A top-secret city in the Aral Sea. Renaissance Island or Death Island

From Nicholas to the Renaissance

The idea that it was necessary to create a scientific center for the development of biological weapons in the USSR appeared in the early years of Soviet power, and the command of the Red Army was almost immediately puzzled by the choice of a place where secret object. To test virus strains, it was necessary to find big Island, at least 5 kilometers from the coast, and the authorities even assumed that the case would take place on Baikal, but in the end they chose other “candidates”: Solovki in the White Sea, Gorodomlya Island on Seliger, and, finally, the island of Nicholas I in the Aral sea.

MASTAK

At first, Gorodomlya was given for research - in the 1930s, the first foot-and-mouth disease institute in the USSR was built on the island, where the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine was created, and in 1937 the Biotechnical Institute was transferred here, which is engaged in the creation of vaccines for the army and the development of biological weapons. However, during the war, it became clear that such institutions should be located as far as possible from the borders with enemy states, so the testing laboratory was soon moved to Nikolai Island, which by that time had received a new name - Vozrozhdeniye Island.

This place was really ideal for working with deadly viruses, so after the war, a deserted piece of land with an area of ​​\u200b\u200babout 200 square kilometers, located in a dry, hot climate on the border of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, became a top-secret Soviet base-proving ground for testing deadly diseases. In the north of the island, a military town of Kantubek (Aralsk-7) was built, in which houses were erected for the employees of the training ground with their families and officers, a kindergarten, a school, a canteen, shops, a stadium, barracks and their own power plant were built. In addition, the Barkhan airfield was built not far from the town - the only one in the Union that had four runways, which were needed in order to land planes without problems, despite strong changeable winds.

Zone of discomfort

No matter how much effort and money was spent on the construction of an airport and a residential area, both of them did not make sense without a third, located far from these objects and an absolutely closed laboratory area and a test site, over which strains of anthrax, bubonic plague, brucellosis, tularemia were sprayed from an airplane and other especially dangerous infections that were brought here from enterprises of the military-industrial complex in Kirov, Yekaterinburg (then Sverdlovsk) and Stepnogorsk. The landfill was located on the southern part of the island - this was done so that the winds carried the aerosol cloud even further south, after which, of course, decontamination measures were taken.

Alexander Afanasiev 1979 — 1981

The system was simple and well-oiled: in the affected area, the soldiers placed cages with experimental animals, sprayed strains, and then, wearing chemical protection suits, transferred the animals to the laboratory. Monkeys were the most common enemy, chosen because the respiratory organs of primates most closely resemble those of humans. Experimental monkeys were delivered to Aralsk-7 from Abkhazia, but sometimes they were brought from abroad - for example, five hundred monkeys were brought from distant Africa to test the anthrax strain Anthrax-836. By the way, in 1971, the employees of the enterprise nevertheless tried on the role of experimental animals - a cloud based on a strain of enhanced smallpox covered a research vessel, as a result of which several people died from the disease.

In the mid-70s, Kantubek began to flourish: while monkeys were dying of tularemia on one side of the island, about one and a half thousand people lived on the other side. Children studied, adults worked, walked in the park on weekends, went to the cinema and arranged romantic dates on the coast Aral Sea, which in those days still really resembled the sea. A quiet, measured life flowed here until the 90s, and then Aralsk-7 was closed. Firstly, since the 60s, the Aral Sea has been shrinking year after year, while the area of ​​the island, on the contrary, has increased, and it was difficult to guarantee the secrecy of the project, and secondly, after the collapse of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev closed the biological weapons development program.

Alexander Afanasiev 1979 — 1981

This decree was a bolt from the blue for the residents of Kantubek - the evacuation took place at such a speed that people left all the equipment and furniture in the apartments, the laboratory staff abandoned equipment, devices and vehicles, and the dangerous strains were hastily destroyed and sealed in burial grounds. Curiously, neither the site itself nor the traces of disinfection deterred the looters who looted the site over the next few years.

ghosts of the past

Today, Vozrozhdeniye Island has turned into a peninsula - the sea has become so shallow that the island has merged with the “mainland” at one of its edges and has become accessible to everyone. But neither this fact, nor the conclusions of epidemiologists that this area no longer poses any threat, saved Kantubek from the fate of dead city, where only rare stalkers visit from time to time. Not so long ago, a border guard post was set up in Aralsk so that no one could enter the territory of the landfill.

MASTAK

On the one hand, the biological threat is not as dangerous as radiation, on the other hand, everyone knows that this land contains the remains of experimental animals and burial sites with viruses that were not destroyed during the liquidation. About five years ago, newspapers wrote that the graves had been destroyed, but no one confirmed this information.

The abandoned ghost town of Aralsk-7 has also received its portion of glory - the gloomy history of this place inspired video game developers, and Renaissance Island has become almost the main location in the Call of Duty: Black Ops game, and Command & Conquer: Generals has a mission in which needs to capture the island by the forces of a terrorist group.

Watch Cities of the Living and the Dead every Saturday at 20.00 on the Discovery Channel.

For almost 45 years, a top-secret center for the development and testing of bacteriological weapons has existed on an island in the middle of the Aral Sea. There were laboratories with a residential town, its own airfield, power plant and, of course, a testing ground where large-scale tests of various biological agents were carried out, including anthrax, plague, tularemia, brucellosis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, typhoid fever, KU fever, botulinum toxin. Now all this, including biological burial grounds, is completely abandoned.

On the left - the remains of the only airfield in the Soviet Union with four runways, resembling a wind rose in their location. It's always windy on the island strong wind constantly changing its direction. Depending on the current weather, the planes landed on one or another lane. On the right is the abandoned village of Kontubek. There is a detailed aerial photograph of the area on google.maps.

On this island in ARAL SEA there was a secret Soviet POLYGON for testing bacteriological weapons. With a polygon REVIVAL ISLAND there are still many rumors and speculations, which this publication is intended to dispel.

Vladimir Brovkin

Probably, everyone at least once heard about the drying up of the Aral Sea. The main reason for this process is the analysis of the rivers feeding the sea (Syrdarya and Amudarya) for irrigation of fields. If back in the early 1960s about 60 cubic kilometers of water per year entered the sea, then in the early 1970s it was already about 40, in the early 1980s about 15; in the mid-1980s, this figure fell to 1, and in the 1990s it stabilized at around 5 cubic kilometers per year.

By 2001, the sea level had dropped (compared to 1960) already by 20 meters, the volume of water decreased by 3 times, the area of ​​the water surface - by 2 times. Due to the concomitant increase in water salinity (from 8 g/l in 1970 to 22 g/l by the early 1990s), almost all fish species died in the Aral Sea, and only in the northern, separated part, where the Syr Darya now flows ( the so-called Small Sea), with a water mineralization of about 20 g / l, it is still possible to breed salt-tolerant fish species (mainly Gloss flounder). But before the Aral Sea was famous for its huge fish wealth.

Vast areas of the exposed seabed (this is a strip 30-50 km wide in the south and 80-100 km in the east of the sea) are covered with deposits of sea salt mixed with mineral fertilizers and pesticides (which for decades were washed away with irrigation water from the fields and carried away by rivers to the sea ). This poisonous dust is transported by the wind for hundreds of kilometers. The inhabitants of Baikonur, as well as the entire Aral Sea region, are familiar with this phenomenon firsthand: in spring, summer and autumn, with a western and southwestern wind, the area is shrouded in a whitish salt mist. Outwardly harmless, this haze entails terrible consequences: inhalation of poisonous dust reduces a person’s immunity, undermines his health, leads to allergic and other diseases (so common in the Aral Sea region and, in particular, in Baikonur). Mankind, unfortunately, is unable to stop this ecological catastrophe. On a satellite image: a salt dust storm on the eastern coast of the Aral Sea.

But the Aral Sea is dangerous not only with poisonous dust. In Soviet times, on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea (about 400 km from Baikonur), there was a testing ground for the production and testing of bacteriological weapons. Over the past year, a lot of rumors and conjectures have been circulating around this test site (especially more frequent after the terrorist attacks in the United States): according to a number of reports, part of the stocks of dangerous infectious diseases(including anthrax) was buried at the landfill. The current situation is especially piquant due to the clear interest of the United States in the Renaissance Island: it is likely that this is not so much a concern for environmental safety and the fight against terrorism, but a desire to get to know the test site better. For even dilapidated laboratory buildings and partially dismantled equipment can tell a lot to the eyes of a professional...

Let's try, by analyzing the press publications, to understand the mysterious and intricate problem of the Renaissance Island. First, we suggest you look at a satellite image (source: National Geographic Society, USA). On it, roads are marked in red and yellow, the Moscow-Tashkent railway is in black, the former railway is in orange coastline sea ​​(before the process of shallowing). Well visible vast areas exposed seabed and Renaissance Island, which has increased many times in size.

Discovered in 1848 by the expedition of Lieutenant A. Butakov, the island of Vozrozhdenie (then called the island named after Tsar Nicholas 1) was ideally suited for fishing and hunting. Huge herds of saigas (steppe antelope) grazed on a territory overgrown with shrubs in 216 square kilometers, two bays abounded with fish and waterfowl.

This piece of land remained such a paradise for exactly one hundred years, until the end of 1948, when the first ships with passengers unusual for these places approached its pier. Since that day, the coveted island has become inaccessible to hunters and fishermen. Only during the strongest storms, which were very frequent on the blue sea itself and killed many sailors, the fishermen were allowed to wait out the bad weather in one of the bays.

In 1948, the fish factory located on the island was closed, and a military unit settled in its place. By the end of 1949, a runway was equipped on Vozrozhdenie, capable of receiving military transport aircraft. A few kilometers from it, the village of Kontubek grew from two and three-story barracks and residential buildings for the families of junior scientific personnel and personnel of the military unit of the so-called chemical troops. In the center of the settlement stood the headquarters building. On the outskirts there were parks of special military and automotive equipment. A so-called laboratory building was built a few kilometers from the village. There are several barrack-type buildings around. Near the landfill and another powerful power plant.

A small biological test site on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea operated in 1936-37. Subsequently, the biopolygon resumed its work in 1954. It was the largest test site where bacteriological weapons based on anthrax, plague, tularemia, Q fever, brucellosis, glanders, and other especially dangerous infections were tested by spraying and detonation. a large number of model reagents. Animals were tested - rats, guinea pigs and even baboons.

Simultaneously with the training ground, a stud farm was built on the Kulandy peninsula - especially for the needs of the military. Dozens of horses were transported to the island: some were tested, but most were bled to prepare serum - a nutrient medium for breeding deadly strains. The corpses of horses were buried somewhere in remote parts of the island.

There were several thousand military personnel and scientists on the island itself. In addition, several military units (including the Air Force and the Navy) were stationed in the city of Aralsk on the northern coast of Kazakhstan, where the headquarters of the test site was also stationed.

What the military did on this island, only a few knew, the rest could only guess. Think and be silent. Although, as such, there was no sign of non-disclosure of military secrets. Secret experiments were carried out not only on Renaissance Island. For example, control devices were installed on Komsomolsky Island. The military had a base designated by the name of the seaside town of Aralsk-5. "Five" immediately after the closure of the landfill was given to the local authorities. Once there, about 400 local residents worked in civilian positions and rough work, now there is devastation and nostalgia for the good old days. An approximate plan of work on the island of Vozrozhdeniye (officially called Aralsk-7) came from Moscow. Reliable information about the weather on the island was the most valuable - meteorological support was provided by the specialists of the test site itself. Having received it, the military could plan to conduct exercises. Usually, in winter, research activity on the island was limited to laboratory work in closed conditions, and only with the onset of summer, from the end of May to September, the experiments, as they say, were taken out into the fresh air. The military needed a steady wind. To 2-4 meters per second and for 4-5 hours, no less. Sometimes I had to wait for a "go-ahead" for two or three days: local winds are naughty ones that constantly change their direction ...

All tests carried out on Vozrozhdeniye Island were accompanied by anti-epidemic measures, the test site was treated with disinfectants. In addition, the air temperature on the island in summer reaches 45 degrees Celsius, which made it possible, 10 days after the next test, to “naturally” “reduce almost to zero” the level of bacteriological contamination of the soil.

In the last two years, the Western, Russian and Kazakh press began to mention that in 1988 about twenty 250-liter stainless steel containers filled with anthrax pathogens, delivered from a military facility in Sverdlovsk, were buried on Vozrozhdeniye Island in 1988. A fact that has not been confirmed by anyone, but not refuted either.

The landfill functioned until 1992, then the military contingent was redeployed, the biological laboratory was dismantled, some of the equipment was taken out of the island by the military, and some remained buried on the island. Securely closed from prying eyes, the island quickly became depopulated. People left all the furniture and even TVs in their houses. Two car parks were left untouched. The picture was supplemented by brand new trucks "ZILs", "Kirovets", other tractors, workshops, warehouses of spare parts, canned meat and uniforms. From 1993 to 1998, the island of Vozrozhdenie, which is territorially related to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, was actually given into the hands of lovers of easy money, automotive equipment, power plants were looted, and the laboratory building and adjacent barracks remained relatively untouched.

In recent years, only "metalworkers" have visited the island, and you can get here only with them - that is, illegally. Apparently, a lot of things can be dug out of the ground on the island.

Now the road from Aralsk to Vozrozhdeniye Island takes about a day. First, 300 kilometers along the steppe off-road to the village on the Kulandy peninsula, then 3 hours by sea on a motorboat. It is 45 kilometers from the current coast to the military camp. The town is impressive in size. There are more than a dozen three-story barracks alone, plus officers' houses, two clubs - a soldier's and an officer's, a garage box 300 meters long, an elementary school building.

The laboratory building and adjacent barracks are unusual and mysterious. Judging by the well-preserved inscriptions and tablets, some of the barracks were mostly inhabited by women. Moreover, judging by the conditions of their detention, they were most likely prisoners. In the laboratory building itself, several rooms, similar to examination rooms, are equipped with gynecological chairs. The room next to them has only one hermetically sealed door. From the ceiling, about a meter short of the floor, a stainless steel pipe descends. In another room, several dozen beautifully executed male and female mannequins with bendable arms and legs are stored. A rich library on biology and a huge warehouse of all kinds of flasks and special utensils have been preserved.

The iron doors to most of the basements are welded on and have not been opened to this day. Safes of various sizes are scattered everywhere. Between the village and the laboratory building there is a strange object that looks like a boiler room, but there are no boilers there. Three pipes, painted in different colors, go from the tanks towards the laboratory building. It is strange, but in the forty-four years of its existence, the secret garrison has never acquired its own cemetery. There was a crematorium here.

In 1998, geologists, ecologists and epidemiologists, including American ones, arrived here. Overseas experts concluded that before their departure, the former owners buried strains of anthrax that had become unnecessary.

At the same time, Uzbek and American ecologists concluded that the ecological situation on the island is quite favorable. According to eyewitnesses, out of curiosity, drillers opened one secret underground burial. Powder - the causative agent of a terrible disease, they are unlikely to have found. For, fortunately, they are all alive. With a high degree of certainty it can be argued; even if something terrible was buried on the island, it could not fall into the hands of international terrorists.

Meanwhile, at present, every year the danger of the spread of infection can be aggravated, as the Aral Sea is getting shallower, and, accordingly, the island is increasing in size. Moreover, the island of Vozrozhdeniye from the side of neighboring Uzbekistan was already connected to the mainland in shallow water last year, and it can already be called a peninsula. It is not difficult to assume that the bridge existing between the island and the mainland will make it easy for infected animals to migrate "to the mainland".

With the complete silence of the Uzbek authorities, the US military is beginning to study Soviet developments in the field of bacteriological weapons, which at one time were of a strictly secret nature. In the fall of 2001, the first group of American military and bacteriological weapons specialists landed on the Uzbek territory of Vozrozhdeniye Island, located in the Aral Sea. This action was carried out within the framework of an agreement signed between Uzbekistan and the United States. Recall that within the framework of the agreements reached, the American side allocates $6 million to the Ministry of Defense of Uzbekistan, allegedly intended for disinfection on the island.

However, the humanitarian intentions of the United States in this situation raise certain doubts. The point is that the secret military base, which from 1949 to 1992 conducted research in the field of creating bacteriological weapons, today does not pose a danger and is not a likely source of the spread of anthrax spores or plague. The remains of the animals on which the experiments were carried out, or rather the ashes preserved after the burning of their corpses, are located in a specially equipped underground storage. According to a number of specialists - biologists and epidemiologists who worked on the island in the 60-80s, the system for destroying the bodies of infected animals was so well developed that a recurrence of the infection is excluded.

What attracts Americans? It seems that, first of all, this is an abandoned research center complex and the equipment that it still has. According to Uzbek scientists, who wished to remain incognito, it would not be difficult for professionals in this situation to determine with a high degree of certainty the main areas in which Soviet specialists worked here, as well as to determine the level of knowledge they had achieved.

This version is also supported by the fact that the United States showed no interest in hundreds of cattle burial grounds located nearby on the Ustyurt plateau. It was here that the so-called eighth chemical protection station was located in the Soviet period, an object more than secret at that time. The fact is that the tasks assigned to the military and civilian personnel of the station included the search and collection of the remains of animals that died as a result of tests of bacteriological preparations and burial.

The testing technology is also interesting. From the military aviation base of long-range bombers, located in Russia (the city of Engels), at one o'clock, a Tu-22 KM aircraft took off, on board of which there was a bacteriological weapon created on Vozrozhdeniye Island. Above the territory of the Ustyurt Plateau, from a height of ten thousand meters, bacteria were thrown into the atmosphere, and the saigas, who were within the radius of their influence, are in trouble. After that, dressed in special suits that practically exclude the possibility of infection, the military and epidemiologists, often combining both professions in one person, took the tissues they needed from the corpses of saigas and sent them for research on the island, to other closed centers operating in similar directions.

The corpses were buried, drawing up a passport for each cattle burial ground. Burials were carried out according to the relevant instructions, and in the passport itself, in addition to the coordinates of the burial ground, over twelve more parameters were entered, allowing you to have the most information about it. complete description. Treatment of each such burial was carried out with Lysol. According to the same scientists, it is very effective: the source of the plague dies under its influence in one and a half to two hours, and anthrax - within three hours.

And yet, if we try to theoretically compare the degree of danger of the brilliantly equipped storage facilities on Vozrozhdeniye Island (lead containers, armored rooms that can withstand a nuclear strike, a cascade of the same armored doors, and so on) and the cattle burial grounds scattered around Ustyurt, the latter clearly deserve more attention.

Considering that the Uzbek authorities keep absolute silence about the signed agreement, and official representatives of the authorities do not make contact with the press, it remains to be assumed that the US action is by no means humanitarian, but purely intelligence. The same $6 million allegedly allocated for disinfection work is most likely a payment to high-ranking officials here for the courtesy rendered to the Americans.

Summarizing the above, it should be noted that, apparently, the landfill on Vozrozhdeniye Island does not pose a significant danger to the health of the inhabitants of the region. But the growing presence of the United States (in Central Asia in general and in the Aral Sea region in particular) may be contrary to the strategic interests of Russia and Kazakhstan.

Baikonur, spring 2002

The Aral Sea has been dying for a long time. Back in the second half of the 70s of the last century, tens of kilometers of salt marshes and gray sand separated the former coast from the water surface. Somewhere in those days, our all-terrain vehicle, maneuvering between the lakes of the salt marshes, finally got to the pontoon boat. We changed seats and swam to a narrow strip of land that could be seen on the horizon.

We’re going in vain, comrade major general, - the ensign, the boat commander reported, - they won’t let us on the island, it’s strict with this.

How they won’t let me in, the Commander personally ordered me, ”General Korolev was indignant (although he lied!)

And they do not obey anyone, a top secret organization there, - the ensign muttered contritely.

And in fact, before we even got close to the concrete pier, an armored boat rolled away from it and abruptly crossed our path.

Who are they? - thundered megaphone

Major General Korolev, head of the engineering troops of the TurkVO, replied the ensign.

Turn around immediately or I'll open fire! - the megaphone growled and the quadruple anti-aircraft guns glared menacingly at our katerishko. It was felt that they were not joking here, and under the furious swearing of the general, we went home, to the strip of sands.

The general seethed. He was warmly welcomed at the most closed "sites" of the test sites of Sary-Shagan, Sary-Ozek and Emba, and was driven away from some lousy island with machine guns. In the camp, he immediately called the chief of staff of the TurkVO, Lieutenant General Budakovsky.

Well, they did the right thing. There is nothing for you to do on this island. They're poisoning the monkeys there. They have not yet reached the sapper generals. Yes, and in terms of drunkenness there, you wouldn’t break off, - sarcastically concluded the chief of staff, who knew Korolev’s manners well.

So ingloriously ended the attempt of the head of the TurkVO to inspect Mysterious Island Renaissance, the largest in the Aral Sea. At that time, the general - and indeed none of us - knew that one of the most secret objects of the "evil empire" was located on the island - the main testing ground for the sinister department that was preparing biological weapons of war. The place was chosen as the most appropriate: the dying Aral was in complete harmony with what they were doing on the island with a name that was directly opposite to its terrible destiny.

Biopolygon on Vozrozhdeniye Island: evidence

A biological test site on Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea operated as early as 1936-37. Subsequently, the biopolygon resumed its work in 1954. Here was the military town of Kantubek (Aralsk-7), where 1.5 thousand people lived. In the 1980s, a unique airfield was built on the island, consisting of four concrete runways in the form of a wind rose, which made it possible to take off in any weather. It was the largest test site where bacteriological weapons based on anthrax, plague, tularemia, Q fever, brucellosis, glanders, and other especially dangerous infections were tested by spraying and detonation. It is symbolic - in the forty-four years of its existence, the secret garrison has not acquired its own cemetery. A crematorium and a reinforced concrete deep sarcophagus functioned here.

There is reliable evidence that biological weapons were tested on prisoners on the island. I will cite the testimony of one of them, who managed to survive: “I was on Renaissance Island from the 77th to the 81st. All these years that I was on the island, experiments were carried out on me. The test program was varied. In my building, experiments were mainly carried out on the brain and psyche, influencing with recipes. But the main experiments were carried out on women. Their pregnant women were taken somewhere. Many women died, from what and for what reason I don’t know either ... Experiments with military recipes were carried out mainly on Komsomolsky Island. In 1978, a lot of prisoners were immediately brought (more than 100 people), on the second day they were all sent to Komsomolsky Island. Then prisoners were sent there many times. I don’t know their further fate, but they never returned from there ... ”

And here is the testimony of a former soldier: “The whole island was divided into sections, and each required a special permit. I worked near the airfield - big planes landing and taking off every day. But as soon as the car came in for landing, we were herded into the barracks and kept locked up for several hours. What or who was brought to the island, we were not supposed to know - soldiers with machine guns stood along the landing strip, not allowing even officers who did not have permission to enter the planes. But the sentries said: they say, today they brought so many prisoners, well, those who were sentenced to death. For my service in this way, many hundreds of them were delivered to the island. And none of them returned...

Thus, today there is no doubt for what sinister purposes the island with such a romantic name was intended. The organization to which he belonged was also quite innocently called "Biopreparat", a huge scientific and production structure that developed and manufactured biological weapons of mass destruction. Work on its creation in the USSR began in 1933 at a specially established research institute of the People's Commissariat of Defense.

Preparing the USSR for total biological and chemical warfare

All these years, its tasks remained the same, but in 1973, along with this research institute, the powerful Ogarkov System began to function, named after its first leader, General Vsevolod Ogarkov. The system included 18 scientific institutes with 25 thousand employees, 6 factories and a large storage facility in Siberia.

The most important enterprise where the development and pilot production of biological weapons of selective action was carried out was the 19th military campus - a top-secret object of the Ministry of Defense, located in the southern part of Sverdlovsk. The structure of the enterprise itself consisted of research institutes and the plant itself, located deep underground.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the state began to develop a fundamentally new type of biological weapon. Specialists behind the barbed wire of the 19th town decided the most difficult task set as part of the preparation of the USSR for total chemical and biological warfare: to synthesize fundamentally new strains of viruses that kill men in their prime: from 17 to 45-55 years. They were transported by air, were stable in a wide range of air temperatures, and when ingested gave external signs and symptoms of pneumonia. The new strain was coded as "Anthrax".

The discoveries of military microbiologists were especially deeply classified after the signing in 1972 by the Soviet Union of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development and Production of Biological Weapons.

The events of 1979 and the wave of outright lies and speculation that followed make us return to the distant past. Only in 1990 did the public learn that on the night of April 3rd to 4th, 1979, an emergency release of a microbiological cloud had occurred through one of the exhaust systems.

Whether it was an accidental explosion, history is silent, but it turned out that one of the districts of Sverdlovsk suddenly turned into a testing ground for the USSR Ministry of Defense. Already in the afternoon of April 4, the first sick and dying appeared among the workers and military personnel of the 32nd campus. Starting from April 5, including May and even June, 5-10 people died every day in the accident area. Death mowed down mainly men aged 17 to 55 years. But women also died. Increased mortality in Sverdlovsk was observed throughout the summer of 1979. The total losses from this monstrous experiment of testing weapons on living people have not yet been estimated.

It is symbolic that even now the version of the Sverdlovsk regional party committee (headed at that time by the future first president of Russia Boris Yeltsin) about the spread of infection from a dead cow infected with anthrax is officially supported. Not a single Russian official has acknowledged the production of sex-selective biological weapons by the Soviet Union. Although the predominance of dead men in the prime of life is a fact that does not require proof.

Anthrax burial grounds

In the spring of 1988, at the height of Gorbachev's perestroika, Washington received intelligence that Soviet Union, contrary to the 1972 Convention, produces the so-called anthrax, an anthrax combat agent - an ideal biological weapon. This microorganism is able to form spores that protect it from exposure environment. In this form, he can live indefinitely. long time continuing to infect people. Tons of anthrax accumulated in the USSR had to be destroyed in order to avoid a major international scandal. Observing special secrecy, specialists from a military enterprise near Yekaterinburg loaded anthrax into special stainless steel containers and filled them with bleach. The deadly cargo was placed in 24 wagons and made its way to Aralsk. Then the containers were buried in 11 burial grounds on Vozrozhdeniye Island.

The United States did not know until 1992 that the Soviet Union was conducting Central Asia anthrax burials.

Death Peninsula

In 1992, President Boris Yeltsin issued a decree on the closure of the test site, the military contingent was redeployed, the biological laboratory was dismantled, some of the equipment was taken out of the island by the military, and some remained buried on the island. People left all the furniture and even TVs in their houses. Two fleets of vehicles were left intact: brand new ZIL trucks, Kirovets, other tractors, workshops, warehouses for spare parts, food and uniforms. Since 1993, the island of Vozrozhdeniye, which is territorially related to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, has actually been given into the hands of lovers of easy money, automotive equipment, power plants have been looted. After another 3 years, the Americans, at the invitation of the Uzbek side, secretly visited the island and took samples of anthrax from burial grounds. The results of this study shocked everyone. Anthrax spores, despite the powerful disinfection and almost 10 years of stay in the burial ground, did not completely die. Recent checks have confirmed this.

The abandoned test site in the Aral Sea is still considered the largest cemetery of biological weapons in the world. At present, the northeastern part of the Aral Sea has completely dried up. Vozrozhdenie Island in the south connected with the Ustyurt Plateau, i.e. with the mainland and became a peninsula. It is not difficult to assume that the bridge between it and the mainland makes it easy for infected animals to migrate "to the mainland" and visit it for curious people and marauders. Meanwhile, at present, every year the danger of the spread of infection can be aggravated, as the Aral Sea is rapidly shallowing, and, accordingly, the former island is increasing in size and turning into the Peninsula of Death.

An island in the central part of the Aral Sea. The area is 216 km2. The island is low-lying, in some places areas of hilly sands. The surface is covered with semi-desert vegetation. Discovered by the Russian hydrographer A. I. Butakov in 1848 ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

map north East Africa 1707, on which, west of canary islands San Borondon Island shown. St. Brendan's Land, St. Brendan's Island is a hypothetical land in the Atlantic Ocean, a rocky island described by many ... ... Wikipedia

Renaissance Location Aral Sea Coordinates 45.016667, 59.166667 ... Wikipedia

Partito della Rifondazione Comunista Leader: Paolo Ferrero Date of foundation: December 12, 1991 ... Wikipedia

Gothic Genre CRPG Developers Piranha Bytes ... Wikipedia

Renaissance Location Aral Sea Coordinates 45.016667, 59.166667 ... Wikipedia

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This term has other meanings, see Aral Sea (meanings). Aral Sea Kaz. Aral tenizi uzb. Orol dengizi, Orol dengizi Karakalp. Aral ten izi, Aral tenizi ... Wikipedia

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23 years ago, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, by his decree, closed one of the most secret military facilities in the Soviet Union. It was located in an extremely remote and sparsely populated region, then still a huge country - on an island in the center of the Aral Sea, which is still called Renaissance Island.

It is known that experiments were carried out at this test site in the field of creation, production and testing of one of the most barbaric types of weapons of mass destruction - biological weapons. And now the Aral Sea is gone, the island has also disappeared, turning into a part of the mainland desert, and the landfill has been living its strange ghost life for all these 23 years.

Kazakh journalist and blogger Grigory Bedenko published unique materials from his archive, which may somehow explain the phenomenon of the Aralsk-7 facility.

Let's take a look at them...

One of the most famous images of the Vozrozhdeniye Island test site, taken by the American KH-9 HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite in the midst of cold war.

The idea of ​​​​creating in the USSR scientific center on the development of biological weapons originated in the 1920s. The military already then began to think big and flirt with weapons of mass destruction. In 1915, in the area of ​​​​the town of Ypres, the 4th German Army first used the spraying of chlorine from cylinders. Bacteriological weapons had a much longer history - for example, in the ancient world, plague corpses were thrown over the walls of besieged cities to cause an epidemic among the defenders. And H.G. Wells described an attempt to change the world with the help of cholera in the story "The Stolen Bacillus" in 1894.

The science center needed a place that would be sufficiently remote and isolated from others. settlements. On the one hand, these are the requirements of secrecy, on the other hand, security. An island would be ideal. Three "candidates" were selected: one of the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, Gorodomlya Island on Lake Seliger and Vozrozhdeniye Island in the Aral Sea. We stopped at Gorodoml. Here, in 1936-1941, the main Soviet center for the development of biological weapons was located - the 3rd test laboratory, which was subordinate to the Military Chemical Directorate of the Red Army. Previously, she occupied one of the Suzdal monasteries.

After the Great Patriotic War, it became clear that such institutions should be located as far as possible from the border. The next location of the bacteriological laboratory was the island of Vozrozhdenie, the former Nikolai.

This is what the Aral Sea was like in the 60s of the 20th century. The red arrow points to Renaissance Island. Then its area was 260 square kilometers, the island was isolated from inhabited places by tens of kilometers of water surface and a very harsh desert desert. Interesting fact, the island was discovered by the prominent Russian geographer Nikolai Butakov in 1848 and named after Emperor Nicholas I. The modern name of this place appeared a little later. The most secret Soviet training ground was located there.

Nicholas, this island with an area of ​​​​about 200 square meters. kilometers was named after the emperor. It was discovered along with two other islands - Naslednik and Konstantin - in 1848. For some unknown reason, the archipelago was called Tsarsky. Before the revolution locals and industrialists were engaged here in fishing, hunting, they mined salt, exported saxaul to the mainland, etc. After 1917, all this economy was nationalized, and completely ruined by collective farm methods. The population of the island was reduced to 4-5 Kazakh families, the infrastructure - to a few buildings.

In 1924, the people arrived - on the island of Vozrozhdenie, the Regional Special Purpose Detention Center was created, in which 45 prisoners convicted of robbery and banditry served their sentences. The report of the head of the detention center states that the island is convenient for both fishing and cattle breeding, since the soil is well suited for pastures.

And this is how the Aral Sea looks now. There is practically no water left, no islands either. The white line represents state border RK and Uzbekistan.

The special purpose prison was liquidated in 1926. Instead, an isolation ward of regional importance was opened, designed for 400 prisoners. However, it was also closed in 1929-1930. No mysterious reasons. It was just that the flywheel of the Soviet repressive machine was accelerating, the number of prisoners was increasing, and this required the creation of places of detention of a different format.

In 1936, an expedition of military biologists landed on Vozrozhdeniye Island, led by the father of the Soviet bacteriological program, Professor Ivan Velikanov. The researchers tested bioagents based on tularemia, cholera and plague. Further development was suspended due to repression. Professor Velikanov was shot in 1938.

Then the war began. The testing laboratory was evacuated from Gorodomlya Island, first to Kirov, then to Saratov, and finally to Vozrozhdeniye Island. Since 1942, the biochemical test site "Barkhan" began to operate here - the 52nd field research laboratory (PNIL-52) - military unit 04061. Then the military town of Kantubek, officially called Aralsk-7, was built in the northern part of the island.

Between former Island Renaissance in the south and the Kulandy peninsula in the north, where the Kazakh village of the same name is now located, only a small strait remained. But even at the beginning of the 2000s, it was necessary to sail from Kulanda to the training ground by boat for at least 3 hours, and then another 60 km by car. More on this later.

The test site was southern part islands. The tests consisted of exploding projectiles and spraying from an aircraft with strains developed from anthrax, plague, brucellosis, tularemia, Q fever, glanders and other deadly infections. The strains were produced at the enterprises of the defense complex in Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Zagorsk, Stepnogorsk.

In the planned kill zone, conscripts placed cages with experimental animals or tied them to stakes. "Vacuum cleaners" were installed nearby - special devices with tubular filters that allowed the concentration of bacteria at one point or another. After spraying, the same soldiers in chemical protection suits collected the animals and sent them to the laboratory. All this was very similar to the procedure "dirty bomb" tests on the islands of Lake Ladoga .

This is how the test on Vozrozhdeniye Island is described in the book by Ken Alibek, former scientific director of biological weapons and biodefense programs in the USSR, and then the initiator of the elimination of these programs, “Beware! Biological weapons!”: “About a hundred monkeys are sitting on a dull, windswept island off the coast of the Aral Sea, tied to poles stretched in long parallel rows almost to the horizon. A dull pop breaks the silence, and a thick cloud of mustard-colored smoke appears at the point of explosion. Seeing him, the animals in fright begin to scream and rush about, pulling on the leashes holding them. Monkeys try to escape by covering their heads, hiding their nose and mouth. But the animals are doomed: soon they will die.”

Monkeys were chosen because their respiratory organs are most similar to those of humans. Monkeys in Aralsk-7 were supplied by the Sukhumi nursery, but for some experiments it was necessary to get animals from abroad. In the 1980s, 500 monkeys were purchased through the USSR Foreign Trade in Africa and delivered to Vozrozhdenie Island through a network of front companies. They tested the anthrax strain Anthrax-836 and specially bred "combat" plague bacteria. By their death, the animals proved that the developed strains are able to “break through” the defense of a potential enemy. It is estimated that spraying 100 kilograms of anthrax spores in densely populated urban areas could kill about 3 million people.

Tests were also carried out on rabbits, sheep and horses. They were grown specifically for "laboratory needs" on the Kulandy Peninsula, located nearby.

big water remained only in the Northern Aral, which turned into an autonomous reservoir, thanks to the construction of the Kok-Aral dam. This was done in order to somehow revive fishing in the Kazakh part of the Aral Sea. But it was also the final verdict on the sea.

There are suggestions that the matter was not limited to animal experiments. This idea is suggested by the strange-looking barracks that adjoined the laboratory located a few kilometers from Aralsk-7.

“The laboratory building and the barracks adjacent to it are unusual and mysterious,” writes the own correspondent of the newspaper “Trud. Tashkent” by Valery Biryukov in the article “Secrets of the Renaissance Island” (“Trud”, October 25, 2001). - Judging by the well-preserved inscriptions and tablets, women mostly lived in other barracks. Moreover, judging by the conditions of their detention, they were most likely prisoners. In the laboratory building itself, several rooms, similar to examination rooms, are equipped with gynecological chairs. The room next to them has only one hermetically sealed door. From the ceiling, about a meter short of the floor, a stainless steel pipe descends. In another room, several dozen beautifully executed male and female mannequins with bendable arms and legs are stored. A rich library on biology and a huge warehouse of all kinds of flasks and special utensils have been preserved. The iron doors to most of the basements are welded on and have not been opened to this day. Safes of various sizes are scattered everywhere.

... Between the village and the laboratory building there is a strange object that looks like a boiler room, but there are no boilers there. Three pipes, painted in different colors, go from the tanks towards the laboratory building. It is strange, but in the forty-four years of its existence, the secret garrison has never acquired its own cemetery. There was a crematorium here.

And now the most interesting. The Aralsk-7 polygon, or the village of Kantubek, as it was called on all maps, is located here (shown by an arrow).

Terrible things were happening at the test site and in the laboratory, and the city of Aralsk-7 at that time lived peacefully or slept peacefully. It was no different from other Soviet closed cities: a dozen and a half residential buildings, a canteen, a club, shops, a stadium, barracks, a parade ground, a power plant. The population of Aralsk-7 reached 1500 people - the military, scientists, other specialists and their families. The children went to school, their parents went to work. The soldiers were engaged in drill training on the parade ground. Movies were shown in the officers' house in the evenings, and picnics were arranged on the shores of the Aral Sea on the weekends.

The island was connected with the "mainland" by the sea and air traffic. Fresh water, food and equipment were brought here by barges. The runway, equipped back in 1949, later turned into the Barkhan airfield. This building, unique for the USSR, had four runways. The choice of one or another lane was determined depending on what kind of wind was blowing. Renaissance Island was distinguished by strong winds.

By the way, the local wind rose served as protection for Aralsk-7 from biological threats. The location of the test site was chosen so that the wind immediately carried the aerosol cloud formed as a result of the test in the opposite direction from the military camp. True, they say that in 1972 there was a case when, due to a sudden gust of wind, two fishermen fell into a plague cloud. Both died.

In addition, mandatory anti-epidemic measures and decontamination of the territory were carried out at the site. All test participants were subject to mandatory quarantine. The hot climate served as additional insurance. Most bacteria and viruses could not withstand prolonged exposure to local temperatures. Therefore, as a rule, tests were carried out in the late afternoon. The layer of cold air that covered the heated ground kept the bacteria, thereby reducing the risk of infection transfer outside the landfill.

The protection of the top-secret island from prying eyes was ensured by military boats continuously cruising the sea and patrol cars on land. The laboratory building and the test site were surrounded by several rows of barbed wire.

On images from space, the polygon can be recognized by the so-called "asterisk". This is a unique field airfield built from 4 concrete strips. The creation of such a special design was dictated by the very changeable winds on the island. Those. a transport aircraft could land here in almost any weather conditions.

Aralsk-7 literally closed in 1992. On the one hand, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain secrecy. As a result of the ecological catastrophe, the Aral Sea was rapidly shrinking; in the 1990s, the area of ​​Vozrozhdeniye Island increased by almost 10 times. Protecting such a vast territory has become increasingly difficult.

Another reason, more serious, is the collapse of the USSR. In 1990, Ken Alibek, already mentioned by us, handed over a note to President Mikhail Gorbachev with a proposal to close the biological weapons program. Gorbachev agreed and the liquidation began. It took place in 1990-1991.

The population was evacuated within a few weeks. People left Aralsk-7 with the essentials, furniture and even the main value of that time - color TVs. Equipment was also abandoned - brand new trucks and tractors, spare parts for them, as well as laboratory equipment. Only the most valuable items were removed from the equipment. Dangerous strains were either destroyed or conserved in burial grounds.

For some time, Aralsk-7 was empty. Then the marauders were pulled into it.

In 1998, ecologists, epidemiologists and geologists visited Vozrozhdeniye Island. Among the epidemiologists were American specialists. The general conclusion that they made: this place does not pose any threat, either bacteriological or ecological. Today, Renaissance Island has become a peninsula. The former secret city lies in ruins. Nothing of value is left here. But who knows what is stored underground here. The military is not too willing to share their secrets.

The polygon consisted of three main zones: 1 - airfield; 2 - residential area; and located at a considerable distance from these objects, absolutely closed - laboratory zone 3. A few kilometers from the test site there was a pier where ships and barges arrived with cargoes necessary for the life of the test site.

This image shows that the concrete slabs from all four runways of the airfield have been removed.

Some slabs are neatly stacked to the side. These are traces of the work of looters. After the military left the training ground, it actually remained abandoned and unguarded, which was used by local population and criminal elements. The landfill was robbed, taking out the most valuable from there, from the mid-90s to the beginning of the 2000s. And there was a lot of value there ...

Administrative and residential area of ​​the landfill. Almost half of all buildings are where they always were. Some buildings are half destroyed, others are completely destroyed.

1 - soldiers' barracks and headquarters of the training ground. 2 - residential area, multi-storey buildings for officers and their families.

Polygon boiler room. The laboratory complex required a lot of steam - autoclaves were working to sterilize the equipment. And this despite the fact that there were no sources of drinking water on the island, it was brought in by special barges, and then entered the landfill through a special pipeline. It was made from alloys that did not corrode. Subsequently, all the pipes were taken from the island by marauders.

Partially destroyed laboratory area. It was located two kilometers from the administrative office, and was completely isolated by several rows of barbed wire.

Three-story building of the main laboratory. It was here that the main and most dangerous experiments related to biological weapons were carried out.

And now we bring to your attention a unique video filmed during my visit to the test site in 2001. All of the above objects are removed from the ground. It can be concluded that almost nothing has changed at the test site in 14 years. Operator Khasen Omarkulov.

In general, you can find a lot of information related to Renaissance Island on the net. However, all of it is fragmented, and due to the complete absence of any official data, the ghost test site has acquired a huge number of all kinds of speculation, sometimes the most incredible. Therefore, I would like first of all to comment on what we managed to film. I apologize for the not very good quality of the screenshots from the video, however, it should be noted that it is one of a kind. Here, the internal structure of the main laboratory complex is filmed in detail. Perhaps this one will somehow shed light on what work was carried out at the site.

So, the path to the training ground begins from the ex-peninsula of Kulandy, where there is a large village and a rather large horse farm for these God-forgotten places. Camels are also bred here

It is known that the main types of experiments with WMD were carried out on horses. And these horses were supplied to the landfill by the Kulandy horse farm.

And this is Renaissance Island itself - a pier for ships and barges that delivered all kinds of cargo and fresh water here.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the test site became the “property” of two new independent states: the pier on the island and the Chaika support base, located not far from Aralsk (now there is nothing left of it - the locals smashed it brick by brick), went to Kazakhstan. The airfield, the administrative and laboratory zone of the test site became part of the territory of Uzbekistan.

In fact, our marauders operated on the territory of a neighboring state, and with complete impunity. The landfill for almost 10 years, since 1992, when it was evacuated from there personnel, and was not guarded by anyone.

By the way, we got there by agreeing with the "foreman" of local stalkers. There was only one condition - not to remove them. Two teams dismantled the facilities of the landfill - one worked on the island, the second took out building materials, pipes, diesel fuel and other useful things towards Aralsk. Local fishermen on their old motor boats transported it all across the strait. In 2001, it took about three hours to sail along it. The island joined the mainland sometime in 2009. The stalkers had at least two off-road trucks - a three-bridge Ural to Kulandy and an old GAZ-66 abandoned by the military on the island. Its stalkers restored it to operational condition by bringing spare parts to the island.

The range was covered by military boats.

Project T-368 patrol boat with serial number 79 was built in 1973. This is one of the modifications of the Soviet torpedo boats. Enterprise G-4306 - Sosnovsky shipyard. It is located in the city of Sosnovka, Kirov Region, Russian Federation. The plant stands on the banks of the Vyatka River, a tributary of the Volga. Apparently, the boat got to the Aral Sea by rail from one of the Caspian ports.

And on these self-propelled barges, fresh water was delivered to Vozrozhdeniye Island.

The administrative area of ​​the landfill.

A mysterious room with a very complex air intake and ventilation system. It can be assumed that there were powerful diesel generators. Apparently, they provided energy for the landfill.

Alley with street lighting in the administrative area.

The remains of a powerful compressor.

Building built in 1963.

It was an officer's club and part-time cinema. In general, the history of the landfill began back in the distant 30s, when an expedition landed on Vozrozhdeniye Island led by the famous Russian bacteriologist Ivan Velikanov. His task was to explore the possibility of using the bubonic plague as a means of destroying enemy manpower. Subsequently, the Japanese invaders did this very successfully in China, putting absolutely monstrous experiments on people there. And Professor Velikanov was arrested by the NKVD in 1937, and work was curtailed until the start of the Cold War. So, there are several, so to speak, cultural layers at the training ground.

Polygon communication node.

There was a military hospital and a polyclinic on the Renaissance Island.

Arch at the entrance to the living area of ​​the landfill.

Two-storey kindergarten building. Military microbiologists lived on Renaissance Island with their wives and children.

The living area of ​​the landfill is solid houses made of silicate bricks. They are the best preserved.

View of the administrative zone from the roof of a residential building. You can see the soldiers' barracks and the headquarters building.

The administrative zone also consisted of the same type of one-story panel houses.

Obviously, the peak of research on biological weapons came in the late 70s and early 80s. It was then that the number of military specialists and members of their families permanently residing on Vozrozhdeniye Island reached, according to various sources, 1,500 people. For these people, the most comfortable environment for those times and in those conditions was created. They were in a very ambiguous position. First, in 1972, the Soviet Union joined the so-called Nixon Pact. This international document prohibited the research, development and testing of all types of WMD based on biological weapons. However, research was secretly carried out both in the USA and in the USSR.

The stool remained standing on the balcony of the officer's apartment. A real disaster for the people working on the island was the 92nd year, when the landfill was closed by presidential decree. The evacuation of personnel took place so rapidly that the military abandoned all bulky items in the apartments - furniture, televisions, washing machines, refrigerators, etc. It is likely that people were promised a speedy return to the island, which never happened. And all the most valuable went to the marauders. In addition to the personal belongings of the military, fuel depots, vehicles and much more were actually abandoned at the training ground. True, as the stalkers say, the food stocks turned out to be unusable, as they were covered with bleach and filled with lysol. Before leaving the training ground, the military conducted a large-scale disinfection of all facilities.

And this is the dungeons of the main laboratory complex. There were powerful autoclaves for heat treatment of equipment.

Everything was washed and washed in ordinary cast-iron baths, except for two taps with cold and hot water, a third was brought to them - with a disinfectant.

These ominous constructions are the so-called "explosion chambers". The principle was this: the room was divided into two parts - "dirty" and "clean". Both could be reached only by passing through the sanitary inspection room with a disinfectant shower. In one part of the chamber, a shutter was opened, and a cage with an experimental animal was brought there along special guides. Then the shutter was closed, the animal was infected with a biological agent in the form of an aerosol. After that, from the “dirty” side, the specialists took the cage, and then monitored the course of the disease.

The "explosive chambers" are located on the second floor of the complex in a fully isolated room with sealed doors.

And this room is stone bag”- three sanitary checkpoints lead to a room without windows.

Here is a camera, type 5 K-NZh, number 254, released in 1974. Such devices are used to work with radioactive materials. Aralsk-7 specialists apparently adapted it for biological experiments.

Materials for experiments were fed into the chamber through this shutter.

Biohazard sign on the sealed door to the second floor.

In these cabinets, apparently, the packaging of biological agents was carried out. It could be, for example, a vaccine against a particularly dangerous infection.

And this is perhaps the most interesting image! On the door to another "stone bag" is written the following: "Danger! T - 37, T +27. Specialists say that a temperature of minus 37 degrees Celsius is optimal for storing strains of bubonic plague, and plus 27 for anthrax or anthrax spores. This is, to some extent, an explanation of what exactly they worked with at the training ground. The graffiti in the upper left corner of the door is already a new "cultural layer". The stalkers left him.

The military left the training ground so quickly that they did not even have time to “cover up their tracks”, leaving signs with the names and initials of those responsible for one or another section.

The officer Mironin A.V. was responsible for the male sanitary checkpoint.

And for the dangerous furnace No. 6 V. P. Dushaev. What was burned in this furnace, one can only guess.

And here is another interesting inscription. Conscript soldiers also worked in the laboratory. They are now 46 years old. They probably could tell a lot about this place, but, apparently, they are under an almost lifelong non-disclosure subscription.

The room for experiments is a thick porthole, like at a nuclear power plant, a centrifuge, a bathtub, and a steel box with a powerful lock of some incomprehensible purpose. Everything is painted in an unpleasant protective color.

This is what the main laboratory complex looks like from the inside…

... and this is how it is outside ...

What else do we know about this mysterious place?

Between 1995 and 1998, an American reconnaissance mission visited Renaissance Island in order to collect maximum amount data and samples from the landfill. For this, the American side allocated $6 million to the authorities of Uzbekistan.

And some more information about the landfill. In 2002-2003, a group of specialists from the Kazakh Scientific Center for Quarantine and Zoonotic Infections (which, by the way, is under the patronage of the United States) landed on Vozrozhdenie Island in order to search for anthrax burials. However, the results of the expedition were immediately classified. A certain type of work, apparently, was carried out there until 2008, when Uzbekistan, again with American money and under the strict American leadership, allegedly began searching for oil and gas deposits in the area of ​​the island. Similar surveys were carried out by the Kazakh side. Then, when nothing was found there, the topic was closed.

According to some reports, the work was not associated with oil and gas, but with the elimination of anthrax burials. However, no one can confirm or deny this. The authorities have again closed everything, and getting some information from Uzbekistan can be about the same success as expecting publicity on North Korea's missile program.

Somewhere by 2010, information slipped through the media that the burials had been destroyed. But again, it has not been confirmed by anyone. Well, and finally, there was also information that Kazakhstani specialists would monitor the former landfill until 2014. At the same time, apparently, measures were taken to eradicate stalking on Vozrozhdeniye Island. A border outpost is located in Aralsk today, and the local prosecutor's office has also joined the case. Apparently, the Uzbek side did the same.

However, there is something wrong with this whole story. And the events of the last decade confirm this.

2003 year. The SARS epidemic is literally decimating people in China. IN different countries of the world from this mysterious disease, from which there is no vaccine or cure, several thousand people die. Scientists (at the official level) puzzled over why a harmless coronavirus that does not affect humans has become so aggressive towards this biological species. On the unofficial one, it was about biological weapons: the coronavirus went through the process of genetic modification. A piece of DNA was built into it, a very dangerous disease for adults - measles. And interestingly, the children did not get sick with SARS. As a result, the virus disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. And, without any consequences. And now let's remember what the world's largest event took place in 2003 - the US invasion of Iraq to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein. And throughout the world, thousands of anti-war actions took place on the streets of cities.

Just a coincidence?

2007 year. Another epidemic of a viral disease from which it is impossible to protect yourself is bird flu. The most aggressive strain was H5N1. And here, by a miraculous coincidence, the only effective means of fighting the infection turns out to be in the world's only pharmaceutical company, the Swiss F.Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd - a drug called Oseltamivir with the trademark Tamiflu. Her income in a matter of months grows to astronomical amounts.

And finally, 2014. Ebola haemorrhagic fever kills hundreds of people a day in southwestern Africa. By the way, it got its name in honor of the Ebola River, which flows in Zaire. It was there that the virus was first identified, which, although considered dangerous, was not so dangerous as to pose a threat on a global scale. What was the first thing the US and Russia did? They sent their military microbiologists to the affected countries in order to study the consequences of the disease, and maybe something else ...