Andrey Chernykh
Slender monolithic towers of concrete construction with wide chamfered edges looked more decorative than structural. Nonetheless, they were oriented towards something invisible in the centre, resembling giants standing strong, frozen in time. We walked over to one of them and noticed a melted surface texture. If the concrete could melt, this would be the place for it, at 500 metres to the epicentre of a nuclear fireball. At the base of the tower, we saw a large piece of what looked like a melted rock mound. ‘Melted soil’, said Dmitriy, ‘there are a lot of these around because the explosion often displaced large volumes of soil, scattering it across the field.’ Looking in the direction of the towers I imagined chunks of earth flying like fireballs in the sky and dropping all around in a field of raging fire. ‘During the tests, this place must have been hell on earth’, I said looking around me. ‘That is a good way of putting it’, smiled Dmitriy. Vladimir turned on the Geiger counter and brought it closer to the melted chunk. The numbers oscillated between 2.1 to 3.8 millisievert per hour (mSv/h), which is above the 1.0 millisievert per hour normal background radiation levels. Directly east there was another line of identical towers stretching into the distance, the two closest of them toppled to the ground, presumably by one of the tests. However, there were no towers north or west of the centre of where I was standing. Instead, the landscape featured more low lying structures of bunkers, shafts, walls, columns and other concrete chunks at least partially submerged in the landscape. We examined one of the bunkers north of the Ground Zero. The concrete framing the entrance was completely blown off by what must have been an incredibly powerful shockwave, as all that was left were rebars flung back and frozen like hair blowing in the wind. The objects did not conform to any alignment and seemed to be
Andrey Chernykh
scattered all across the field. The orientation of the structures and the dugout trenches towards the centre, suggested a loose circular orientation, which slowly allowed me to trace a rough mental plan of the site. We explored numerous other structures whose purpose at times was a challenge to decipher. One thing was clear; the Field has become an outdoor museum for one of the most horrific weapons ever invented and the consequences of nuclear tests on the country’s iconic landscape.
above: Melted earth and the damage inflicted from a nuclear test on one of the structures on site
On Site review 35 : the material culture of architecture
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