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A Nuclear Generator of Clouds: Accidents and Radioactive Contamination Identified on Declassified Satellite Photographs in the Mayak Chemical Combine, Southern Urals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2021

Grzegorz Kiarszys Open the ORCID record for Grzegorz Kiarszys [Opens in a new window]
Grzegorz Kiarszys*
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology Szczecin University ul. Krakowska 71–79 71-017 Szczecin Poland Emil: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Mayak Chemical Combine was one of the most secretive places in the Soviet Union. It was built in the southern Urals, close to Kyshtym. The facility produced weapons-grade plutonium and other radioactive isotopes for the Soviet nuclear military programme. Fugitives from behind the Iron Curtain mentioned the site, usually due to accidents and peculiar, unexplained observations. Such reports were often treated in the West as exaggerated or fictional, as they spoke of large-scale disasters, deportations and vast landscape transformations. This paper aims to present the research potential of declassified Cold War intelligence records for archaeological landscape studies of off-limits military sites. To outline a somewhat broader perspective, I will combine those sources with contemporary historical knowledge and modern remote sensing data. The analysis will be focused on the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] satellite imagery (CORONA and GAMBIT) from the 1960s to the beginning of the 1970s. The discussed sources recorded outcomes of nuclear disasters, hundreds of square kilometres of uninhabited wasteland, abandoned villages, disappearing lakes, dying forests, diverted rivers, and other features related to this clandestine plutonium facility.

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , August 2022 , pp. 409 - 429
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

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