The Origins of the Nuclear Era...

The task was to "identify a site for the construction of Facility No. 905 within one month." A vast, virtually uninhabited area was needed, without agricultural land and located at a significant distance from densely populated areas. According to initial calculations, the diameter of such a zone would have to be at least 200 kilometers.

In addition to a minimum occupancy rate, other important conditions included: the absence of nearby major transport routes, the availability of airfields capable of handling transport aircraft as well as the ability to uninterruptedly deliver large quantities of cargo and organize operational communications.

Ultimately, the choice fell on the left bank of the Irtysh River, at the junction of three regions of the Kazakh SSR: Semipalatinsk (54%; in 1997, it became part of East Kazakhstan, and in 2022, it became part of Abai Oblast, retaining the former borders of Semipalatinsk), Pavlodar (39%), and Karaganda (7%).

For nuclear experiments 18 500 км² of land - almost the size of a small country - were taken out of economic use. For comparison:

• Montenegro — 13 812 км²
• Kuwait — 17 818 км²
• Israel — 22 072 км²
• Belgium — 30 528 км²

On august 21, 1947, the Council of Ministers transferred the Resolution No. 2939-955 - the already underway construction - to the Ministry of Defense. The new facility was officially named 'Training Range No. 2 of the USSR Ministry of Armed Forces' (Military Unit No. 52605). Among people working on the test site, the range was unofficially nicknamed 'двойка - No. 2'.

Construction began in 1947 and was completed by July 1949. The cost of the range nearly doubled the original estimate: instead of the planned 105 million rubles, the cost amounted to 183 million - an immense sum for a country devastated by the Great Patriotic War.

Before conducting the first nuclear tests, a series of complex scientific, engineering, and organizational challenges had to be addressed—from developing measurement methods to creating specialized infrastructure and safety systems.

Simultaneously with the construction of the Semipalatinsk test site the construction of the central headquarters of the Semipalatinsk test site began, only 60km away. For a long time, the city did not appear on any map - its location and existence were strictly classified. It changed names many times: Moscow-400, Semipalatinsk-21, Nadezhda, Bereg, Konechnaya, and only in 1974 did it receive its official name - Kurchatov - in honor of Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov, the leader of the soviet atomic project

The city was the true center of the atomic project. Thousands of specialists lived here: scientists, engineers, military personnel, technicians, and support personnel. Its territory housed scientific institutes, research laboratories, medical and biological centers, computing complexes, and bases for mine builders, drillers, prospectors, and construction workers.

Kurchatov had all the infrastructure of a 'closed scientific city': its own airfield with planes coming from Moscow, a railway line and bus hub, a palace of culture, museums, a television center, and a newspaper.

Tens of kilometers of concrete roads stretched out from the city in all directions, leading to the nuclear test sites. Hundreds of kilometers of classified communications lines lay underground. Radar mirrors and radio antennas rotated 24/7 over the steppe, providing communications, security, and monitoring of the test site's facilities

Within the city, scientists and their families enjoyed conditions called a "communist paradise": high supplies, housing, salaries, and cultural life - all for the sake of a strategic goal.

Well-known physicists such as Igor Kurchatov, Yakov Zeldovich, and Yuli Khariton lived and worked in Kurchatov over the years. Under their leadership, tens of thousands of people devoted their intellect and talent to creating the most destructive weapons of the 20th century - weapons designed to kill.