100 thousand years.

The most dangerous areas at the test site are the sites where the tests were carried out. There are ten of them in total. In some, the radiation level is 100 times higher than the natural background, in others - tens and hundreds of thousands of times.

HOW THE NUCLEAR RANGE WAS SETUP

The center is the city of Kurchatov, which for secrecy purposes was called Moscow-400, Bereg, Semipalatinsk-21 and the Terminus station. The city housed laboratories, administrative offices, residential buildings for scientists and military garrison barracks. About 20 thousand people lived here. The distance from Kurchatov to the experimental field is 70 km.

The explosions were carried out at four main sites: Experimental Field, Balapan, Degelen and Sary-Uzen.
Air support was provided from two airfields. These were “Plankton” on the southern outskirts of Kurchatov and “Philon” near the military town of Chagan (today it is called Shagan, it is located 70 km northwest of Semey). About 10 thousand residents lived in Shagan, these were military personnel and their families.

MAIN DANGERS: WATER, EARTH, FIRE

The strongest mark was left by ground and air tests. Now the landfill is fraught with three main dangers: water, dust and fire.

• The groundwater. They wash away radioactive substances from adits in which underground nuclear explosions were carried out. In the waters of the Shagan (Chagan) river, the concentration of tritium is significantly exceeded. Shagan flows into large river Irtysh.
• Radioactive dust. Over 40 years of testing, radioactive clouds from 55 air and ground explosions and a gas fraction from 169 underground tests came out of the test site. They polluted the entire area adjacent to the landfill. Radioactive substances penetrated 3.5 meters deep into the soil. Contaminated dust particles are still carried by the wind.
• Fire.At several points at the site, old combustion processes are still taking place. If the fire meets gases accumulated underground, there will be a strong release. One such explosion occurred in 1992. The explosion was heard and the fire was visible at a distance of 10 kilometers.

1.3 MILLION VICTIMS

In the photo: one of the many victims of nuclear tests - Karipbek Kuyukov. He was born without arms, but became a famous artist and anti-nuclear activist. Today he is an honorary ambassador of the ATOM project. Source: Historical and Local Lore Museum of the Semipalatinsk Region.

The consequences of the explosions at the test site affected three generations of Kazakhstanis. Now life expectancy in the cities and villages around the test site (these are 600 settlements) is on average seven years less, and the level of genetic mutations is 1.5-2 times higher than in other regions of Kazakhstan.

There is still no exact data on how many people were affected by nuclear tests at the test site. Scientists and officials give different figures, from one million to one and a half million people. All residents of the region born before 1991 – that’s 1.3 million people – received a “polygon” certificate.

For example, in the village of Kainar (located 80 kilometers from the epicenter of nuclear explosions), 396 people died of cancer during the years of testing (the population of Kainar in 1946-1963 was 6843 inhabitants). Since 1950, infant mortality here has increased 5 times. Average life expectancy has decreased by 3–4 years.
In 1957, doctors from Almaty (then Alma-Ata, the capital of the Kazakh SSR) conducted the first sample surveys of the population of villages neighboring the test site. Doctors have identified a whole range of symptoms - premature aging, an increase in the number of cancers and suicides. This complex was called “Kaynar syndrome.” The reports of Almaty doctors were not made public at that time. In 1992, an expedition from the Institute of Biophysics of the USSR Ministry of Health confirmed the data from the 1957 survey.

WHAT NOW?

Now Kazakh scientists from the National Nuclear Center are actively exploring the land of the test site.

They have already studied the most contaminated area, 350 sq. km. sites Experimental field. It carried out 30 ground and 86 air nuclear tests. Here NNC employees discovered areas with a high radioactive background. The contaminated soil was removed and placed in a specialized storage facility.

Now scientists will redraw the boundaries of the test site:

– Our task is to bring the boundaries into line with the real situation. If, for example, the northern territories of the SNTS are clean, then the border of the test site should pass bypassing this sector. But lands that are located outside the former landfill, but are contaminated, should be included in the protected and research lands - told in

• Location: Almaty, Kazakhstan

Semipalatinsk test site. Part 1: Chagan and Kurchatov

I don’t remember how long ago I knew that somewhere in the endless steppe of Kazakhstan, under the Soviets, entire cities were built without a single inhabitant, only to destroy them with an atomic bomb. Later I learned that this place is called the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (SNTS), saw it very poignantly, and even discovered that you can get there, as in, as part of an excursion. However, a search on the Internet showed that there is no specific information about tours here, only rare reports from those who have visited, but through a cunning combination of calls to the National Nuclear Center of Kazakhstan and its Institute of Radiation Safety, I learned that three companies are accredited for tours to the Semipalatinsk test site. The most attractive of them turned out to be Togas-Intourservice from Semipalatinsk, where I applied. And since my route from the Russian Altai to the Kazakh Altai ran through Semipalatinsk, I decided to add a visit to the Semipalatinsk test site to my own.

I will talk about the Semipalatinsk test site in two parts. Only in the second will we go where you can’t go without an escort - to the Experimental Field, to the epicenter of the first Soviet nuclear explosion and to the ruins of buildings that survived nuclear explosions. And in the first part I will tell you about the towns of Kurchatov (12 thousand inhabitants) and Chagan on the Irtysh between Semipalatinsk and Pavlodar associated with the test site.

According to the stand in the museum of the landfill, whose phone number is not worth looking up on the Internet, it all started like this. To be fair, the “Beria note”, famous in near-nuclear circles, also had a prehistory - research in the field atomic nucleus were actively carried out in the 1930s both in the West and in the USSR, and the report “On the use of uranium as an explosive and toxic substance” was first presented by Kharkov scientists led by Friedrich Lange back in 1940. Well, after “Beria’s note,” spies worked almost more actively than physicists, so that the USSR had comprehensive information about the structure of the American atomic bomb just two weeks after its first tests. The resolution on the creation of the future Semipalatinsk test site was adopted on August 22, 1947, and already in November Molotov said directly about the “secret of the atomic bomb”: “this secret has long ceased to exist.”

Well, for me it all started with this film, which was shown directly on TV in the wake of Perestroika, when I was walking under the table, and there were demonstrations under the window of my house on Kievskaya. Phrases like “a two-story stone house that stood two kilometers from the epicenter were destroyed to the ground; the rubble was thrown a kilometer away” were imprinted in my memory for the rest of my life. These were tests of the first Soviet “fully functional” hydrogen bomb RDS-37, the most powerful (1.5 megatons) in the history of the Semipalatinsk test site.

This was not my first time in Semipalatinsk, and back in 2011 I talked about this ancient city in three parts ( . || . || .). My train arrived at 10:40 am from Barnaul, and at the station I was met by a representative of the travel agency, Anastasia, and a Kazakh driver, whom we simply called Uncle Yura. Tours to the Semipalatinsk test site are still infrequent, and the few clients so far are overwhelmingly foreigners from foreign countries. Usually groups leave Semipalatinsk at 9 am, and we, taking into account the late arrival of the train and a couple of stops in the city (I needed to at least change currency), left at half past eleven, and nevertheless, looking ahead, I will say that we managed to do everything , although in some places we had to hurry. From Semipalatinsk to Kurchatov it’s about a 2-hour journey along a secondary road, which was pretty broken, and in one place also washed out by the summer flood, so that the bridge being repaired had to be driven around along the bottom of the sai:

Monotonous white villages flashed by, built in the twentieth century for Kazakhs who had switched to a settled life; abundant herds; distant dusty mountains. On the right, every now and then the dark Irtysh appeared in the stunted floodplains, in this part it did not at all resemble the great Siberian river; on the left, a train, and sometimes even stations, periodically appeared right out of the steppe grass. Built in the 1940s to a station simply named Konechnaya, it was a dead-end line to serve the landfill, but in 2001 it was extended 184 kilometers to Aksu station, connecting Semipalatinsk and Pavlodar directly.
On the right, 70 kilometers from Semipalatinsk, a ghost town so characteristic of Kazakhstan loomed in the steppe:

This is Chagan, a Soviet military town, unofficially named after the river, but in documents it appeared as Semipalatinsk-4 or simply Polovinki. It was built in 1954-62 as a base for the 79th Heavy Bomber Division, perhaps with an eye to the fact that the aircraft based here would participate in nuclear tests, at the same time practicing dropping atomic bombs on targets. But in 1963, the USSR signed an agreement banning nuclear tests in air, water and space, at the test site a mining machine became more important than an airplane, but the airbase remained, and situations like “yesterday my dad North Pole flew" among Chagan children, now adults and writing memories on the Internet (sometimes, alas, quite dubious), were the order of the day here. At the same time, the airfield, known under the code names "Philon" or "Dolon", was used to supply the training ground and its towns - both materials and equipment for testing, and consumer goods: the “Moscow supply” was almost the most prosperous corner of the entire Kazakh SSR. But the connection with the test site was also the opposite - from time to time Polovinki was covered with a radioactive cloud, and if in 1960- x the locals openly ignored the warnings and calmly harvested vegetables and melons, which were ordered to be destroyed as dirty, then (according to unverified data from memories) in 1989, almost with the protest of local officers, the “Nevada-Semipalatinsk” movement, which grew to transoceanic proportions, began, which achieved the closure of the Semipalatinsk training ground by the early 1990s. Then came the turn of Chagan himself - the air base was closed in 1997, the village was resettled, and only the latest TU-95MS were secretly replaced with old TU-95Ks during the division of the army. Far East- taking off towards each other during the exercise, at the meeting point they changed call signs. The operation was a success - they did not notice the substitution, or rather they turned a blind eye to it, and soon the planes from Chagan were put under the knife. A memorial sign at the entrance to the village has stood since 2004, and in the distance you can distinguish houses among the greenery - in local Shanghai, that is, a private sector area, there are still a dozen and a half families who refused to leave somewhere.

Behind their houses and the operating substation is this Ak-Zhol (“white road”):

Behind these bushes every now and then piles of bricks and rubble appear - it’s easy to think that an atomic bomb was exploded somewhere here at one time. The same street under the Soviets - the population of Chagan reached 12 thousand people:

But from then on, even the good Stalinist House of Officers was not spared:

And only in the middle, along the once perpendicular Oktyabrskaya Street, there is still a block of empty five-story buildings, captured in the title frame of the post:

And although according to statistics, Kazakhs here make up 54% of the population, Russians in Kurchatov still make up 40%, and 1.5% of the population, that is, a couple of hundred people, makes up such a seemingly disappeared minority as the Germans. And I would say that externally Kurchatov is a more Kazakh city, but internally it is more European.

In terms of its architecture and structure, Kurchatov, the city of the nuclear test site, is more similar to towns at test sites like (Sary-Shagan) than to nuclear closed administrative towns like the already mentioned Chkalovsk. But the officers’ house was not saved - during the period of devastation, the building burned down and was demolished:

22a. photo from Wikimapia

The main street in Kurchatov is Abai Street, parallel to the Irtysh, in the past apparently Lenin, on which most of the previous shots of the city were filmed. At its corner with the main road is the same abandoned Irtysh. A little further away is the Stalin quarter:

Department store in a state that is incomprehensible to the eye:

And something called "October", now listed on Wikimapia by the market:

The main road itself, connecting the test site, Degelen station, the National Nuclear Center and the main square here is called Kurchatov Street, and the monument to Igor Vasilyevich closes its perspective:

The houses along the road are clearly older, not from the lush 1950s, but timidly getting used to the peaceful life of the 1940s:

The Semipalatinsk test site was founded in 1947, and was initially designated in documents as the mountain-seismic station "Degelen" (along the steppe mountains on that side), and then as Training Site No. 2 or Military Unit No. 52605. During the construction period, its leader was Lieutenant General Pyotr Rozhanovich, but he died in 1948 and was replaced by Major General Sergei Kolesnikov, while the scientific director remained seismologist Mikhail Sadovsky, later the creator of the program for detecting nuclear explosions by ground vibrations. The place for the test site suggested itself: sparsely populated, devoid of obstacles such as forests or mountain ranges, the Kazakh steppe, far from the borders, was ideal for constructing such facilities, and only in Semipalatinsk itself did the Chinese consulate have to be closed... and several thousand people evicted from their native lands. The test site was ready for use in 1949, and in parallel with it, the city was being built, or more precisely, this ensemble of its main square. Behind the monument to Academician Kurchatov is the former holy of holies, the Polygon Headquarters, and now the prosaic akimat (mayor's office):

On the right (if you stand facing the akimat) is one of the offices of the National Nuclear Center of Kazakhstan, and initially - “Kurchatov’s house”, that is, a complex of laboratories (with living quarters) that worked under the direct supervision of Igor Vasilyevich.

Opposite is the House of Culture, I don’t know exactly when it was built, but I really want to present a grandiose banquet in it with the participation of the colors of the Soviet nuclear physics and personally Lavrentiy Beria on the occasion of the fact that now “Russ have A-Bomb”.

But still, it’s more likely that the building was built about ten years later:

But this is the view from this square on November 22, 1955, when the RDS-37 hydrogen bomb was exploded at the test site. Its explosion, 70 kilometers from the city, the most powerful in the history of the test site, was about 100 times more powerful than in Hiroshima:

Here is the video from which these screenshots are cut, with the unique humor of that bad era: “We got up early, friends! We’ll have to lie down on the ground again!” - a nuclear explosion generates two shock waves, direct and reflected from the ground. In fact, during tests at the test site, glass in houses was sometimes knocked out even in Semipalatinsk, 200 kilometers from the epicenter, and in Kurchatov, people unmistakably learned about the upcoming tests from glass jars in grocery stores, out of harm’s way placed on the floor. 18.5 thousand square kilometers turned out to be too small a space for a hydrogen bomb, but by that time the second nuclear test site on Novaya Zemlya had been operating for a year, initially organized for testing nuclear torpedoes, and which also served as more powerful “land” ammunition.

At the same time, one should not think that only “damned commies” did such things: the USSR conducted 936 nuclear tests, and the USA - 1054, moreover, starting earlier (1945 versus 1949) and finishing later (the last Soviet test was in 1989, the last American one was in 1992, that is, after the collapse of the enemy). The infamous exercises at the Totsky training ground () were only a response to the American series of similar exercises, the Desert Rock series, and cunning businessmen from Las Vegas sold tickets to observation decks its skyscrapers, admire the nuclear mushroom over the Nevada desert. Then came mir-druzhba-zhvachka, and I regret that I forgot to go beyond the square of the House of Culture, where there is another iconic monument of a completely different era - the American Hotel, opened in 1989, so nicknamed because of the overseas delegations that regularly visited the city. It should be noted that in the first years of independence and the accompanying confusion, it was difficult for the authorities to ensure control over the vast territory of the training ground; looting flourished there (which the Kurchatov special police fought to the best of their ability), and in 1996-2012 the United States (and since 2002 Russia) launched the test site has an entire secret program to collect plutonium and other potentially dangerous materials and objects to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists.

But, alas, the American Hotel completely slipped my mind, and from the square I almost mechanically walked towards the Irtysh, to the high and still neglected embankment:

Its architecture clearly shows how unusual the town Bereg was:

Beyond the bend is the village of Grachi, whose residents clearly knew more than the official ones. It was no coincidence that the same Chagan pilots were teased by colleagues from other units as “deaf and dumb.”

The remains of some kind of monument, or maybe just a sculpture on the embankment. A monumental school building rises above the floodplains:

Having made a circle, I went to Victory Square:

With a tall military obelisk, I don’t know exactly what year it was erected. The new defenders of the fatherland, the smiths of the “nuclear shield”, worked here...

Another monument. On the flag on the right are the contours of the polygon. “Victims of nuclear tests” in Kazakhstan are a very large group of beneficiaries, and how many people the test site killed - as in the case with, is impossible to calculate. No one here got to the point of acute radiation sickness, and the doses of radiation received mainly from emergency situations at the test site and their own irresponsibility in everyday life only undermined their health in a thin trickle - it’s just that people here aged earlier, got sick more seriously, and “burned out at work” more often.

Behind the monument, in the park between Victory Square and Kurchatov Square, lies a small Kazan Church:

It was rebuilt in 1992-93 from the “Beria House” - the mansion in which Lavrenty Palych stayed during the first Soviet nuclear tests on August 29, 1949. Viewed from here, Beria is by no means an ominous executioner, but the creator of a nuclear shield, which to this day remains Russia's main geopolitical asset.

There is a young and very friendly priest in the church, but, according to him, there are few parishioners. On the ground floor there is a refectory, a utility room, a church shop, on the second floor there is the temple itself:

There is also a mosque in Kurchatov, between the Irtysh restaurant and the department store, opposite the library, and was rebuilt from a pharmacy:

But the walk around the city was my own initiative, although if I have free time, Togas-Intourservice will show the city. At some point, Aisulu, a guide from the Semipalatinsk Test Site Museum, called us, and Uncle Yura took us back to the National Nuclear Center of Kazakhstan. Now they are trying to make a kind of “Kazakhstani” out of Kurchatov with a complex of nuclear institutes founded back in 1992, simultaneously with the closure of the test site, and now everything is serious here - since 2010 they even have their own small tokamak (an experimental prototype of a thermonuclear reactor, that is, a small man-made star ), created for materials science problems. It is in a low building on the right behind the bushes, and on the left is a complex of radiation technologies (2009) - radiation exposure can be used for, for example, cross-linking polymers or sterilizing medical devices:

The NNC includes the Institute of Nuclear Research (founded in 1957 in Alma-Ata), the Institute of Atomic Energy, the Institute of Radiation Safety, the Research and Production Center for Explosive Works and the Baikal design enterprise. And this is the business center at the National Nuclear Center - Kazakhstan is trying to keep up with the scientific and technological revolution and stimulate the introduction of scientific developments into business. Unfortunately, I don’t know how effectively all this works.

And opposite them, in the former town of that same military unit No. 52605, there is a tall building of the Institute of Nuclear Research and a blue Stalin-era building of the Institute of Radiation Safety. We are interested in the latter - visits to the nuclear test site by outsiders are under his jurisdiction:

In the frame above you can see the checkpoint - it’s not easy to get inside, and the burly guards at the entrance studied our passports, checking them against the list, for several minutes. But here we are on the territory, the actual program of the tour to the Semipalatinsk test site from Togas-Intourservice begins - first an hour at the museum, then a 3-4-hour trip to the Experimental Field. Just then the wind rose, ripping my hat off and throwing it about twenty meters away - it was going to be a fun trip...

The backyard of the IRB, from which the excursion “loaf” with a driver, guide and dosimetrist departs. The blue building of the IRB is the former command of the military units of the training ground, followed by laboratory and administrative buildings.

The museum is on the second floor. I remember how I scoured half the Internet, trying to find his contacts, but I never found it. Because the museum is purely departmental, and without the mediation of a travel agency or akimat (if you are a respectable guest) you cannot get into it. At the entrance there is Igor Kurchatov’s office with authentic furnishings:

Here is a photograph of another laboratory building where Kurchatov worked when he came to Semipalatinsk-21, which was later named after him. It is located in the depths of the town of IRB, and tourists are not taken to it.

But I will leave most of the exhibits of this museum for the next part, adding them to the Experimental Field - the place where they were directly used. For now, I will show only a couple of objects, just to make it clear what kind of POWER we are going to:

This piece of pumice is nothing more than granite fused by an underground nuclear explosion, and this metal bow is a pipe crushed by the explosion:

Not long ago, Kazakhstan celebrated the 20th anniversary of the closure of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. Two decades.
It seems like a very short period of time, but during this time a whole generation has grown up who knows about barbaric weapons and their
trials only according to the stories of their parents. And even more so, it is difficult for this younger generation to understand why a huge part of
the territory of their home country is effectively lost forever. Meanwhile, for 20 years now the landfill has been living its own life.
And as it turns out, stopping testing of nuclear and hydrogen explosive devices does not mean at all
that destructive processes in environment stopped. The phenomenon of Kazakh nuclear science in a special photo report by Grigory Bedenko

The main attraction of the former test site is the “atomic” lake, which is located at the Balapan test site.
It was formed as a result of the explosion of a thermonuclear warhead with a yield of 140 kilotons in 1965.
The diameter of the lake is 500 meters, the depth from the surface of the water to the bottom is 80 meters.
In a similar way, Soviet strategists planned to build reservoirs in the arid regions of the Soviet Union


Experts from IRBE (Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology of the National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan) say that the charge was “clean”,
and therefore the scatter of radioactive isotopes at the site is minimal. It is curious that the water in the “atomic” lake is clean, and there is even fish there.
However, the edges of the reservoir “radiate” so much that their level of radiation is actually equivalent to radioactive waste.
At this point the dosimeter shows 1 microsievert per hour, which is 114 times more than normal


An interesting fact about the “atomic” lake: the detonation of a thermonuclear device with a capacity of 140 kilotons
equivalent to the simultaneous detonation of 2 thousand cars with TNT


During the explosion, soil was thrown out of the crater, and some pieces of neophyte clay flew up to a kilometer,
and then fell at approximately the same distance from the explosion site. They "sound" very loudly


This glassy mass, according to experts, was in close proximity to the thermonuclear charge.
Enormous pressure and temperature turned granite into a kind of volcanic pumice


Sergey Borisovich Subbotin. At the test site they call him the owner of the “atomic” lake. He is the head of the laboratory
geographic information technologies, and constantly monitors the object. By the way, Sergei Borisovich at one time provided
geological support for underground testing. He is one of those specialists who directly created the Soviet nuclear shield.
Well, one more thing, this handsome man is very similar to Vladimir Vysotsky, even the timbre of his voice is the same


Chagan River.
“Very high concentrations of tritium (a radioactive isotope of hydrogen) were discovered there,” says Subbotin.
- They reach about 700 kilobeccrels per liter. That is, this is almost 100 times higher than the standard values ​​for drinking water.
Pollution continues somewhere within 10 kilometers from the borders of the landfill. And part of the territory that is contaminated with tritium,
they still plan to include it in the landfill


What’s most amazing is that people live next to the lake, about two kilometers away. They raise livestock and drink water from a contaminated river.
Local authorities turn a blind eye to this. This woman categorically refused to talk to journalists


And this is the farm itself. Apparently there isn't even electricity there.


Atomic horses


In general, what is most striking at the training ground is the stormy economic activity. Moreover, in the dirtiest places.
It is very difficult to imagine something like this anywhere in Nevada, or in the Lop Nor area


However, horses are smart. When they eat grass, they tear off only the top part of it, without grabbing the soil with radionuclides.
Therefore, kumiss, as they say in IRBE, is clean at the landfill


“Tablet” with IRBE scientists rises to the shore of the “atomic” lake.
Before the explosion there was a completely flat steppe


Land subsidence and as a result of an underground nuclear explosion. The so-called “combat well”


Such objects need to be observed constantly. As a result of neutron activation of coal seams underground,
some strange processes. Subbotin said that they had a case when a well exploded
15 years after testing. A column of fire burst out from under the ground, and the ground in this place sank within a radius of 100 meters.


A fox skull found near a well turned out to be clean.


The owner of the fighting well is a wild dog. I sat and watched the shooting with great curiosity.
But when I tried to get closer to him, he began to growl, and then ran away a few meters


The former center of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site - the city of Kurchatov, resembles the year 2011
decorations for computer game, like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. "Call of Pripyat"


Here are the most beautiful ruins I've ever seen


Still half of this amazing settlement looks like a ghost town


The ruins are surprisingly alive...






Our scientists inherited unique nuclear reactors from the military.
This is the building of the “research graphite reactor” (IGR).
It was designed by Igor Kurchatov himself to identify critical loads for such installations


Today, experiments are being carried out at the reactor, the purpose of which is to simulate the behavior of various
materials in case of a severe accident at a nuclear power plant, such as Chernobyl or Fukusism


The experiments are carried out on behalf of the Japanese Atomic Energy Agency


Head and chief engineer Valery Aleksandrovich Gaidaichuk


Experts are preparing a probe with materials that will be subjected to a powerful neutron flash inside the reactor.
What will happen to these materials is the subject of research


And this is what the underground structure looks like from the outside, which houses another reactor - IVG-1 M
(research high temperature gas reactor)


In a special underground bunker, a corridor almost a kilometer long leads to it.


The reactor is a prototype nuclear rocket engine. It heats hydrogen to extremely high temperatures,
and jet thrust is created. During Khrushchev’s time they wanted to fly to Mars with such an engine


Fuel for a nuclear rocket engine has already been created, says the head of the reactor
complex “Baikal-1” Alexander Nikolaevich Kolbaenkov. - It met the parameters that were laid down according to the technical specifications
– this is temperature, pressure, resource and specific impulse of 925 seconds. This was all received. And, in principle,
if this work had not been stopped, we would probably have ended up testing a production engine,
which could be put into orbit and launched there


Kolbaenkov has been working here for almost 40 years.


Spent nuclear fuel storage facility (SNFS) at the Baikal-1 facility.
Here is the fuel from the shutdown Aktau reactor BN-350, which operated at MAEK.
The fuel is uranium-235 and plutonium-239..


Another “attraction” of the landfill. This is where the first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated in 1949.


This ominous structure is called the “goose”. Using such reinforced concrete structures, the shock wave of a nuclear explosion was measured


Radiation measurement. In this place the temperature and pressure were so enormous that the concrete “flowed”, absorbing radionuclides


The first Soviet atomic bombs were “dirty”, so everything on the “experimental field” was contaminated with plutonium.
You can only walk in a respirator


These buildings housed measuring equipment


IRBE specialists live in these modules on the “experimental field”. Why is living here dangerous? The point is that this object is the beginning
Soviet military nuclear program. There are many different sites at the training ground, but it all started with the “experimental field”.
The first Soviet nuclear and hydrogen explosive devices were very dirty. Only 30-40% of the charge mass worked in them.
The rest of the charge, which was mainly plutonium, an extremely dangerous isotope for all living things, was sprayed into the environment.
Thus, the “experimental field” is almost completely infected with it. An area of ​​300 square kilometers is considered lost -
The half-life of plutonium-239 is about 20 thousand years. Humans can inhale plutonium nanoparticles along with dust,
if he walks through infected “spots” or if the wind picks up. It is impossible to remove plutonium from the body -
even if one particle gets inside, it will simply burn all the tissue around it. Therefore, IRBE specialists,
who live in the “experimental field” are at great risk to their health. This is a kind of feat in the name of science. Without exaggeration


There is an experimental livestock farm here


A brave man, Symbat Baygaziev, a specialist at the institute, looks after the animals


Symbat and his ward - mare Anka


The experiment is as follows: some animals are fed contaminated food, others are given contaminated water.
Still others graze in contaminated areas. The purpose of the experiment is to determine what radiation dose the local population receives,
eating “dirty” foods


Symbat and the calf Buyan. 200 meters from this place is a plutonium crater from a hydrogen bomb


The brainchild of Kazakhstan's independence is TOKAMAK - a prototype of the thermonuclear reactor of the future.
Designed to study the properties of materials


Gennady Shapovalov is a researcher at the Institute of Atomic Energy and chief at TOKAMAK.

In general, a fairly wide range of research is planned on this TOKAMAK. This is a new installation
which has its own specific physical parameters, which are not available in similar installations in the world


Molten concrete on the "experimental field".


Today we can safely say that the development of sciences related to atomic energy in our country is in the Eurasian space
a completely unprecedented and even paradoxical fact. Everything should have happened exactly the opposite: when test site
near Semipalatinsk the last military man left, the city of Kurchatov had to share the fate of numerous post-Soviet
ghost towns. And what would seem simpler is to wrap the contaminated areas with barbed wire and forget about them forever.
But the reality is actually much more complicated - the consequences of the tests nuclear weapons were, are and will remain a part of our lives

MOSCOW-400, SEMIPALATINSK-21, KURCHATOV

The once closed city of Kurchatov is now popular among foreigners. Many people want to see how powerful the Soviet Union was at one time. According to city residents, various foreign delegations from Japan, America, and France often visit them.

Following the traces of a bygone era, they have one route: Kurchatov – Experimental Field – “Atomic” Lake. The journalists of our radio Azattyk were no exception.

If you dive a little into history and listen to the people who live in Kurchatov to this day, you can find out how beautiful and prosperous the city was back in 1949. They raised it from scratch literally in two years; construction took place taking into account the fact that officers with their families and scientists who would conduct experiments would live here.

The supply at that time was Moscow, and the city, according to residents, had everything: oranges, peaches, sour cream, sausage. Relatives who came to visit their loved ones believed that they lived in paradise. In Moscow, people stood in line for hours with coupons in their hands for groceries, and in Kurchatov the shelves were bursting with abundance.

At first, the city was called “Moscow-400”, because of which there was constant confusion: relatives went to Moscow and looked for their relatives there, not realizing that they were three thousand kilometers from Moscow. In 1960, the city was renamed Semipalatinsk-21. And later - to Kurchatov, in honor of the famous head of the Soviet nuclear program Igor Kurchatov, who lived and worked there.

During the collapse of the Soviet Union, the city continued to be a closed facility: in order to enter it, it was necessary to order a pass a month in advance. The time was difficult, many left Kurchatov, leaving houses and apartments, because there was no work.

Sergei Lukashenko, director of the Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology, in an interview with our radio Azattyk, says that Kurchatov is destined to be a center for the development of the nuclear industry for peaceful purposes.

Just as it was a city of nuclear scientists, it should remain a city of nuclear scientists, only from military purposes we must move into a peaceful direction. The state must maintain its level of nuclear competence. There is currently a renaissance of nuclear energy happening all over the world.

In Kurchatov there is a National Nuclear Center, a museum dedicated to the Semipalatinsk test site, which contains a model of the Experimental Field, records of Kurchatov, Stalin and Beria.

IN THE ARMS RACE

On August 29, 1949, the first nuclear explosion occurred on the soil of Kazakhstan. And although 60 years have passed since the first explosion, and 20 since the last one, scientists are still observing increased levels of radiation on the territory of the former Soviet test site. It is still not recommended to stay in some areas.

Dzhanbulat Gilmanov, one of the veterans of the USSR nuclear industry, who still works at the National Nuclear Center, told our radio Azattyk some little-known details of the first atomic tests. According to him, at that time scientists did not

It was assumed what impact such explosions would have on people's health.

113 atomic explosions at the Experimental Field, including 30 on the ground. Bridges were specially built, tanks, planes, and bunkers with animals were installed to determine how explosions could affect a particular object. After the explosion, tanks drove into the territory of the Experimental Field, the military and scientists collected the soil and what was left for analysis in the laboratory, where the effect of radiation on the animal and organic world was studied. All radioactive dust went with the wind to the territory of Eastern Kazakhstan,” says Dzhanbulat Gilmanov.

Emil Enner, a resident of the village of Sarzhal, told our radio Azattyk:

At that time I was working in radio communications, and my duty was to notify the village residents that there was going to be an explosion and how to behave in this situation. But not all were disciplined citizens: some observed the glow right on the street.

Residents of the village of Sarzhal recall that the military came to the villages, checked the condition of the residents, and measured the radiation level with a dosimeter. Where the power of the explosion shattered glass, it was restored in the shortest possible time. When explosions took place twenty kilometers from nearby villages in the 1960s, the population was evacuated. But a few days later they were allowed to return to their homes again.

Emil Enner, a resident of the village of Sarzhal, recalls: “After another explosion, two lakes were formed, which were later called “atomic”. When returning to the village, we found animals with black, singed fur. It was a pity to look at them. They didn't live long."

"ATOMIC" LAKE

At the confluence of the two main rivers of the region - Shagan and Aschisu - on January 15, 1965, an underground explosion occurred, as a result of which the famous “Atomic” lake was formed.

One of the booklets of the Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology gives a brief description of this object: “An explosion with a power of 140 kilotons was produced, as a result of which a crater was formed with a depth of more than 100 meters and a diameter of 400 meters. In the area of ​​the “Atomic” lake, radionuclide contamination of soils is observed at a distance of up to 3-4 kilometers in the northern direction.”

Raisa Kurmangagieva, a resident of Semey, tells our radio Azattyk:

I remember they brought us fish from this lake. It was so big and delicious, people snapped it up in a matter of seconds. At that time she was very popular among the population. We had to wait in long lines to buy fish from the “Atomic” lake. We didn’t even think about any radiation at that time. I’m already 80 years old and I’m still alive.

NO PICNIC

On August 29, 1991, a decision was made to close the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. Equipment was destroyed, adits were buried, equipment was removed, and some areas were cleared of radiation.

Adit on the experimental field. The territory of the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. August 22, 2009.

Many people are still interested in the question: is there a threat of contamination by radionuclides after the closure of the landfill. Sergei Lukashenko, director of the Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology, answers this question:

The landfill does not have any impact on the population of the Republic of Kazakhstan. You can come, walk around, look and nothing will happen to you. The second point that I would like to note is that there is no dangerous or safe radiation. There is a dangerous or safe scenario for your behavior in relation to this object.

Many people work with radioactivity in industry, in medicine you can get radiation, and so on. Indeed, today there are places that are polluted and heavily polluted, but there is no need to go to them. They are known, they have been counted. The Nuclear Center, together with international organizations, has been working for 20 years. IN

Entrance to the bunker on the territory of the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. East Kazakhstan region. August 22, 2009.

At the moment we have a very good handle on the situation.

There are signs there, some objects are fenced off. That is, there are places where you should not stay for a long time. He came, he looked, he left. It is not recommended to have a picnic or camp. Although the dose that is there today... I can say with one hundred percent certainty that you will not get radiation sickness.

"CRYSTAL BOY"

Having visited the villages near which nuclear tests were carried out, we learned from the residents that even after the end of the explosions, children with physical disabilities continued to be born. Residents talk about many suicides and that terrible diseases are claiming the lives of people even now in their prime.

In the city of Semey, the former center of the former Semipalatinsk region, lives a seven-year-old “crystal boy” Ualikhan Serikkaliev. His bones are so fragile and brittle that he breaks very often. In medicine this is called "osteogenesis". It is almost impossible to cure Ualikhan; you can only alleviate his suffering and simply believe in a miracle.

And the parents believe, they even went to a fortune teller, who said that their son would certainly walk. The child's father Sarzhankali and mother Zhanna do everything possible for their son. At one time they sold their house in order to buy expensive medicines and start treatment in

Astana Research Institute.

But the money ran out quickly, and Serzhankali became very ill, and now he cannot work. He is forced to sit at home, having a second group disability. Serzhankali has high blood pressure and constant heart attacks, he believes that this is a consequence of nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk test site.

After all, Serzhankali once lived in the Abay region, at the epicenter of the explosions, and served for three years on a ship transporting atomic weapons. However, doctors and competent authorities do not take this into account. In their opinion, the boy Ualikhan is not among the victims of nuclear tests.

Until recently, Ualikhan’s illness was not included in the list of diseases due to nuclear tests; the boy’s pension was 14,600 tenge (about 97 dollars). The fact is that the child was born ten years after the closure of the landfill, which means his illness was in no way caused by the landfill, the commission explained. Now his case has been reviewed and a little has been added, now he will receive a little more than 20,000 tenge (about 133 dollars).

Serzhankali Serikkaliev, in an interview with our radio Azzatyk, spoke about the torment of his son.

Recently, we began to receive more money for Ualikhan, but his pension and mine mainly go towards renting an apartment. Now we don’t have our own housing, we are forced to live in an apartment, for which we pay more than 25,000 tenge monthly. My wife can’t go to work; she needs to look after her son. His bones are fragile, and any wrong action could cause another fracture. And this again means hospitals and severe pain for Ualikhan. We bathe him in a special net and watch his every movement. It’s very difficult to look at the torment of your child when, moreover, you can’t help him in any way,” says Serzhankali Serikkaliev.

There is no special stroller for Ualikhan in which he would be truly comfortable both to sit and lie down. They promised to allocate one to their family, but that’s where the matter stopped. They promised to give them an apartment; they have been waiting in line for four years now, but it is going slowly, and they will have to wait a long time for housewarming, Ualikhan’s parents say.

I'm tired of going to akimats, social services, and deputies. They don’t want to help us, they don’t want to delve into our problem. A boy near Ust-Kamenogorsk, Askar, with a similar disease has already completed half of the course of treatment in Moscow, sponsors were found, they paid for the treatment, and he is already starting to walk. “I also believe that there will be people who will help my Ualikhan,” says his father.

Ualikhan is a very cheerful and smart child. He understands computers better than any of his peers, loves to play racing games and read books. No matter what, he jokes and inspires confidence in his parents.

One day I’m lying with blood pressure, Ualihan is calling. I answer that I can’t come to him, I’m sick. And he answered me: “Don’t pretend, let’s go play!” I got up, went to him, we started doing something together, he started joking. And I was distracted and forgot about the pain. Now he gives me strength to live,” says Serzhankali Serikkaliev.

ANT-MAN

Nikita Bochkarev is now 18 years old. His illness is very serious: it does not allow Nikita to walk, move or speak. He spends every day at home near the computer, writing poems and stories. His idols are Soviet singers Viktor Tsoi and Igor Talkov.

Like Ualikhan’s illness, Nikita’s illness is associated with genetics. Nikita's mother never thought that her son would be able to go to school and start writing poetry.

Seeing his persistence, how he stretched to speak, his father and mother came up with a device for him in the form of a helmet with a metal

Nikita Bochkarev types on a keyboard using a metal tendril built into his helmet. Semey, August 23, 2009.

A mustache with which Nikita types on the keyboard, thereby expressing her thoughts. That's why they called him Ant-Man.

Sibylla Bochkareva, Nikita’s mother, told our radio Azattyk that she does not believe the doctors.

We went to school at the age of ten; we didn’t know that he could get an education. Now Nikita amazes everyone around him, he is very inquisitive, he is interested in everything. Doctors call his illness cerebral palsy, which developed as a result of a birth injury. But I don't agree with this. The doctors are hiding something here. My husband and I are both healthy people, we have never been in hospitals,” says Sibilla Bochkareva.

Since March, thanks to one woman from Almaty, who wished to remain anonymous, Nikita has the Internet, now he can communicate on the Internet, which he does. According to his mother, he has friends with whom he corresponds and sends his poems.

They wrote a lot about Nikita, filmed stories, but no one from Semey responded to help the Bochkarevs. Only after the article was published in the Vremya newspaper, two Almaty residents were found: one sends Nikita money every month, and the second pays for the Internet.

Meanwhile, Nikita can be helped: there is a clinic in St. Petersburg that helps such children, but treatment is expensive, and the family does not have that kind of money. The father is forced to work for 6 thousand tenge (about 40 dollars) not far from home, because Nikita needs constant care.

He carries it around the house in his arms, but his mother cannot do it. She stays next to him and two other children all day. Sibylla Bochkareva shared the joy of motherhood that she experienced after many years.

For a very long time I was afraid to have more children and only 14 years later I decided to have a second one. After all, I did not see how a normal child grows, and when a healthy boy was born, my happiness knew no bounds. The third child, also a boy, was a surprise to me. I was afraid that Nikita would ask questions about why they were normal and he wasn’t. But no, Nikita gets along with his brothers, they talk and understand each other, says Sibylla.

Now Nikita’s chair, in which he spends every day, has worn out. Parents dream that he will have a good and comfortable device in which he will feel good. The old one is so dilapidated that it hurts Nikita to sit. To purchase a new one, you need approximately 40 thousand tenge (about 260 dollars).

BE KINDER

And in conclusion, I would like to convey an appeal from the parents of Ualikhan Serikkaliev and Nikita Bochkarev:

“Dear patrons of the arts and simply kind people! If you have the opportunity to help these boys, do it. These are two bright and sweet children who have practically resigned themselves to their fate, they just need attention and minimal amenities, which, unfortunately, the state for some reason cannot give them, and their parents are not able to.”

Financial assistance can be sent to the parents of these children using the following details:

Serikkaliev Ualihan - People's Bank of Kazakhstan, current account 2699201043325950. International details for transferring money from outside Kazakhstan - Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan SWIFT code HSBKKZKX account 2699201043325950.

Nikita Bochkarev - People's Bank of Kazakhstan current account 6762003003467403. International details for transferring money from outside Kazakhstan - Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan SWIFT code HSBKKZKX account 6762003003467403.

Perhaps someone has a similar situation with a child and you have found a way out. Please inform the editorial office of Radio Azattyk.