Introduction

Anyone who sets out to explore the fascinating—and tragic—history of nuclear energy in the Soviet Union and its successor states will quickly discover that it is an exceedingly complex history. It involves atomic projects across a huge territory, from power plants on the Baltic Sea to uranium mines in the Far East, and from nuclear weapons testing in the High Arctic to failed reactor sites in subtropical Crimea. It covers over a century of nuclear visions, stretching from early Soviet research on nuclear physics in the 1920s to recent Russian exports of commercial nuclear power plants to Bangladesh. It involves a mesmerizing network of actors—people and organizations—spanning the civilian and the military sectors.