This interactive virtual tour provides an immersive first-person perspective on the remnants of three nuclear tests conducted at the Semipalatinsk former nuclear test site in 1969 and 1970.

These tests are just three of the more than 2,000 that were carried out between 1945 and 1996, when the CTBT opened for signature.

Additional resources of interest:

• History of Nuclear Testing: Global Overview


• Types of Nuclear Weapons Tests


• Minute Physics: How to detect a secret nuclear test


• Living with the nuclear tests: The Semipalatinsk story, CTBTO Spectrum magazine 25/2020


• Station Profile: Primary Seismic Station 23 - Makanchi, Kazakhstan


• GEM/CYG International Conference in Kazakhstan (2018)

How to use the tour

Control the virtual tour using your mouse and scroll wheel or touch gesutres on a mobile device. You may also use the buttons in bottom navigation bar to:

zoom in (+)
zoom out (-)
toggle auto-rotation
view scene information (i)
switch between scenes (...)
and enter/toggle fullscreen view

About these images

The images and historical information from these former nuclear tests was provided by the Republican State Enterprise "Institute of Geophysical Research", Ministry of Energy, Republic of Kazakhstan.