202 Susanne Bauer
archives, personnel as well as economic infrastructures to run and supply laboratories. Most archives of the science city of Kurchatov and especially those
related to nuclear testing were transferred to the Russian Federation and
some had been earmarked to be destroyed. As the relevant archives dealing
with nuclear testing were ultimately turned over to military archives in the
Russian Federation, researchers in Kazakhstan had to work with what the
officials left behind before they moved back to Moscow. Legacies of Soviet
nuclear infrastructure also comprised several sites of uranium mining, which
in the USSR had been conducted in Central Asia for example in Stepnogorsk,
Kazakhstan, by the Leninabad Mining, and Chemical Combine in Tajikistan
as well as in Tyuya-Muyun and Mailuu-Suu in Kyrgyzstan. 27
Central Asia has been described as “nuclear backyard” to Soviet Cold War
sciences, both for its mineral resources and as the site for nuclear weapons
development and testing. The atomic program and nuclear weapons industry
needed human resources, which were recruited unequally across the USSR.
Scientists were in part recruited from the western metropolitan centers of
the Soviet Union – Moscow and St Petersburg – but also locally through the
Medical and Polytechnic Universities, for instance in Southern Urals and
the branches of the Academy of Sciences, for instance in the Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, or Tajikistan. In addition to the Academy
of Sciences as the USSR’s main research institution, there was a system of
closed nuclear research centers under the auspices of SredMash in need of
physicists, engineers, technicians, and physicians. 28 Centralized government
policies prioritized those fields relevant to the Cold War nuclear sciences and
these priorities shaped the institutions and the very organization of scientific
research in the Soviet republics.
Closing the nuclear test site also meant to be left with the nuclear infrastructures at Kurchatov on the “polygon,” 29 which was later reorganized as
Kazakhstan’s “National Nuclear Center” that also held the mandate over
radiation protection in efforts to develop the area through mining and other
economic activities. 30 With the dissolution of the USSR, a new mode of
transnational biomedical risk assessment entered the Semipalatinsk region,
building on, inventorizing Soviet data and reevaluating fallout effects. In
the early 1990s, institutional funding broke down, with employees having
to move into parallel informal sectors as their employers were no longer
able to pay salaries. For scientists in nuclear weapons research, conversion
programs were set up to enable them to transition to the civil sector. 31
While science as a profession could no longer pay for a living, a whole
generation of scientists found themselves interpellated to adopt new styles
of business, such as pitching and selling one’s research and data to funding
agencies rather than delivering and receiving their share from a bureaucratic state which prioritized science. Frameworks of “transitioning,” ad
hoc “projectness” with international collaborators and donors now reorganized scientific practices, replacing the firm scientific infrastructures,
state planning and reporting.
archives, personnel as well as economic infrastructures to run and supply laboratories. Most archives of the science city of Kurchatov and especially those
related to nuclear testing were transferred to the Russian Federation and
some had been earmarked to be destroyed. As the relevant archives dealing
with nuclear testing were ultimately turned over to military archives in the
Russian Federation, researchers in Kazakhstan had to work with what the
officials left behind before they moved back to Moscow. Legacies of Soviet
nuclear infrastructure also comprised several sites of uranium mining, which
in the USSR had been conducted in Central Asia for example in Stepnogorsk,
Kazakhstan, by the Leninabad Mining, and Chemical Combine in Tajikistan
as well as in Tyuya-Muyun and Mailuu-Suu in Kyrgyzstan. 27
Central Asia has been described as “nuclear backyard” to Soviet Cold War
sciences, both for its mineral resources and as the site for nuclear weapons
development and testing. The atomic program and nuclear weapons industry
needed human resources, which were recruited unequally across the USSR.
Scientists were in part recruited from the western metropolitan centers of
the Soviet Union – Moscow and St Petersburg – but also locally through the
Medical and Polytechnic Universities, for instance in Southern Urals and
the branches of the Academy of Sciences, for instance in the Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, or Tajikistan. In addition to the Academy
of Sciences as the USSR’s main research institution, there was a system of
closed nuclear research centers under the auspices of SredMash in need of
physicists, engineers, technicians, and physicians. 28 Centralized government
policies prioritized those fields relevant to the Cold War nuclear sciences and
these priorities shaped the institutions and the very organization of scientific
research in the Soviet republics.
Closing the nuclear test site also meant to be left with the nuclear infrastructures at Kurchatov on the “polygon,” 29 which was later reorganized as
Kazakhstan’s “National Nuclear Center” that also held the mandate over
radiation protection in efforts to develop the area through mining and other
economic activities. 30 With the dissolution of the USSR, a new mode of
transnational biomedical risk assessment entered the Semipalatinsk region,
building on, inventorizing Soviet data and reevaluating fallout effects. In
the early 1990s, institutional funding broke down, with employees having
to move into parallel informal sectors as their employers were no longer
able to pay salaries. For scientists in nuclear weapons research, conversion
programs were set up to enable them to transition to the civil sector. 31
While science as a profession could no longer pay for a living, a whole
generation of scientists found themselves interpellated to adopt new styles
of business, such as pitching and selling one’s research and data to funding
agencies rather than delivering and receiving their share from a bureaucratic state which prioritized science. Frameworks of “transitioning,” ad
hoc “projectness” with international collaborators and donors now reorganized scientific practices, replacing the firm scientific infrastructures,
state planning and reporting.