Woman who grew up in ‘most nuked place on earth’ with ‘radiation passports’ reveals heartbreaking reality

A woman who grew up in the ‘most nuked place on Earth’ has spoken about the heartbreaking reality she experienced.

Maria Abenova is the founder of Committee Polygon 21, an advocacy group representing the victims impacted by years of Soviet-era nuclear testing.

Now a mother and grandmother herself, she was raised in the high-risk town once known as Semipalatinsk. Now known as Semey, the city in Kazakhstan is near the border with Russia.

Following the hundreds of nuclear explosions carried out nearby, Kazakh authorities handed out these eerie ‘radiation passports’ to a large number of people to apparently help and identify victims. Maria wants people all over the world to know that the suffering did not end when the nuclear tests at the nearby site ended.

People in the city of Semey suffered from radioactive diseases. (John van Hasselt/Corbis via Getty Images)

The ‘most nuked place on Earth’

Between 1949 and 1989, the Soviet Union conducted over 450 nuclear tests at the Semipalatinsk Test Site.

While the area may have been described as isolated, it was not uninhabited, with several villages on the outskirts and a city of over one million residents less than 100 miles away.

Known as the Polygon, the test site is said to have been hit by a quarter of all the nuclear explosions in history and led to the infamous ‘Atomic Lake.’

But locals were not initially made aware of the tests, as Maria explained the information began to leak to the public in the late 80s.

“After more than 30 years have passed, we can now say that for 40 years, an atomic war was waged on our beautiful land,” Maria told The Sun.

Of course, with this testing, radiation spread and it had a devastating impact on both the environment and local people’s health, continuing to affect lives today.

Maria wants the world to know the suffering did not end when the testing did. (maira.abenova/Instagram)

The impact the nuclear tests have had on the lives of people from Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan authorities previously estimated 1.5 million people to have been exposed to the test site’s residual fallout.

The areas near to the site are said to have suffered higher rates of cancer, heart disease and infertility – all said to be linked to the nuclear testing.

Maria explained that there was a high number of suicides in the village, which locals referred to as ‘Kainarsky syndrome.’

“This evil did not spare any family,” she added of the radiation.

She says the ‘most frightening’ consequence is the lingering fear.’

“The fear of dying from an illness that might not be visible on the outside,” Maria said. "The fear of a young woman giving birth to a child with disabilities, and so on."

Maria’s heartbreaking reality

With the elevated cases of cancer, it’s something Maria has very much felt the consequence of.

In 1971, her mother died of esophageal cancer, as she added: “At that time, we could not know the cause of this disease."

And in 2013, nearly 25 years after the final recorded nuclear test, her elder sister died from breast cancer.