Kurchatov is a town in East Kazakhstan Province in northeast Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

. Named after Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov

Igor Kurchatov

Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov , was a Soviet nuclear physicist who is widely known as the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project. Along with Georgy Flyorov and Andrei Sakharov, Kurchatov is widely remembered and dubbed as the "father of the Soviet atomic bomb" for his directorial role in the...

, the town was once the centre of operations for the adjoining Semipalatinsk Test Site

Semipalatinsk Test Site

The Semipalatinsk Test Site was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons. It is located on the steppe in northeast Kazakhstan , south of the valley of the Irtysh River...

. With the cessation of nuclear testing

Nuclear testing

Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the effectiveness, yield and explosive capability of nuclear weapons. Throughout the twentieth century, most nations that have developed nuclear weapons have tested them...

 and the decommissioning of the test site, Kurchatov's population has fallen from over 20,000 to around 8,000. In its heyday Kurchatov (which was known by its postal code Semipalatinsk-16) was a closed city

Closed city

A closed city or closed town is a settlement with travel and residency restrictions in the Soviet Union and some of its successor countries. In modern Russia, such places are officially known as "closed administrative-territorial formations" ....

, one of the most secretive and restricted places in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. The nuclear facilities at Kurchatov are managed by the Kazakhstan Institute of Atomic Energy, a division of the country's National Nuclear Center.

Geography

Kurchatov is located on the south bank of the Irtysh River at its confluence with the Chagan River.

Infrastructure

A railway connects it to the nearby village of Moldary to the west and to Semey

Semey

Semey , formerly known as Semipalatinsk and Alash-kala , is a city in Kazakhstan, in the northeastern province of East Kazakhstan, near the border with Siberia, around north of Almaty, and southeast of the Russian city of Omsk, along the Irtysh River.-History:The first settlement was in 1718,...

 100 miles to the east.

External links

• Photographs of Kurchatov taken by an IAEA delegate
• Photographs of buildings in Kurchatov
• Tourism tips for visiting Kurchatov