Semipalatinsk Test Site: Difference between revisions

[[File:Crater - Flickr - The Official CTBTO Photostream.jpg|thumb|Crater from a USSR nuclear test at Semipalatinsk. 2008 photo]]

[[Image:Steppe-2003.JPG|thumb|right|300px|Kazakh [[steppe]] landscape and a drillingDrilling tower in the Semipalatinsk test site, (2003)]]

[[File:Console Closeup (3436945855).jpg|thumb|Console from the old Soviet test site. 2009 photo]]

Although there are clear biological impacts of the radiation exposure, the surrounding communities rarely have a sense of nuclear victimization. The nation of Kazakhstan recognizes more than a million of their citizens as victims of Soviet-era radiation exposure. In one village adjacent to the test site, categorized as “minimal"minimal risk",” the Kazakh government allots each resident a one time lump sum roughly equivalent to $50 USD. Although their health is negatively impacted by the radiation, residents see themselves as resilient. Many believe that they have genetically adapted to survive the radiation and report that they have come to rely upon it. One villager claimed that “Our"Our organism is different… now accustomed to radiation. For many years we were exposed to radioactive fallout, and now we eat it. Slowly and quietly, our bodies got used to it. Why do you think people don’t die [here], but only get a little sick?... Most of us can’t live in clean air—we need radiation to survive. Clean air is our death. We are not deformed, just a little sick.”"<ref name="Stawkowski-2016"/> In the same manner, many within the village self-report that when they venture outside the area for supplies, they suffer symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and stomach cramps, furthering the thought that they have come to rely on the radiation to live. Overall, residents have embraced the radiation as a sign of their own genetic adaptation.

According to fieldwork in Koyan, with a population of 50, Koyaners have high rates of “anemia"anemia, cancer, hypertension, headaches, skin rashes, and bone pain”pain" along with self-reported hair loss, nosebleeds, and cataracts.<ref name="Stawkowski-2016" /> While unhealthy, Stawkowski noted that there was an absence of “serious and life-threatening deformities” that are portrayed, in media and by doctors, to be prevalent in people exposed to long-term and low-dose radiation.<ref name="Stawkowski-2016" /> Examples of the mutations that could be found in Koyaners included “a man born with webbed feet, a woman with one slightly short thumb, and several people living with vitiligo”<ref name="Stawkowski-2016" /> The nature of these mutations, coupled with the fact that villagers experienced aggravated symptoms upon leaving Koyan, Koyaners insist that they have biologically adapted to and subsequently rely on the radiation.<ref name="Stawkowski-2016" /> To Koyaners, the prevalence of maladapted animals emphasized their resilience and further proved the success of their own adaptations.<ref name="Stawkowski-2016" /> As one Koyaner said, “the"the raditation exposure made everyone ‘a'a little sick,’' … but they have survived and live long lives”lives".<ref name="Stawkowski-2016" />