Robert Knoth |
Project;
Intro
After the Second World War Lavrenti Beria, Stalin's much feared NKVD chief traveled to the remote Kazakh steppes in an armored train. In the early morning of August 29 1949 his secret 'Task nr. 1' reached its completion. Watched by a number of scientists, a crane was used to assemble parts for the experiment.
Beria and the scientists then took shelter at a command post some 10 kilometers away. At 6.00 AM there was an explosion and a flash of light. In "Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar", Simon Sebag Montefiore describes Beria rushing out with the others to watch a rising mushroom cloud. 'Task nr. 1' had been successfully completed. Beria was so excited he kissed the leading scientist on the forehead: "Did it look like the American one?", he wanted to know. Four years after Hiroshima, the Soviet Union now also had the atomic bomb.
That first nuclear test in Semipalatinsk was followed by hundreds more. Alongside the military programme the civilian nuclear industry developed until it reached all corners of the Soviet Union. Many grave accidents, almost-disasters and countless incidents have not slowed down or halted plans to further expand the industry, even in areas that have already been heavily contaminated: Russia, Kazakhstan, the Ukraine and Belarus.
It is especially the Russian Federation which has far reaching ambitions. Already it provides knowledge, technology and services to a number of nuclear states like China, India and Iran.
It is also aiming to play a key role in processing and storing radioactive materials from all over the world in the 21st century. Countries already involved are: Taiwan, Japan, Hungary, Iran, France, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands and the Czech Republic.
The project has covered four locations in the former Soviet Union where major nuclear accidents or atomic testing have taken place. It shows how millions have to live with the social, environmental and economic consequences and of course with the detrimental effects of these disasters on their health.
Starting in April 2006, at the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl-disaster the project will stress that Chernobyl was by no means exceptional: it was just another example in a series of devastating nuclear accidents that have taken place in the last 45 years in the Former Soviet Union.
The project is very much linked to the current discussion about climate change and the need to secure our energy supply of tomorrow. Nuclear energy is being presented as an alternative to fossil energy sources. Further development of a nuclear industry will prove to be difficult without Russia.
Mayak, South East of the Urals has been the key facility for the production of weapons plutonium. Accidental and deliberate releases of nuclear waste exposed 272.000 people to high levels of radiation. It is regarded as one of the most unsafe and most polluting nuclear plants in the world. It will play an important future role in storage and reprocessing of foreign nuclear material nonetheless.
Semipalatinsk in Eastern Kazakhstan was the main test facility for nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union. Around 500 atmospheric and underground nuclear tests were conducted between 1945 and 1989. UNDP estimates that more than 1.2 millions people have been severely contaminated and declared the region a 'disaster zone' in 1999.
Chernobyl in the Ukraine became the site of the most infamous nuclear disaster accident of all. In 1986 the explosion of the nuclear reactor affected the lives of millions in Western Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine.
Tomsk-7 in Western Siberia faced its last accident in 1993 in a row of more than 30 serious accidents. An explosion destroyed part of a reprocessing facility spewing radio nuclides including plutonium into the atmosphere contaminating 200 square kilometers. Several villages were evacuated. Tomsk-7 keeps on dumping radio-active nuclear waste in the vicinity of populated areas. A second reprocessing facility is considered to deal with the increased imports of nuclear waste. There are already large amounts of nuclear waste processed from European countries.