Nadav Kander. Courtesy Flowers Gallery

A Look Inside the ‘Closed Cities’ Where Russia Tested the Effects of Nuclear Radiation on Human Subjects

Priozersk and Kurchatov, located on the border between Russia and Kazakhstan, are “closed cities”—relics of the Cold War, former military test sites.Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the so-called closed cities have gradually opened to outsiders. Nadav Kander, an award-winning photographer, travelled to the steppes of Kazakhstan to document the sites where the USSR tested the effects of nuclear radiation human subjects. The images he captured will be available in his forthcoming book, Dust.Kander’s photographs capture what he calls “the aesthetics of destruction.” Demolished to hide their secrets, both cities became “accidental monuments to the melancholic, dark and destructive side of human nature,” writes best-selling British author Will Self in the introduction to Dust....Continue Reading

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