The Wandering Scot
An occasional travel journal
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| Kazakh Migration Card, with the two stamps
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| 10 miles NE of Semey
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Semey
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| Regional History Museum
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| Regional History Museum
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Regional History Museum - 1990 Events
Mirror-imaged photo of giant Lenin
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| Dostoevsky House Museum
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| Dostoevsky + Chokhan Valikhanovm
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| Mysterious Kazakh column
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| T-34 tank
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| WWII memorial (?)
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“Stronger Than Death”
Monument to the Victims of Nuclear Testing
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| Peace Obelisk
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Avenue of the Lenins
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| The Avenue of the Lenins
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| A Lenin and a Marx
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| And a distant Giant
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| It's really big
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| Nearby, a smaller, oddly timid, Lenin
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Semipalatinsk
A visit to the form Soviet nuclear weapons test complex at Semipalatinsk.
Test Center Museum
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| Test Center Headquarters
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| Old Test Center HQ
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| Test Center Museum
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| Mandatory Kurchatov bust
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| Leadership, starting with Stalin and Beria
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| 1949 (A-Bomb) v 1953 (H-Bomb)
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| Test Site Area Map
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| Diagram of 1949 A-Bomb test
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| Model of test site
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| Model of test site: Note "geese" towers
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| Test control panel (for later tests)
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| Guide demonstrating control panel
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| Kurchatov's office
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Semipalatinsk Test Site
This was the test site for the first Soviet A-Bomb test in 1959.
The test was in the cross-hairs of lines of test monitoring towers, the "geese".
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View across test site
Note the test monitoring towers centered on ground zero
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| Pond at Ground Zero
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| Scotsman at Ground Zero
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| Damaged test towers near ground zero
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| Solid test tower near center.
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| More distant test tower design
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| The team
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| Shallow mockup-metro test area
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| "TNT Lake", a calibration test for the "Atomic Lake" test
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Atomic Lake
Atomic Lake was created as a test of the peaceful uses of atomic bombs.
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| Across the steppe...
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| Atomic Lake
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| Beautiful, sunny, Atomic Lake
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| Atomic Lake exit to lake Chagan
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| Scotsman at Atomic Lake
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| Our hardy, Soviet-style, minibus
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Around Kurchatov
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| Hotel Mayak
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| Kurchatov statue
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| WWII Memorial
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| Mini Baiterek tower
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Chagan: Ghost town for former nuclear bomber base
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| Chagan Air Base Marker
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| Guide & Driver
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| Chagan: Ghost Town
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Pavlodar
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| Across the steppe...
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| Kazakh Famine Memorial
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| Kazakh Famine Memorial
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| Kazakh Famine Memorial
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| Blagoveshchenskiy Church
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| Pavlodar Lenin
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| New WWII Memorial
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| New WWII Memorial
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| New WWII Memorial: Still under construction.
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| Mashkhur Jusup Mosque
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| Mashkhur Jusup Mosque interior
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| Mashkhur Jusup Mosque
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| 22 miles East of Nur-Sultan
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Nur-Sultan
I've been in Astana several times before, but this was my first visit to Nur-Sultan!
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| Welcome to Nur-Sultan!
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| Baiterek Tower
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| Khan Shatyr
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| Kazakh Famine Memorial
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| Kazakh Famine Memorial
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| Stalinist-style mall & office building (?)
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| Military History Museum (closed)
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| Kazakh MIG-29
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| WWII T-34
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| The Glorious Ancestors
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Nur-Sultan station mosaics
I've always admired the Soviet-era mosaics outside Astana/Nur-Sultan station, especially the Cosmonauts.
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| Freshly renamed Nur-Sultan Station
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Russia