Cold War nuclear test site anniversary rallies Kazakhs

Semei, Kazakhstan: More than 20,000 people gathered in a small Kazakh town on Thursday to mark 20 years since the closure of a site where the Soviet Union conducted lethal nuclear tests for much of the Cold War.

Moscow used the vast open steppes of now-independent Kazakhstan to test some 500 nuclear bombs between 1949 and 1989, poisoning swathes of land and entire generations of people, and feelings among the population still run high.

President Nursultan Nazarbayev, despite being a close ally of Russia, used some of his strongest words yet to describe the grave legacy of the Soviet nuclear past.

"Millions of Kazakh citizens fell victim to this nuclear madness," he told the crowd gathered at the town's memorial site. "The scar inflicted on our environment is so serious that it will not disappear for at least 300 years.

"By pulling together, Kazakhs were able to win the war against totalitarianism and a system that shamelessly conducted experiments on an entire nation for decades."

But many locals, although reluctant to talk about their problems in a country where criticism of the state is taboo, feel their own government should be doing more for them.

Many of those in the crowd could still remember the deafening sound of nuclear explosions and the ensuing earthquakes that rocked their steppe.

"It's been 20 years and I remember it like today," said one man in his 50s who asked not to be named.

"Pompous ceremonies like this reflect nothing. A lot of people around here still feel emotionally neglected."

More than a million people who lived close to the 19,000-square-km site at the centre of Moscow's nuclear arms race with the United States were affected by radiation.

Kazakhstan says it is committed to cleaning up the disaster area in partnership with Western organisations and has spent about $250 million (Dh917 million) in various compensation schemes.

The incidence of cancer, mental illness and other health problems in the region is among the highest in Kazakhstan, but officials say more needs to be done to quantify the impact.

"The government will do everything to make sure future generations do not feel the toxic breath of the Semipalatinsk test site," Nazarbayev said.