Ozersk, codenamed City 40, was the birthplace of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program at the dawn of the Cold War. At first glance, this is a clean modern city that boasts good housing, spacious parks and high-quality schools to attract the best nuclear scientists in the country.
The nuclear disaster of the USSR, about which no one talks
And his goal is considered so important that the Russian authorities are practically hiding it from the rest of the world.
But while the work of Lake Army scientists developing Russia’s plutonium stockpiles has been kept secret, it has proved more difficult to limit its impact on the environment. Today, the legacy of radiation pollution is called the “Cemetery of the Earth”.
The Secret City №40 of the USSR hides a nuclear catastrophe much bigger than the one in Chernobyl
Ozersk’s rise can be explained by the dropping of US atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 at the end of World War II. Alarmed by the horrific new weapons of mass destruction, Russian leader Joseph Stalin has ordered his scientists to build a nuclear arsenal to fight the American threat.
Wooden huts
The Lighthouse Factory deep in the Urals was founded in 1948 to develop a major large-scale supply of plutonium for the Soviet atomic bomb. Hundreds of workers are needed for the job.
Ozersk was founded nearby, originally as a kind of guard with wooden huts to accommodate workers. But over the next few years, it grew into a modern city of 100,000 people, with many of its citizens working at the Mayak factory.
Today, many of the restrictions in Ozersk have been eased
American environmental historian Kate Brown describes Ozersk and its “fellow” nuclear cities in the United States as “Plutopias,” a combination of the words plutonium and utopia. Professor Brown, who writes “Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Nuclear Cities and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters,” told Nine.com.au that Ozersk residents are the envy of most Russians.
“When I wrote about plutonium, I mean those special cities with limited access exclusively for plutonium plant operators, which were well paid and lived comfortably. The people who lived in them were “chosen,” says Professor Brown.
“Plutonium cities like Ozersk provide great opportunities because not only are apartments very cheap and salaries very good, but schools are also excellent,” she said.
Barbed wire fences
Ozersk did not appear on the maps and its citizens were erased from the national census. Residents have even been barred from contacting family and friends for years. For decades, the city has been surrounded by barbed wire fences and security posts, and entry is tightly controlled.
Professor Brown says that both the Russian and American governments are ready to take all possible steps to develop an advantage in nuclear weapons. And in 1957, one of the cooling systems at the Mayak plant near Ozersk failed, causing one of the plant’s nuclear waste tanks to overheat and explode.
Although no one was injured in the blast, more than 20 million pieces of free nuclear waste were blown away and scattered in nearby villages.
The full effects of lighthouse radiation and other incidents take years, even decades, to become fully apparent, says Professor Brown.
Environmental disaster
“Plutonium disasters were not big explosions overnight. These were slow catastrophes that had been going on for four decades, “she said.
Employees of the Mayak factory have ordered the waste to be dumped in nearby lakes and rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean. Professor Brown says one of the lakes near the lighthouses is so polluted with plutonium that locals rename it the “Lake of Death”.
Thanks to the exhaustive efforts of the Soviet government and the mysterious nature of the location, for a long time no one outside the Lake District even knew what had happened. It was only when removed Soviet scientists uncovered the cover-up of the 1970s that the world realized the scale of the disaster.
Other explosions
A radioactive spill is also occurring at other secret Russian military and industrial sites. In August 2019, a brief increase in radioactivity was registered after a mysterious and deadly explosion at the Russian Navy test site in Nionoxy on the White Sea.
The blast killed two soldiers and five nuclear engineers.
Today, the Mayak plant serves peaceful purposes for reprocessing spent radioactive fuel. In Ozersk, many restrictions have been eased and residents are free to leave whenever they want.
But the city is still surrounded by thick walls and protective fences, and the entry of foreigners is tightly controlled by government officials.
And despite efforts to clean up the environment, radiation pollution remains a threat to residents’ health.
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