The Nuclear Landscape as a Garden 41
10. Mikhail F. Troianov, Moei sud’boi stal Fiziko-energeticheskii institut, Obninsk 2007,
161–165; GAMO, f. 506.
11. Odd Arne Westad, “The Cold War and the International History of the 20th Century,” in: Odd Arne Westad (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Cold War, 3 vols., vol.
1, Cambridge 2010, 1–19 (17).
12. David Holloway, “The Soviet Union and the Creation of the International Atomic
Energy Agency,” in: Cold War History 16 (2016) 2, 177–194. Holloway stresses that
the Soviet Union had started development of a civilian atomic energy program
prior to Atoms for Peace but shows how the latter intensified these endeavors.
13. See e.g. Sonja D. Schmid, “Celebrating Tomorrow Today. The Peaceful Atom on
Display in the Soviet Union,” in: Social Studies of Science 36 (2006) 3, 331–365.
14. Jasanoff, “Worlds,” 326–327.
15. Dolly Jørgensen/Finn Arne Jørgensen/Sara B. Pritchard (eds.), New Natures: Joining
Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies, Pittsburgh, PA 2013.
16. These were the words of Innokentii P. Gerasimov (1905–1985), an influential
Soviet geographer and pedologist. Cited from Tetsuro Chida, “Science, Development and Modernization in the Brezhnev Time,” in: Cahiers du monde Russe 54
(2013) 1–2, 239–264 (244–245). The new possibilities would have to be deployed
systematically within a framework that Gerasimov referred to as “constructive
geography” in 1961. See ibid., 246–247.
17. Genrikh N. Volkov, Man and the Scientific and Technological Revolution, Moscow
1975, 91.
18. Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Adopted by the 22nd Congress of
the C.P.S.U., Moscow 1961, 59–60; 113–114.
19. Programme of the Communist Party, Moscow 1961, 17.
20. Nikolai A. Dollezhal’, U istokov rukotvornogo mira. Zapiski konstruktora, Moscow 2010.
21. By way of illustration, a well-known poster by V. Govorkov (1951) advertising
the construction of the Turkmen Main Canal (eventually aborted) shows Stalin
bent over a map of Central Asia and crossing out the word “desert” in “Karakum desert”. Reproduced in Julia Obertreis, “Von der Naturbeherrschung
zum Ökozid? Aktuelle Fragen einer Umweltzeitgeschichte Ost- und Ostmitteleuropas,” in: Zeithistorische Forschungen 9 (2012), 115–122 (117). Another propaganda poster juxtaposed illustrations of a Soviet irrigation project and of a city
ravaged by bombing, with a caption explaining: “We transform deserts into flourishing landscapes. They [i.e. the capitalist powers] transform cities and villages into
are-transforming-deserts-into-flowing-area-they-are-transforming-cities-andvillages-into-deserts-.html> [ January 3, 2022].
22. Petr Ia. Antropov, USSR minister of geology, to Nikita S. Khrushchev, August 1961
(Copy), Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [GARF], Moscow, f. R5446,
op. 96, d. 671, l. 20–22. Subsequently, until the end of the Soviet Union, more than
350 Mio. tons of oil and 60 Bio. m 3 of gas were extracted in Mangyshlak. GAMO,
f. 322, op. 1-pr, d. 1124, l. 13.
23. It should be noted, however, that this seemingly inhospitable environment had
supported an indigenous nomadic population of up to 400 000 people for centuries, before the violence and starvation of Stalin’s collectivization and sedentarization campaign all but depopulated the area. Zhaugashty Nabiev, Stepnaia tragediia.
Adaiskoe vosstanie 1929–1930, Almaty 2010; see also Robert Kindler, Stalin’s
Nomads: Power and Famine in Kazakhstan, Pittsburgh 2018.
24. Kojevnikov has pointed out that “[t]he Bolsheviks were particularly enamoured with
the fields that combined revolutionary utopia with utilitarianism.” Alexei Kojevnikov, “The Phenomenon of Soviet Science,” in: Osiris 23 (2008), 115–135 (122).
25. Pritchard, Confluence, 8. Italics added.
10. Mikhail F. Troianov, Moei sud’boi stal Fiziko-energeticheskii institut, Obninsk 2007,
161–165; GAMO, f. 506.
11. Odd Arne Westad, “The Cold War and the International History of the 20th Century,” in: Odd Arne Westad (ed.), The Cambridge History of the Cold War, 3 vols., vol.
1, Cambridge 2010, 1–19 (17).
12. David Holloway, “The Soviet Union and the Creation of the International Atomic
Energy Agency,” in: Cold War History 16 (2016) 2, 177–194. Holloway stresses that
the Soviet Union had started development of a civilian atomic energy program
prior to Atoms for Peace but shows how the latter intensified these endeavors.
13. See e.g. Sonja D. Schmid, “Celebrating Tomorrow Today. The Peaceful Atom on
Display in the Soviet Union,” in: Social Studies of Science 36 (2006) 3, 331–365.
14. Jasanoff, “Worlds,” 326–327.
15. Dolly Jørgensen/Finn Arne Jørgensen/Sara B. Pritchard (eds.), New Natures: Joining
Environmental History with Science and Technology Studies, Pittsburgh, PA 2013.
16. These were the words of Innokentii P. Gerasimov (1905–1985), an influential
Soviet geographer and pedologist. Cited from Tetsuro Chida, “Science, Development and Modernization in the Brezhnev Time,” in: Cahiers du monde Russe 54
(2013) 1–2, 239–264 (244–245). The new possibilities would have to be deployed
systematically within a framework that Gerasimov referred to as “constructive
geography” in 1961. See ibid., 246–247.
17. Genrikh N. Volkov, Man and the Scientific and Technological Revolution, Moscow
1975, 91.
18. Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Adopted by the 22nd Congress of
the C.P.S.U., Moscow 1961, 59–60; 113–114.
19. Programme of the Communist Party, Moscow 1961, 17.
20. Nikolai A. Dollezhal’, U istokov rukotvornogo mira. Zapiski konstruktora, Moscow 2010.
21. By way of illustration, a well-known poster by V. Govorkov (1951) advertising
the construction of the Turkmen Main Canal (eventually aborted) shows Stalin
bent over a map of Central Asia and crossing out the word “desert” in “Karakum desert”. Reproduced in Julia Obertreis, “Von der Naturbeherrschung
zum Ökozid? Aktuelle Fragen einer Umweltzeitgeschichte Ost- und Ostmitteleuropas,” in: Zeithistorische Forschungen 9 (2012), 115–122 (117). Another propaganda poster juxtaposed illustrations of a Soviet irrigation project and of a city
ravaged by bombing, with a caption explaining: “We transform deserts into flourishing landscapes. They [i.e. the capitalist powers] transform cities and villages into
are-transforming-deserts-into-flowing-area-they-are-transforming-cities-andvillages-into-deserts-.html> [ January 3, 2022].
22. Petr Ia. Antropov, USSR minister of geology, to Nikita S. Khrushchev, August 1961
(Copy), Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [GARF], Moscow, f. R5446,
op. 96, d. 671, l. 20–22. Subsequently, until the end of the Soviet Union, more than
350 Mio. tons of oil and 60 Bio. m 3 of gas were extracted in Mangyshlak. GAMO,
f. 322, op. 1-pr, d. 1124, l. 13.
23. It should be noted, however, that this seemingly inhospitable environment had
supported an indigenous nomadic population of up to 400 000 people for centuries, before the violence and starvation of Stalin’s collectivization and sedentarization campaign all but depopulated the area. Zhaugashty Nabiev, Stepnaia tragediia.
Adaiskoe vosstanie 1929–1930, Almaty 2010; see also Robert Kindler, Stalin’s
Nomads: Power and Famine in Kazakhstan, Pittsburgh 2018.
24. Kojevnikov has pointed out that “[t]he Bolsheviks were particularly enamoured with
the fields that combined revolutionary utopia with utilitarianism.” Alexei Kojevnikov, “The Phenomenon of Soviet Science,” in: Osiris 23 (2008), 115–135 (122).
25. Pritchard, Confluence, 8. Italics added.