What town in East Kazakhstan Region was named for the director of the Soviet atomic bomb project
Kurchatov, Kazakhstan Kurchatov (in Kazakh and Russian: Курча́тов) is a town in East Kazakhstan Region in north-east Kazakhstan. Named after Soviet nuclear physicist Igor Kurchatov, the town was once the centre of operations for the adjoining Semipalatinsk Test Site. With the cessation of nuclear testing 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-21) was a closed city, one of the most secretive and restricted places in the Soviet Union. The nuclear facilities at Kurchatov are managed by the Kazakhstan Institute of Atomic Energy, a division of the country's National Nuclear Center. Population: (2009 Census results); (1999 Census results)
List of nuclear weapons tests of the Soviet Union The nuclear weapons tests of the Soviet Union were performed between 1949 and 1990 as part of the nuclear arms race. The Soviet Union conducted 715 nuclear tests using 969 total devices by official count, including 219 atmospheric, underwater, and space tests and 124 peaceful use tests. Most of the tests took place at the Southern Test Site in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan and the Northern Test Site at Novaya Zemlya. Other tests took place at various locations within the Soviet Union, including now-independent Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Turkmenistan.