August 29 marks 30 years since Kazakhstan closed its Semipalatinsk test site, a vast, remote area that was used by the Soviet Union for hundreds of atmospheric and underground nuclear tests over a period of 40 years.
Soviet history
RFE/RL: 30 years ago, Kazakhstan closed Soviet-Era nuclear test site
An electronic device shows that the soil near a crater formed by nuclear explosion site P-1 has an exposure rate that exceeds 255 micro X-ray/h, in Semipalatinsk, some 50km from Kurchatov-city and 700 km from Astana, on August 22, 2011. A total of 456 nuclear tests were conducted at the test site over 42 years until Kazakhstan shut down the facility twenty years ago on August 29, 1991, making it the first country to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons. The provincial and otherwise unremarkable town of Semey, known as Semipalatinsk until four years ago, lies 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of the 18,400 square kilometre (7,100 square mile) nuclear testing site where the arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States began.
