Anti-nuclear exhibit at the UN complex in New York

Interestingly, the permanent UN exhibition in New York has a separate section dedicated to the anti-nuclear movement of the then Kazakh SSR in 1989, which ultimately led to the closure of the Semipalatinsk Test Site.

The movement, incidentally, is called “Nevada-Semipalatinsk.” This is no coincidence: the advent of glasnost in the late 1980s made it possible for the United States to be mentioned in this context for the first time — to attract Western attention and establish direct contact with American anti-nuclear activists, which is precisely what happened.

The Semipalatinsk nuclear test site is a site in the Kazakh steppe where, from 1949 to 1989, the USSR detonated more than 460 nuclear bombs: 616 nuclear and thermonuclear devices: 125 airborne and ground-based, and 343 underground. Radioactive clouds from 55 of these explosions spread beyond the test site, exposing more than a million people to radiation, with consequences that are passed down through generations.

The most famous symbol of the test site tragedy is the artist Karipbek Kuyukov, who paints with his shoulder; he was born without arms.

The test site was closed on August 29, 1991, by decree of the first president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev; a copy of his decree is part of a UN exhibit.

There also hangs a powerful photograph of a woman holding a sign reading “No to Nuclear War!”, but, for some reason, no attribution is given. I found the author of this photograph: Soviet photographer Yuri Kuidin (the UN exhibit shows a cropped version of his photo).

In the foreground is a television playing flashes, each representing a nuclear explosion. The video begins with a flash on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert, and then the second and third flashes occur in Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945. Then begins a veritable “fireworks display” of flashes around the world (more than two thousand!)

The exhibit is located at the UN complex in New York and is open to the public, but a tour of the complex is required in advance.

📍 UN Headquarters / 405 E 45th St, New York, NY 10017