"The former Soviet state of Kazakhstan is the size of Western Europe, and is not so much of its own country as its own planet, a vast sameness of boreal forests and grasslands, boiling in summer and frozen in winter, a land the Soviets found ideal for growing wheat and testing nuclear bombs - 470 tests between 1949 and 1989, most of them thoughtfully done on Sundays, so as not to disrupt the happy productivity of the proletariat. The ensuing years have only added to its charms : the