The Nuclear Landscape as a Garden 31
geographers to conclude that improving nature consisted in supplying the
sea with additional influx – hence the plan to divert water from the Siberian
rivers into the Caspian Sea. However, beginning in 1978, the level of the
Caspian Sea began to rise quickly. 93 By the mid-1990s, the Caspian Sea was
up 2.5 m from its historic low and was still absorbing a surplus influx of
about 56 km 3 annually. Given the extremely shallow shores of the Northern
part of its basin, this resulted in the flooding of large areas with valuable
infrastructures and facilities. 94 In 1991, a government commission found that
any further rise in sea levels would render Mangyshlak’s regional economy,
including its harbor, railway communications, many oil wells and, above all,
the Atomic Energy Combine, largely nonfunctional, and ordered the immediate construction of protective dams. 95
Even more worrisome was the discovery that Mangyshlak was a seismically active region. On December 16, 1987, a gigantic landslide in the openpit uranium mine of the PGMK alarmed the authorities in Mangyshlak.
In the absence of any other plausible cause, research into the seismic activity of the peninsula was commissioned. The resulting satellite photographs
showed evidence of several ancient earthquakes with epicenters no farther
than 70–100 km from the city of Shevchenko. The study of old mosque
chronicles revealed that one earthquake had taken place in 1310 with an
estimated force of 8–9 on the Richter scale. 96 Further research observed,
“at present, an intensive development of tectonic processes in the basin of
the Caspian Sea und its adjacent territories, which poses a real danger for
large industrial objects, the nuclear power plant, and housing in the city
of Shevchenko and the neighboring settlements.” 97 The force of a possible
earthquake hitting the city was estimated at 6–7 on the Richter scale. This
was alarming news in view of the fact that the construction of the city, its
industries, and, most notably, its reactor had been conducted on the basis
of the official seismic zoning map of the USSR in use at the time, which
assigned Mangyshlak to the seismically inactive regions of the country. As a
result, none of the city’s buildings had any earthquake protection at all. 98 The
perception of risk was further heightened by geohistorical observations leading to the conclusion that earthquakes around the Caspian basin had usually
been preceded by rising sea levels. 99 And there was yet another disconcerting observation – namely, that the human transformation of nature was at
least partially to blame for the imminent danger. Experts assumed that “the
natural geodynamic processes in the region are influenced by technogenic
activities” – above all the extraction of oil, gas, and groundwater from the
peninsula’s depths that had already caused a visible depression with a diameter of 30–40 km, as well as the steadily increasing pressure exerted on the
surface by the growing tailings reservoir Koshkar-Ata, whose surface area
had increased to 70 km 2 . 100 It could also not be ruled out that nuclear test
explosions, conducted on the peninsula at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, had activated seismic processes. 101 Vladimir N. Mosints,
a mining engineer and one of the Soviet Union’s preeminent specialists for
geographers to conclude that improving nature consisted in supplying the
sea with additional influx – hence the plan to divert water from the Siberian
rivers into the Caspian Sea. However, beginning in 1978, the level of the
Caspian Sea began to rise quickly. 93 By the mid-1990s, the Caspian Sea was
up 2.5 m from its historic low and was still absorbing a surplus influx of
about 56 km 3 annually. Given the extremely shallow shores of the Northern
part of its basin, this resulted in the flooding of large areas with valuable
infrastructures and facilities. 94 In 1991, a government commission found that
any further rise in sea levels would render Mangyshlak’s regional economy,
including its harbor, railway communications, many oil wells and, above all,
the Atomic Energy Combine, largely nonfunctional, and ordered the immediate construction of protective dams. 95
Even more worrisome was the discovery that Mangyshlak was a seismically active region. On December 16, 1987, a gigantic landslide in the openpit uranium mine of the PGMK alarmed the authorities in Mangyshlak.
In the absence of any other plausible cause, research into the seismic activity of the peninsula was commissioned. The resulting satellite photographs
showed evidence of several ancient earthquakes with epicenters no farther
than 70–100 km from the city of Shevchenko. The study of old mosque
chronicles revealed that one earthquake had taken place in 1310 with an
estimated force of 8–9 on the Richter scale. 96 Further research observed,
“at present, an intensive development of tectonic processes in the basin of
the Caspian Sea und its adjacent territories, which poses a real danger for
large industrial objects, the nuclear power plant, and housing in the city
of Shevchenko and the neighboring settlements.” 97 The force of a possible
earthquake hitting the city was estimated at 6–7 on the Richter scale. This
was alarming news in view of the fact that the construction of the city, its
industries, and, most notably, its reactor had been conducted on the basis
of the official seismic zoning map of the USSR in use at the time, which
assigned Mangyshlak to the seismically inactive regions of the country. As a
result, none of the city’s buildings had any earthquake protection at all. 98 The
perception of risk was further heightened by geohistorical observations leading to the conclusion that earthquakes around the Caspian basin had usually
been preceded by rising sea levels. 99 And there was yet another disconcerting observation – namely, that the human transformation of nature was at
least partially to blame for the imminent danger. Experts assumed that “the
natural geodynamic processes in the region are influenced by technogenic
activities” – above all the extraction of oil, gas, and groundwater from the
peninsula’s depths that had already caused a visible depression with a diameter of 30–40 km, as well as the steadily increasing pressure exerted on the
surface by the growing tailings reservoir Koshkar-Ata, whose surface area
had increased to 70 km 2 . 100 It could also not be ruled out that nuclear test
explosions, conducted on the peninsula at the end of the 1960s and beginning of the 1970s, had activated seismic processes. 101 Vladimir N. Mosints,
a mining engineer and one of the Soviet Union’s preeminent specialists for