International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear tests conducted by the Soviet Union in Kazakhstan caused great harm to the environment and health of the people of Kazakhstan. The testing facilities there comprised the largest underground nuclear test site in the world, consisting of 186 separate tunnels in natural mountain formations. Between 1949 and 1989, 456 nuclear tests, including 340 underground and 116 atmospheric tests, were conducted at Semipalatinsk Test Site facilities.

The first anti-nuclear non-governmental organisation created in the territory of the former USSR was the Nevada Semipalatinsk Movement. This non-governmental organisation (NGO) was created in 1989 when 5,000 people filled the hall of the Writers' Union in Almaty to hear Kazak poet O. Suleymenov denounce nuclear testing and call for a public meeting the next day. The movement's aim was to protect humanity from the nuclear threat, destroy all nuclear test facilities in Kazakhstan, establish public control of industrial wastes, and draw an ecological map of the region.

The Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement grew out of joint contacts between US and Kazakh activists, and became a significant pressure point on Soviet policy in the late 1980s. In the United States, demonstrations at the Nevada Test Site involved thousands of people at a time, with as many as 2000 people arrested at a time. These demonstrations were little noticed by the media and apparently by the US government. However, the Nevada Test Site demonstrations were definitely noticed in Kazakhstan, where a powerful anti-nuclear movement succeeded in shutting down the principal Soviet test site in Semipalatinsk. That campaign was named the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement, in recognition of the link with demonstrations in the United States.

The Semipalatinsk test range, covering an area of 18,000 sq. km, was officially closed by President Nazarbayev on 29 August 1991.

The 1965 Chagan nuclear test in the Soviet Union was used to create a dam on the Semipalatinsk river