In Kazakhstan, ‘atomic lakes’ still scar the landscape decades after Soviet nuclear tests

The abandoned Chernobyl power plant, located in modern-day Ukraine, is today synonymous with the health risks of radiation following the infamous disaster at the site in 1986. The explosion resulted in a 30-kilometre zone around the plant which, it is estimated, will remain uninhabitable for some 20,000 years. However, as the short documentary Atomic Secrets explores, while Chernobyl’s exclusion zone is the most infamously contaminated region in the former Soviet Union, it may not be the one that poses the most imminent danger.

Excerpted from the feature documentary We Live Here by the Kazakh filmmaker Zhanana Kurmasheva, Atomic Secrets traces the life and work of the Ukrainian scientist Dmitry Kalmykov. Present the day after the Chernobyl explosion to assess contamination, Kalmykov is today investigating radiation levels near Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan – a region used as a secretive nuclear testing site from 1949 to 1989. In this short, Kurmasheva captures both the dramatic spectacle of man-made ‘atomic lakes’ and the more insidious issue of radiation exposure among locals who depend on cattle grazing for sustenance.