In the semi-abandoned village of Ulken on a giant steppe, Anna Kapustina, a mother of five, hopes that controversial plans to build Kazakhstan’s first nuclear power plant will breathe life into her ailing hometown.
On the shores of the vast Balkhash Lake and lined with empty buildings, Ulken is at the center of a raging debate in Kazakhstan — scarred by massive Soviet-era nuclear tests — over whether construction should go ahead.
Between 1949 and 1989, the USSR conducted approximately 450 nuclear tests in Kazakhstan, exposing 1.5 million people to radiation.
The Central Asian country is holding a referendum on the plant this weekend, with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, who is pushing for construction, promising to “take important decisions with the support of the people”.
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The campaign in the authoritarian state was one-sided, with the vote largely given an air of democracy.
In Ulken, which people left in droves after the fall of the Soviet Union when plans to build a thermal power plant were abandoned, many of the 1,500 remaining residents hope that prosperity — and work — will return.
“We are waiting for our village to come back to life,” said Kapustina, whose husband works as a miner in Aktobe, about 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) away.
While rich in oil and the world’s largest producer of uranium, Kazakhstan faces chronic electricity shortages, which authorities hope to solve.
Kapustina said she was used to resorting to candles. He hopes a nuclear power station will bring “cheap, uninterrupted electricity”.
Energy shortages
Amid a massive state-backed campaign, most Ulken residents support the project.
But some are weary, fearing for the safety of Balka, the second largest lake in a region already struggling with access to drinking water.
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Standing in the yellow fields of a steppe outside the village, engineer Sergei Tretyakov has been “dreaming” of a nuclear plant in Ulken since he was sent by the Soviets to help build the abandoned thermal plant.
The 64-year-old believes Kazakhstan would “simply run out of electricity” without it, with the south of the vast country suffering from a particularly severe power shortage.
Ulken is the perfect spot, he said.
“The ground is durable and its location allows electricity to be distributed to the north and south,” Tretyakov said.
And some of the infrastructure built in the Soviet era is still there.
“We had already built embankments and a pond for cooling,” he added, pointing to the waters of the vast Balkhash.
That work ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Ulken has been slowly dying ever since — most residents had left by the early 1990s.
Now filled with abandoned apartment buildings, its streets are little more than dusty tracks.
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A mural of the unbuilt thermal power plant adorns a partially empty building.
Abandoned city
In an apartment that doubles as a town hall, municipal clerk Indira Kerimbekova flips through a photo album of Ulken in the 1980s.
“Until the collapse of the USSR, 10,000 people lived here,” he said, showing photos of packed canteens.
“It’s hard to believe now… There were shops, schools, hairdressers.”
Today, the only shops are small roadside grocers and the nearest hospital is 200 kilometers away.
“We hope that if the factory is built, people will come back and live here,” he said.
Pensioner Tatiana Vetrova said people left Ulken because “there was no more work”, recalling how residents could only survive by fishing in Lake Balkas.
“You had to catch fish, smoke it and sell it on the side of the road,” he said.
Fears for the lake
Many still rely on fishing for their survival, and it is fears for the lake’s future that have fueled pockets of opposition to the plant.
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“I don’t want it,” said 62-year-old Zheksenkul Kulanbayeva.
“We’re losing the lake. We’re going to lose the fish. People here make money mostly from fishing,” he said.
Even President Tokayev has acknowledged the ecological concerns, calling them “understandable given the tragic legacy” of Soviet nuclear testing.
But the government has insisted the plant will be safe and has gone to great lengths to make sure Kazakhs vote “yes” on Sunday.
Authorities sent representatives of the “people’s headquarters for the construction of the factory” — who are actually from the powerful presidential party — to hold “briefing sessions” across Kazakhstan.
Kulanbayeva was not convinced. She didn’t trust the billboards around her that read: “Clean energy for the future.”
She was concerned about her town’s access to the lake and the ability to fish.
Even residents who have other jobs in Ulken still fish to make extra cash, he said.
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“We could lose that, I don’t want that.”
Source: AFP