Harutyun Mansuryan is a multimedia video producer for RFE/RL in Prague.
August 29 marks the day that the Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear explosion in 1949.
Forty years of Soviet nuclear bomb tests have left a toxic wasteland in Kazakhstan. The nuclear explosions have stopped, but Russia still rents vast swathes of Kazakh territory for missile tests that critics say are devastating for the environment and its inhabitants.
Kazakh villagers living close to military test sites struggle with "mysterious" illnesses and a toxic nuclear legacy.
TV2 in Tomsk, Siberia, was one of the last free and independent regional media outlets in Russia. But the company's unfettered journalism was not in sync with the country's increasingly restrictive political climate. The story illustrates both the power of a free press and how it can be silenced.
TV2 in Tomsk, Siberia, was one of the last free and independent regional media outlets in Russia. But the company's unfettered journalism was not in sync with the country's increasingly restrictive political climate. The station's broadcasts were shut down at the end of 2014.
An eerie wind is the only sound to be heard in a once-secret northern Kazakh town which used to be the hub of the Soviet nuclear weapons program.
The astonishing story of six people rescued from the rubble 35 days after a devastating 1988 earthquake grabbed headlines around the world -- before it was unmasked as "fake news."
Lonely grandparents watch videos of small children reciting slogans in Arabic. This is a slice of life in Kazakhstan's militant "hot spot," Zhezkazgan.
