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28-455: The town was founded on the shores of Lake Irtyash in 1947. Until 1994, it was known as Chelyabinsk-65 , and even earlier, as Chelyabinsk-40 (the digits are the last digits of the postal code , and the name is that of the nearest big city, which was a common practice of giving names to closed towns). Codenamed City 40 , Ozersk was the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear weapons program after

56-411: A building located 200 meters from the explosion site. They did not immediately notice the polluted streets, canteens, shops, schools, and kindergartens. In the first hours after the explosion, radioactive substances were brought into the city on the wheels of cars and buses, on the clothes and shoes of industrial workers. The most polluted was the central Lenin street, especially when entering the city from

84-532: A closed town because of its proximity to the Mayak plant, one of the sources of Soviet plutonium during the Cold War , and now a Russian facility for processing nuclear waste and recycling nuclear material from decommissioned nuclear weapons . The plant itself covers an area of approximately 90 km and employs about 15,000 people. The Mayak is primarily engaged in reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from

112-494: A kilometer high, the dust flickered with an orange-red light and settled on buildings and people. The rest of the waste discarded from the tank remained at the industrial site. Reactor plants got into the contamination zone. Immediately after the explosion at the facilities of the chemical plant, dosimetrists noted a sharp increase in the background radiation. Many industrial buildings, vehicles, concrete and railways were contaminated. The main spot of radioactive contamination fell on

140-502: Is 243 kilometres (151 mi) long, and its basin covers 7,600 square kilometres (2,900 sq mi). It begins by the once-secret nuclear processing town of Ozyorsk about 80 kilometres (50 mi) northwest of Chelyabinsk and flows east then northeast to the small town of Dalmatovo to flow into the mid-part of the Iset , a tributary of the Tobol . Its basin is close to and north of

168-849: Is a 2022 historical fiction novel by Natasha Pulley . Most of the novel is set in City 40. Types of inhabited localities in Russia The classification system of inhabited localities in Russia and some other post-Soviet states has certain peculiarities compared with those in other countries. During the Soviet time, each of the republics of the Soviet Union , including the Russian SFSR , had its own legislative documents dealing with classification of inhabited localities. After

196-688: The Dissolution of the Soviet Union , the task of developing and maintaining such classification in Russia was delegated to the federal subjects . While currently there are certain peculiarities to classifications used in many federal subjects, they are all still largely based on the system used in the RSFSR. In all federal subjects, the inhabited localities are classified into two major categories: urban and rural. Further divisions of these categories vary slightly from one federal subject to another, but they all follow common trends described below. In 1957,

224-609: The Eastern Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT). The matter was quietly and secretly covered up, and few either inside or outside Russia were aware of the full scope of the disaster until 1980. Before the 1957 accident, much of the waste was dumped into the Techa River , which it severely contaminated as well as residents of dozens of riverside villages such as Muslyumovo, who relied on the river as their sole source of drinking, washing and bathing water. After

252-546: The English language , one gymnasium , physics-mathematics lyceum, three professional colleges, Southern-Ural Polytechnical College, Music College, Ozyorsk Engineering Institute (an affiliate of National Research Nuclear University MEPhI ), and affiliates of Yekaterinburg 's and Chelyabinsk 's universities. City 40 is a documentary film about the town, by Samira Goetschel , released in July 2016. The Half Life of Valery K

280-623: The Miass , longer than these rivers apart from the Tobol. From 1949 to 1956 the Mayak complex dumped an estimated 76 million cubic metres (2.7 × 10  cu ft) of radioactive waste water into the Techa River, a cumulative dispersal of 2.75  MCi (102  PBq ) of radioactivity. As many as forty villages, with a combined population of about 28,000 residents, lined the river at

308-528: The Second World War . In 1994, it was granted town status and renamed Ozyorsk. Within the framework of administrative divisions , it has, together with six rural localities , official status as the Town of Ozyorsk —an administrative unit with a status equal to that of the districts . As a municipal division , the town of Ozyorsk has the official name Ozyorsky Urban Okrug . Ozyorsk was and remains

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336-443: The 1957 accident, dumping in the Techa River officially ceased, but the waste material was dumped in convenient shallow lakes near the plant instead, of which 7 have been officially identified. Of particular concern is Lake Karachay , the closest lake to the plant (now notorious as the most contaminated place on Earth ) where roughly 4.4 exabecquerels of high-level liquid waste (75-90% of the total radioactivity released by Chernobyl)

364-528: The Central Committee of the CPSU, Industry Minister E.P. Slavsky wrote: "Investigating the causes of the accident on the spot, the commission believes that the main culprits of this incident are the head of the radiochemical plant and the chief engineer of this plant, who committed a gross violation of the technological regulations for the operation of storage of radioactive solutions". In the order for

392-548: The Ministry of Medium Machine Building, signed by E.P. Slavsky, it was noted that the reason for the explosion was insufficient cooling of the container, which led to an increase in the temperature in it and to the creation of conditions for the explosion of salts. This was later confirmed in experiments carried out by the Central Factory Laboratory (CPL). The director of the plant M. A. Demyanovich took all

420-464: The US were the first two cities in the world to produce plutonium for use in Cold War atomic bombs . The Chelyabinsk region has been reported as being one of the most polluted places on Earth, having previously been a center of production of weapons-grade plutonium . Ozyorsk and the surrounding countryside have been heavily contaminated by industrial pollution from the Mayak plutonium plant since

448-582: The area immediately around the plant. Over time, the sum of radionuclide contamination is estimated to be 2-3 times the release from the explosions from the Chernobyl accident. In 1957, the Mayak plant was the site of a major disaster , releasing more radioactive contamination than the meltdown at Chernobyl. An improperly stored underground tank of high-level liquid nuclear waste exploded, contaminating thousands of square kilometres of territory, now known as

476-464: The blame for the accident, for which he was relieved of his duties as director. The radiation accident in the Urals posed a whole series of completely new tasks for science and practice. It was necessary to develop measures for the radiation protection of the population. An Experimental Station was created in the Urals, which played a leading role in studying the consequences of the accident and developing

504-440: The industrial site, and Shkolnaya street, where the management of the plant lived. Subsequently, the flow of radioactive substances was suspended. It was forbidden to enter the city from industrial sites for cars and buses. Site workers at the checkpoint got off the buses and passed the checkpoint. This requirement extended to everyone, regardless of rank and official position. Shoes were washed on flowing trays. The territory, which

532-418: The late 1940s. The Mayak plant was one of the largest producers of weapons-grade plutonium for the Soviet Union during much of the Cold War , particularly during the Soviet atomic bomb program . Built and operated with great haste and disregard for safety, largely out of gaps in information, between 1945 and 1957 the plant dumped and released large amounts of solid, liquid and gaseous radioactive material into

560-556: The necessary recommendations. While the environmental impact of the disaster was immense, the contamination of the local populace was equally devastating. The average person living in Ozyorsk, 8 km from the Mayak Nuclear Facility, had a long term radioactive burden on their body at 17 Bq . Because of the large amounts of radioactive materials that were discharged into the atmosphere, over 22 small towns throughout

588-643: The nuclear submarines and icebreakers and from nuclear power plants. Commercially, it produces cobalt-60 , iridium-192 , and carbon-14 . The town's coat of arms depicts a flame-colored salamander . Southern-Urals Construction Department ( ЗАО "Южноуральское управление строительства" ) is another major enterprise. Its activities include construction for atomic industry needs, production of concrete constructions and construction materials. Main products of Plant of Wiring Products #2 ( ЗАО "Завод электромонтажных изделий №2" ) are low-voltage devices for military-industrial establishments. Ozyorsk and Richland in

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616-444: The procedures for categorizing urban-type settlements were further refined. Multiple types of rural localities exist, some common through the whole territory of Russia, some specific to certain federal subjects. The most common types include: Techa River The Techa ( Russian : Те́ча , [ˈtʲet͡ɕə] ) is an eastward river on the eastern flank of the southern Ural Mountains noted for its nuclear contamination. It

644-459: The production association "Beacon" in Ozersk one of the containers exploded, in which high-level waste was kept. The explosion completely destroyed a stainless steel container located in a concrete canyon 8.2 meters deep. In total, there were 14 containers ("cans") in the canyon. One tenth of the radioactive substances were lifted into the air. After the explosion, a column of smoke and dust rose up to

672-544: The region were evacuated. Some cities took two years for a full evacuation to take place. Reports indicated that humans living in the affected area during the time that the disaster took place and their offspring have developed problems with reproductive functions, mortality, age structure, and sex deformities. These populations were recorded at experiencing a radioactive exposure of 40-500 mSv . There are seventeen different cultural and public-service institutions. There are sixteen secondary schools, two schools specializing in

700-408: The territory of industrial sites, and 256 cubic meters of radioactive solutions were poured into the tank. The radioactive cloud passed the city of atomic scientists and passed by due to the successful location of the city - when it was laid, the wind rose was taken into account. As a result of the explosion of the container, a concrete slab weighing 160 tons was torn off. A brick wall was destroyed in

728-499: The time. For 24 of them, the Techa was a major source of water; 23 of them were eventually evacuated. In the past 45 years, about half a million people in the region have been irradiated in one or more of the incidents, exposing them to as much as 20 times the radiation suffered by the Chernobyl disaster victims. The Tobol is a sub-tributary of the Ob , being linked by the final part of

756-532: Was dumped and concentrated in the shallow 45-hectare (110-acre) lake over several decades. In addition to the radioactive risks, the airborne lead and particulate soot levels in Ozyorsk (along with much of the Ural industrial region) are also very high—roughly equal to the levels encountered along busy roadsides in the era predating unleaded gasoline and catalytic converters —due to the presence of numerous lead smelters . On Sunday September 29, 1957 at 4:22 pm, in

784-410: Was exposed to radioactive contamination as a result of the explosion at the chemical plant, was named "East Ural Radioactive Trace" (EURT). Its total length was about 300 km, with a width of 5–10 km. This area was inhabited by about 270 thousand people. Fields, pastures, reservoirs, forests were polluted on the territory, which turned out to be unsuitable for further use. In a memo addressed to

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