Slate:
When nuclear blasts shook the barren steppe of eastern
Kazakhstan, Soviet scientists and their families in the secret
military city of Kurchatov took precautions: Schoolchildren
went inside, residents shut their windows, and officials passed
out iodine tablets to protect workers from radiation. But
Valentin Kuklev, a civilian employee involved in the tests,
remembered another precautionary step taken by rank-and-file
technicians: They drank.
