DOI: 10.4324/9781003246893-7
5 Environmental Relationalities
Contextualizing the Nuclear Production
Sites in Khujand/Leninabad
Sophie Roche
Khujand (former Leninabad) lies at the entrance to the Ferghana Valley along
the river Syr Daryo, which is one of the two “arteries” of Central Asia. It
was one of the cities where Soviet modernization was realized through the
establishment of factories, such as those of silk, cotton, and cane sugar. These
factories diverted the local artisans from small-scale local production to factory production within less than a decade in the 1920s. A few kilometers
away, the city of Chkalovsk was founded in 1945 as part of the Soviet nuclear
project, a closed city with the mission to enrich uranium in the Leninabad
mill that went into production in 1946. Reports in the 1920s had already
identified uranium in Taboshar and Adrasman, but it only began to be mined
in the 1940s. Underground mining resumed in 1943 with Taboshar as the
first deposit mined purely for uranium in the former USSR. 1 The population
of Khujand felt proud to be part of Soviet progress and development and
considered Chkalovsk an example of Soviet modernity.
Generally, in Tajikistan, Khujand/Leninabad and Chkalovsk were surrounded by an aura of admiration and mystery. In Chkalovsk, one could
live “as in Moscow,” with all of the luxuries and privileges that Muscovites
enjoyed, whereas Khujand/Leninabad was “the civilized city” of Tajikistan.
The northern region of today’s Tajikistan was integrated into the territory
rather late in 1929 after the administrative change of the Tajik Autonomous
Region into a Soviet Socialist Republic. Five years earlier, the Tajikistan
ASSR had been carved out of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. After
declaring Tajikistan an independent republic, the northern region was
added to Tajikistan in order to give the republic a city with Khujand and
the surrounding areas becoming part of Tajikistan. 2 Since the end of the
Soviet period, most Russian and other foreign workers have left. Chkalovsk
has been gradually taken over by the Khujand population. The mythos of
Khujand and Chkalovsk being the cities of wealth and prosperity continues
to attract more and more people from the south of Tajikistan, most importantly from Dushanbe.
How do people contextualize their city and their lives within the rural
environment? What role do uranium plants play in the understanding of
towns as advanced and privileged? In this contribution, I argue that nuclear
5 Environmental Relationalities
Contextualizing the Nuclear Production
Sites in Khujand/Leninabad
Sophie Roche
Khujand (former Leninabad) lies at the entrance to the Ferghana Valley along
the river Syr Daryo, which is one of the two “arteries” of Central Asia. It
was one of the cities where Soviet modernization was realized through the
establishment of factories, such as those of silk, cotton, and cane sugar. These
factories diverted the local artisans from small-scale local production to factory production within less than a decade in the 1920s. A few kilometers
away, the city of Chkalovsk was founded in 1945 as part of the Soviet nuclear
project, a closed city with the mission to enrich uranium in the Leninabad
mill that went into production in 1946. Reports in the 1920s had already
identified uranium in Taboshar and Adrasman, but it only began to be mined
in the 1940s. Underground mining resumed in 1943 with Taboshar as the
first deposit mined purely for uranium in the former USSR. 1 The population
of Khujand felt proud to be part of Soviet progress and development and
considered Chkalovsk an example of Soviet modernity.
Generally, in Tajikistan, Khujand/Leninabad and Chkalovsk were surrounded by an aura of admiration and mystery. In Chkalovsk, one could
live “as in Moscow,” with all of the luxuries and privileges that Muscovites
enjoyed, whereas Khujand/Leninabad was “the civilized city” of Tajikistan.
The northern region of today’s Tajikistan was integrated into the territory
rather late in 1929 after the administrative change of the Tajik Autonomous
Region into a Soviet Socialist Republic. Five years earlier, the Tajikistan
ASSR had been carved out of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. After
declaring Tajikistan an independent republic, the northern region was
added to Tajikistan in order to give the republic a city with Khujand and
the surrounding areas becoming part of Tajikistan. 2 Since the end of the
Soviet period, most Russian and other foreign workers have left. Chkalovsk
has been gradually taken over by the Khujand population. The mythos of
Khujand and Chkalovsk being the cities of wealth and prosperity continues
to attract more and more people from the south of Tajikistan, most importantly from Dushanbe.
How do people contextualize their city and their lives within the rural
environment? What role do uranium plants play in the understanding of
towns as advanced and privileged? In this contribution, I argue that nuclear