Child Friendly Cities: Research with Children in Semey: Final Semey Report 2015

Semey is a city of 300,000 people on the very north-eastern border of Kazakhstan, in the Siberian region of Kazakhstan bordering with Russia. Semipalatinsk as it was called in times of the USSR was the closest city to the Soviet atomic bomb and nuclear weapons testing site that operated from 1949-1989. Residents of Semey have in the past suffered serious environmental and health effects from the time of its atomic prosperity, with nuclear fallout from the atmospheric tests and uncontrolled exposure being a major concern. Now the city is known as a major university town. The main issues for children in Semey were focused on the quality of the physical environment, in particular the courtyards and playgrounds where they spend a lot of their leisure time and the immediate streets that they use to move around. It is important to understand that without capacity to access resources beyond their neighbourhood, like say in Astana where children's parents drive them to facilities and services, there is reliable and safe public transport and shared footpaths and bike ways, children's quality of life in Semey is very much tied into the quality of the immediate environment. The lack of sealed roads, little or no footpaths beyond the main roads means children share the roads with large trucks and cars that use up the whole road, often drive fast and cause lots of dust in the air. There are also the issues of old degraded buildings and garages left to decay in and around apartment blocks. These buildings become places where people or dogs could lurk, children sometimes play in and around being exposed to chemicals, tools, broken glass and pipes left lying around. These can create many hazards and risks to children's health and well being.