Lake Chagan (Russian: Чаган) or Lake Shagan (Kazakh: Шаған, Şağan),[2][3] also known as Lake Balapan, is a lake in Kazakhstan created by the Chagan nuclear test on January 15, 1965, which was conducted as part of the Soviet Union's Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy program. A 140 kiloton device was placed in a 178-metre-deep (584 ft) hole in the dry bed at the confluence of the Shagan and Ashchysu rivers. The blast created a crater 400 m (1,300 ft) across and 100 m (330 ft) deep with a lip height of 20 to 38 m (66 to 125 ft); it is often referred to as "Atomic Lake" (Kazakh: Атом көлі).

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Russian. (August 2018) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation like DeepL or Google Translate is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 2,634 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Russian Wikipedia article at [[:ru:Чаган (озеро)]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|ru|Чаган (озеро)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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Lake Chagan
Шаған
Lake Chagan Show map of Kazakhstan Lake Chagan Show map of Asia
Coordinates	49°56′7″N 79°0′30″E
Basin countries	Kazakhstan
Water volume	10,000,000 m3 (8,100 acre⋅ft)[1]

The lake's water comes from the Shagan River, a tributary of the Irtysh River. The crater lake's volume is approximately 10 million m³ (350 million cu ft).[1] To the south, the rim of the crater holds back the waters of a second reservoir.

Locals fish in the lake, despite warnings by authorities that it is hazardous.[4]

Media

In Netflix's documentary series Dark Tourist (season 1 episode 4, "The Stans"), David Farrier visits and swims in Lake Chagan, as well as eats a fish from the lake, during his tour of Kazakhstan.

See also

• Sedan (nuclear test) – an American cratering detonation
• Pechora–Kama Canal – a proposed canal project involving nuclear excavation
• Lake Karachay – a natural lake highly contaminated by the dumping of high-level nuclear waste
• Volcanic crater lake – a body of water normally formed by volcanic or meteoric events

References

• "On the Soviet program for peaceful uses of nuclear weapons" (PDF). Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. September 1, 2000. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-12-23.
• "On the Soviet nuclear program". Nuclear Weapon Archive.

External links

• "A documentary that visits the lake at around the 1 minute mark" (video). YouTube. Russia Today. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13.
• "Lake Chagan map" – via Google Maps.

This Kazakhstan location article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

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На других языках

[de] Schagan (See)

[fr] Lac Chagan

[it] Lago Chagan

[ru] Чаган (озеро)