Museum of the Semipalatinsk Test Site, Kurchatov

Museum of the Semipalatinsk Test Site [ - darkometer rating : 9 - ] ---------------- UPDATE 2025: this museum has for a good few years now no longer been accessible to foreign tourists. It's still in place, and nuclear scientists from the nearby institute can still visit it. So there is faint hope that maybe one day it might open again to tourists as well. Time will tell ... ---------------- A smallish but highly impressive museum that chronicles and illustrates the history, inner workings and effects of the Soviet atomic testing programme conducted at the nearby Polygon . It's located in the formerly "closed city" of Kurchatov , Kazakhstan , and unlike the town itself is still quite restricted to visitors. But it is possible to obtain a special permit and be given a guided tour. > More background info > What there is to see > Location > Access and costs > Time required > Combinations with other dark destinations > Combinations with non-dark destinations > Photos More background info: for general background info about the museum's subject matter see under Polygon and Kurchatov (and also cf. Semey 's anatomical museum ). Administratively, the museum is today part of the Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology. It was first opened in 1972, i.e. still during the test site's active time, but overall doesn't appear to have changed very much since (except for a few minor post-independence additions). Thus it is indeed a bit of a time capsule, very Soviet in feel, and an air of former top-secrecy still lingers in the museum somehow. It's thus very different from the shiny, modern, educationally commodified efforts of the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas or the Nuclear Science Museum in Albuquerque in the USA .