Photographer Robert Knoth and writer Antoinette de Jong collaborate on a poignant and infuriating indictment of the Nuclear Age in this crucial book on the human devastation in Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, the Urals and Siberia.

Knoth's black-and-white photos gently document the deformed human beings affected by radiation, and show the small details of everyday life in the abandoned ghost towns nuclear disasters and waste have left behind. De Jong's clear and dispassionate prose makes a perfect contrast to Knoth's emotional photos.

The Certificate no. 000358/ project has covered four locations in the former Soviet Union where major nuclear accidents or atomic testing have taken place. It shows how millions have to live with the social, environmental and economic consequences -- and of course with the detrimental effects -- of these disasters on their health. On the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Robert Knoth stressed that Chernobyl was by no means exceptional: it was just another example in a series of devastating nuclear accidents that have taken place in the last 45 years in the former Soviet Union. Certificate no. 000358/ is above all a story about those in power, the military and scientists, and how they allow the most horrific experiments to take place, with disastrous consequences for the native population.

The project is very much linked to the current discussion about climate change and the need to secure our energy supply of tomorrow. Nuclear energy is being presented as an alternative to fossil energy sources. Further development of a nuclear industry will prove to be difficult without the involvement  of Russia.

Published with the support of Greenpeace International and Unicef Netherlands