0:00:01 > 0:00:04artist, an anti-nuclear campaigner and an extraordinary survivor.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09On the barren steppe of Central Asia,
0:00:09 > 0:00:11hidden from the world, a testing ground,
0:00:11 > 0:00:14where, over 40 years, 500 nuclear bombs were exploded
0:00:14 > 0:00:17by the Soviet Union.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21They called it the Polygon.
0:00:21 > 0:00:24The local population was supposed to have been sent to safety,
0:00:24 > 0:00:29but some were made to watch.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44Thousands lived in villages that weren't cleared.
0:00:55 > 0:00:57Villagers endured radioactive exposure the scale of
0:00:57 > 0:01:03which the world has never seen.
0:01:11 > 0:01:1425 years after the Polygon was abandoned by the Soviet Union,
0:01:14 > 0:01:19the effects still blight young people's lives.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30This is a film about the victims of the nuclear testing
0:01:30 > 0:01:33in the Polygon, and one man who has dedicated his life to preventing it
0:01:33 > 0:01:37from ever happening again.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22Karipbek Kuyukov was born in 1968 in the furthest flung corners
0:02:22 > 0:02:25of the then Soviet empire, here in the vast expanse
0:02:25 > 0:02:33of the Kazakh steppe.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51Karipbek's parents had already lost two children.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54Outwardly they looked healthy, but neither had survived
0:02:54 > 0:02:58to their first birthday.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32Karipbek has devoted his life to painting,
0:03:32 > 0:03:37and, without hands, he paints entirely with his mouth.
0:03:37 > 0:03:41Watching him work is to witness a triumph of a human being over
0:03:41 > 0:03:47adversity and history.
0:03:47 > 0:03:50His subject is here, the so-called Polygon -
0:03:50 > 0:03:54an area in Kazakhstan the size of Belgium.
0:03:54 > 0:03:58Traditionally sparsely inhabited by nomadic shepherds,
0:03:58 > 0:04:04then it was turned into the world's largest laboratory.
0:04:04 > 0:04:08Over the space of 40 years, and in total secrecy,
0:04:08 > 0:04:16the Soviet Union carried out some 500 nuclear explosions here.
0:04:16 > 0:04:22They named it the Polygon - Russian for "testing ground."
0:05:38 > 0:05:40Today, the Polygon's landscape is scattered with the detritus
0:05:40 > 0:05:43of this vast experiment.
0:05:43 > 0:05:48Observation towers built to test the effect of explosions.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51Huge craters filled with radioactive water -
0:05:51 > 0:05:58"dead lakes", as the nomads call them.
0:06:02 > 0:06:09Testimony to an experiment that began in the 1940s.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17The Soviet nuclear programme was hurriedly launched by Stalin
0:06:17 > 0:06:23in 1946, and tasked to catch up with the Americans.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26In charge was the head of Stalin's secret police,
0:06:26 > 0:06:28Lavrentiy Beria.
0:06:28 > 0:06:31He needed an enormous area for the Polygon -
0:06:31 > 0:06:37in theory, with no inhabitants.
0:06:40 > 0:06:42This man was there at the start.
0:06:42 > 0:06:47He's now 82 years old.
0:07:11 > 0:07:15In fact, he was one of a group of 43 people from his village
0:07:15 > 0:07:17with special instructions.
0:07:17 > 0:07:21They were given a tent and a picnic and told to wait.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25They had no idea what was going to happen.
0:07:56 > 0:08:00They had just witnessed a nuclear explosion from seven kilometres.
0:08:00 > 0:08:05That's when their problems began.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49Of the 43 who stayed behind for the picnic,
0:08:49 > 0:08:52all but he died prematurely.
0:08:52 > 0:08:57The testing continued, taking a toll on his family, too.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18The precise events he recounts are very hard to confirm,
0:09:18 > 0:09:24lost in the sheer volume of the tests and passage of time.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27The nuclear programme was conducted in total secrecy by the Soviet
0:09:27 > 0:09:31military throughout the tense years of the Cold War,
0:09:31 > 0:09:35and records of what happened here have never been released.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38What is known is that for decades atomic bombs were detonated
0:09:38 > 0:09:41here on the Kazakh steppes, their impact measurable on all that
0:09:41 > 0:09:46stood or was placed in their wake.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48Natural landscapes, animals, military hardware, apartment
0:09:48 > 0:09:55blocks and people.
0:09:59 > 0:10:02Even now, the archives remain closed.
0:10:02 > 0:10:05In today's Kazakhstan, stories abound of unwitting locals
0:10:05 > 0:10:08being deployed in the tests, some believe to observe the effects
0:10:08 > 0:10:13of radiation on humans.
0:10:31 > 0:10:32Two hours later, the men returned.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36They said they had been taken back to their own village to view
0:10:36 > 0:10:40the after effects of an explosion.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18Today, Karipbek lives away from the Polygon area,
0:11:18 > 0:11:22in the nearby town of Karaganda.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25It's just 250 kilometres from the test site, yet
0:11:25 > 0:11:29throughout the Soviet years, none of its 300,000 inhabitants
0:11:29 > 0:11:35were permitted to know what the tests were all about.
0:11:58 > 0:11:59By the late 1980s, awareness was building in Kazakhstan,
0:11:59 > 0:12:06culminating in a nationwide movement demanding a stop to the tests.
0:12:06 > 0:12:10The young Karipbek became a figure of the movement and an activist.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13Here he was filmed at a so-called dead lake, the extraordinary product
0:12:13 > 0:12:16of underground testing that had now filled with lethally
0:12:16 > 0:12:19radioactive water.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24It was the location of an event that profoundly shocked him.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10The anti-nuclear testing campaign began here and merged
0:13:10 > 0:13:15with the movement for democracy and independence in Kazakhstan.
0:13:15 > 0:13:18The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
0:13:18 > 0:13:23Kazakhstan won its independence.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27The Polygon was dismantled, and those who worked
0:13:27 > 0:13:31there returned to Russia.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54But the closing of the Polygon and a stop to nuclear testing
0:13:54 > 0:13:56were not the end of the story.
0:13:56 > 0:14:0040 years of experimentation with deadly nuclear weapons
0:14:00 > 0:14:03is thought to have affected some 650,000 people.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08Doctors like Talgat Muldagaliev are still working to address the health
0:14:08 > 0:14:12impact of an unprecedented scale of contamination.
0:14:49 > 0:14:50Kazakh doctors have identified zones of varying levels
0:14:50 > 0:14:53of contamination around the Polygon.
0:14:53 > 0:14:55Now, worrying signs of radiation-linked conditions
0:14:55 > 0:14:58are cropping up in places much further from the test area
0:14:58 > 0:14:59than previously expected.
0:14:59 > 0:15:06Areas that had been considered safe.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10Today, Dr Muldagaliev has come to see a new patient,
0:15:10 > 0:15:13a 55-year-old from a village 250 kilometres from the Polygon.
0:15:13 > 0:15:19The patient has had a sudden and sharp rise in blood pressure,
0:15:19 > 0:15:27putting him at risk of a heart attack.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40Despite the suddenness of the symptoms and his relatively
0:15:40 > 0:15:43young age, he is not responding to treatment, possible signs
0:15:43 > 0:15:46of a heart condition caused by radiation.
0:15:46 > 0:15:51And there are other facts in his family medical history that
0:15:51 > 0:15:57point to the Polygon.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25But it seems you don't need to have been born during the time
0:16:25 > 0:16:26of tests to be affected.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30You can inherit health problems in your genes.
0:17:13 > 0:17:14This is the village of Znamenka.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18It's less than 200 kilometres from the Polygon, and so in the zone
0:17:18 > 0:17:24known as maximum risk.
0:17:24 > 0:17:27Pakizad is 25, and she has been visited by her doctor.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30Until six years ago, she was leading an ordinary life.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32But as she started at university, her body started
0:17:32 > 0:17:34doing alarming things.
0:17:55 > 0:17:56Then the headaches began and she was diagnosed
0:17:56 > 0:18:01with a brain tumour, which was affecting her hormones.
0:18:02 > 0:18:06Next, she contracted diabetes and her eyesight
0:18:06 > 0:18:08in one eye is failing.
0:18:39 > 0:18:42From his studio flat back in Karaganda, Karipbek remains
0:18:42 > 0:18:45in close contact with other victims of the testing, and remains
0:18:45 > 0:18:50a leading light in a continuing campaign for a nuclear-free world.
0:18:50 > 0:18:54In the early 1990s, he and some others received modest compensation
0:18:54 > 0:19:04from the Kazakh government, but nothing since.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07The country responsible for the testing, the Soviet Union,
0:19:07 > 0:19:09no longer exists, and no compensation has been
0:19:09 > 0:19:11forthcoming from its main successor country, Russia.
0:19:11 > 0:19:17But Karipbek doesn't expect anything from Russia.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37Kazakhstan is now a proudly independent country,
0:19:37 > 0:19:39seeking to project an image of modernity and openness
0:19:39 > 0:19:40to the wider world.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43Its capital city, Astana, was purpose-built onto
0:19:43 > 0:19:47an existing provincial town.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50Its centrepiece, a monument representing the tree of life,
0:19:50 > 0:19:53a globe nestled safely at the top.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56It's a big day for Karipbek.
0:19:56 > 0:20:06He has travelled to the capital with someone special.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23They're here as honoured guests at a high profile international
0:20:23 > 0:20:27conference celebrating the 25th anniversary of the closing
0:20:27 > 0:20:31of the Polygon.
0:20:32 > 0:20:34Delegates have come from other countries that have suffered
0:20:34 > 0:20:35the effects of nuclear testing.
0:20:36 > 0:20:41The conference is hosted by the Kazakh president.
0:20:41 > 0:20:46Karipbek's work is exhibited in a foyer.
0:20:54 > 0:20:55Karipbek's work has attracted the attention
0:21:17 > 0:21:18Karipbek's work has attracted the attention
0:21:18 > 0:21:23of the other delegates.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26There are still children being born with horrific deformities,
0:21:26 > 0:21:28and that will continue for the foreseeable future.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31It's happening in St George, Utah, which is downwind
0:21:31 > 0:21:33of the Nevada test site.
0:21:33 > 0:21:35It's happening in the Marshall Islands, where women
0:21:35 > 0:21:38are still giving birth to so-called jellyfish babies -
0:21:38 > 0:21:40babies without bones.
0:21:40 > 0:21:42The lasting effects of testing are, sort of, forewarnings
0:21:42 > 0:21:49of what will happen if nuclear weapons are used again.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55No great dramas expected weatherwise through this weekend.
0:22:55 > 0:22:56Certainly no cold weather in prospect.