The full impact of radiation exposure was hidden for many years by Soviet authorities and has only come to light since the test site closed in 1991.

[4] From 1996 to 2012, a secret joint operation of Kazakh, Russian, and American nuclear scientists and engineers secured some waste plutonium in the tunnels of the mountains.

[7][8] Gulag labour was employed to build the primitive test facilities, including the laboratory complex in the northeast corner on the southern bank of the Irtysh River.

[citation needed] The same area, "the experimental field", a region 64 km (40 mi) west of Kurchatov city, was used for more than 100 subsequent above-ground weapons tests.

After the closure of the Semipalatinsk labour camp, construction duties were performed by the 217th Separate Engineering and Mining Battalion, who later built the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

The Semipalatinsk Complex was of acute interest to foreign governments during its operation, particularly during the phase when explosions were carried out above ground at the experimental field.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was discovered that the mysterious URDF-3 was tasked with researching a nuclear thermal rocket similar to the US's NERVA.

According to Nazarbayev, then Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR, a few months after the Chernobyl disaster, Moscow sent an order to expand the territory of the Semipalatinsk site into the Taldy-Kurgan Region.

Nazarbayev refused to sign the document, summoning Taldy-Kurgan’s regional executive committee chair, Seilbek Shaumakhanov, to Alma-Ata and instructing him to spread the word about the expansion plan and to hold a protest rally with an “unexpectedly assembled” public.

A significant role was also played by Keshirim Boztaev, the First Secretary of the Semipalatinsk Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, who, with the approval of the republican leadership, sent a telegram on February 20, 1989, to the CPSU Central Committee, addressed to M. S. Gorbachev, requesting that “relevant ministries and agencies be instructed to temporarily suspend or drastically reduce the frequency and power of explosions and, in the future, move nuclear testing to another, more acceptable location.” Meanwhile, the KGB reported to Moscow that protest sentiments were intensifying and warned of a possible repeat of the December 1986 events in Alma-Ata, but on a republic-wide scale.

[11]In 1989, the prominent Kazakh activist Olzhas Suleimenov founded the Nevada-Semipalatinsk movement, uniting victims of nuclear testing worldwide.

One of Nazarbayev’s first decisions as president of the Kazakh SSR was to close the Semipalatinsk Test Site and to fully renounce the world’s fourth-largest nuclear arsenal.

On that day, Nazarbayev announced a special parliamentary session to discuss the site’s closure without the Soviet leadership’s consent.

By the end, some deputies and officials from the Semipalatinsk Region requested additional tests to secure the informal compensation promised by Moscow.

Fissile material was left behind in mountain tunnels and bore holes, virtually unguarded and vulnerable to scavengers, rogue states, or potential terrorists.

The risk that material might fall into the hands of scavengers or terrorists was considered one of the largest nuclear security threats since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The operation to address the problem involved, in part, pouring special concrete into test holes, to bind the waste plutonium.

In October 2012, Kazakh, Russian, and American nuclear scientists and engineers celebrated the completion of a secret 17-year, $150 million operation to secure the plutonium in the tunnels of the mountains.

Although the evidence villagers cite is anecdotal, and most of the deaths were as a result of alcoholism, overdose, and other challenges that arose after a failure to adapt to a new way of life, to some left behind, it seems that the lack of radiation killed them.

[16][17][18] According to UNESCO, Nevada-Semipalatinsk played a positive role in promoting public understanding of "the necessity to fight against nuclear threats".

[19] Studies conducted by scientists from Berlin and Kurchatov took blood samples from forty different families who lived in a district of Kazakhstan that were directly exposed at high levels to fallout from the Soviet bomb tests.

In one village adjacent to the test site, categorized as "minimal risk", the Kazakh government allots each resident a one time lump sum roughly equivalent to $50 USD.

"[15] 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.

[15] 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.