In the early '70s, the Soviet Union tried a bold experiment: using "peaceful nuclear explosions," or PNEs, to redirect Siberian rivers south toward more heavily populated regions, instead of flowing into the Arctic. The 1971 "Taiga" experiment set off three nuclear devices to help carve a canal linking the Pechora and Kama rivers. The resulting water body, known as Nuclear Lake, today is "a half-forgotten tourist curiosity," isolated and hard to reach, with lingering radiation warnings around its shores even decades later, per the BBC.
The river reversal plan aimed to transform vast stretches of the Eurasian landscape, hoping to boost agriculture in southern Russia and Central Asia and even restore ailing bodies of water like the Aral Sea. Hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of people were involved in the project. Proponents believed diverting just a small share of northern rivers would bring major benefits, comparing their vision to grand waterworks like the Roman aqueducts. Opposition grew steadily, however, with Soviet scientists and intellectuals warning of risks ranging from flawed science and huge costs—some estimates say the price tag would've been in the hundreds of billions of dollars—to environmental destruction and lost cultural sites.
Public criticism became more open in the early 1980s. The crater was also determined not to be large enough to do the job it was intended for. After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, both public concern and depleted state funds led to the project's cancellation. Today, some experts predict that river reversal will one day resurface as a viable option in Russia—this time with water redirected to China. "Russia is a resource empire—it survives by selling its resources," says Colby College historian Paul Josephson. "The project will not die." More here. (This content was created with the help of AI. Read our AI policy.)
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