DOI: 10.4324/9781003246893-3
2 The Nuclear Landscape
as a Garden
An Envirotechnical History of
Shevchenko/Aktau, 1959–2019
Stefan Guth
Nuclear Landscapes as Wastelands or Gardens?
If we think of nuclear landscapes today, we commonly imagine them as
barren wastelands – sites irreparably destroyed by atomic bomb tests, plutonium production mishaps or reactor catastrophes, such as Semipalatinsk,
Kyshtym, or Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, or the Nevada test site,
Richland, and Fukushima in other parts of the world. 1 In the postwar heyday
of high-modern optimism, however, nuclear energy inspired promethean
imaginaries of large-scale nature improvement. Peaceful nuclear explosions
(PNEs) were seen as a means to alter the physical features of landscapes, 2
and novel reactor technologies such as fuel-reproducing fast breeder reactors
(FBRs) were expected to soon deliver virtually unlimited quantities of inexpensive power for energy-intensive purposes such as the large-scale desalination of seawater – an application both the United States and the USSR
deemed highly promising for the development of arid regions within and
beyond their borders. 3 Over the course of the third quarter of the twentieth
century, most of these visions resulted in disillusionment, but their investigation remains instructive none the less, precisely because it allows us to trace
trajectories from optimistic imaginaries of large-scale nature transformation
to more critical appraisals of human intervention in nature. 4
What follows is an account of arguably the most comprehensive project of
atomic-powered nature transformation to have been realized in the Soviet
Union. The “nuclear oasis” of Shevchenko (today Aktau) was built in the
1960s and 1970s as a hub for the development of uranium and hydrocarbon
deposits on the desert peninsula of Mangyshlak in Western Kazakhstan and
by the end of the Soviet era was home to almost 200 000 people. Since
1973, it relied on the world’s first industrial-scale FBR, operating in tandem with the largest nuclear-powered water desalination plant ever built for
energy and freshwater provision. Combining modernist architecture with
lavish greenery, fountains, and swimming pools, it was showcased domestically and abroad to great acclaim. In the long run, however, the radiant future
was found to come at significant ecological cost, even though the city escaped
major nuclear accidents.
2 The Nuclear Landscape
as a Garden
An Envirotechnical History of
Shevchenko/Aktau, 1959–2019
Stefan Guth
Nuclear Landscapes as Wastelands or Gardens?
If we think of nuclear landscapes today, we commonly imagine them as
barren wastelands – sites irreparably destroyed by atomic bomb tests, plutonium production mishaps or reactor catastrophes, such as Semipalatinsk,
Kyshtym, or Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, or the Nevada test site,
Richland, and Fukushima in other parts of the world. 1 In the postwar heyday
of high-modern optimism, however, nuclear energy inspired promethean
imaginaries of large-scale nature improvement. Peaceful nuclear explosions
(PNEs) were seen as a means to alter the physical features of landscapes, 2
and novel reactor technologies such as fuel-reproducing fast breeder reactors
(FBRs) were expected to soon deliver virtually unlimited quantities of inexpensive power for energy-intensive purposes such as the large-scale desalination of seawater – an application both the United States and the USSR
deemed highly promising for the development of arid regions within and
beyond their borders. 3 Over the course of the third quarter of the twentieth
century, most of these visions resulted in disillusionment, but their investigation remains instructive none the less, precisely because it allows us to trace
trajectories from optimistic imaginaries of large-scale nature transformation
to more critical appraisals of human intervention in nature. 4
What follows is an account of arguably the most comprehensive project of
atomic-powered nature transformation to have been realized in the Soviet
Union. The “nuclear oasis” of Shevchenko (today Aktau) was built in the
1960s and 1970s as a hub for the development of uranium and hydrocarbon
deposits on the desert peninsula of Mangyshlak in Western Kazakhstan and
by the end of the Soviet era was home to almost 200 000 people. Since
1973, it relied on the world’s first industrial-scale FBR, operating in tandem with the largest nuclear-powered water desalination plant ever built for
energy and freshwater provision. Combining modernist architecture with
lavish greenery, fountains, and swimming pools, it was showcased domestically and abroad to great acclaim. In the long run, however, the radiant future
was found to come at significant ecological cost, even though the city escaped
major nuclear accidents.