There is such an interesting story. It is not entirely clear that this is reality or from the "conspiracy theory"?
Who knows what additionally about this?
Here's what you can find on the net more …
One of the most famous images of the Vozrozhdenie Island test site taken by the American KH-9 HEXAGON reconnaissance satellite during the height of the Cold War.
23 years ago, Russian President Boris Yeltsin by his decree closed one of the most secret military installations of the Soviet Union. It was located in an extremely remote and sparsely populated region, then a huge country - on an island in the center of the Aral Sea, which is still called the Renaissance Island.
It is known that experiments were carried out at this test site in the creation, production and testing of one of the most barbaric types of weapons of mass destruction - biological weapons. And now there is no longer the Aral Sea, the island also disappeared, turning into a part of the continental desert, and all these 23 years the test site has been living its own strange life as a ghost.
Kazakh journalist and blogger Grigory Bedenko published unique materials from his archive, which may somehow explain the phenomenon of the "Aralsk-7" object.
The idea of creating a scientific center for the development of biological weapons in the USSR arose back in the 1920s. The military even 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 chlorine spraying from cylinders. Bacteriological weapons had a much older 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 an attempt to change the world with the help of cholera in 1894, H. G. Wells described in the story "The Stolen Bacillus".
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The scientific center required a place that would be sufficiently remote and isolated from other settlements. On the one hand, these are the requirements of secrecy, on the other, 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 Vozrozhdenie 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 testing laboratory, subordinate to the Military Chemical Directorate of the Red Army. Previously, she occupied one of the Suzdal monasteries.
After World War II, it became clear that such institutions should be located as far from the border as possible. The next location for the bacteriological laboratory was Vozrozhdenie Island, formerly Nikolai.
This is what the Aral Sea was like in the 60s of the 20th century. The red arrow points to the Island of Rebirth. 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 deserted desert. An interesting fact, the island was discovered by the outstanding Russian geographer Nikolai Butakov in 1848 and named it in honor of Emperor Nicholas the First. The modern name of this place appeared a little later. The most secret Soviet training ground was located there.
Nikolay this island with an area of about 200 sq. kilometers was named after the emperor. It was opened together with two other islands - the Heir and Constantine - in 1848. For some unknown reason, the archipelago was named Tsarskoe. Before the revolution, local residents and industrialists were engaged in fishing, hunting, salt mining, haloxylon, etc. After 1917, this entire economy was nationalized and completely ruined by collective farm methods. The population of the island has decreased to 4-5 Kazakh families, the infrastructure - to several buildings.
In 1924, the people arrived - on the island of Vozrozhdeniye, a regional isolation ward for special purposes was created, in which 45 prisoners convicted of robbery and banditry served their sentences. According to the report of the head of the isolation ward, the island is convenient for both fishing and livestock raising, as the soil is well suited for pastures.
And this is how the Aral Sea looks now. There is practically no water left, no islands. The white line marks the state border of the Republic of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The special-purpose isolator was liquidated in 1926. Instead, a marginal insulator, designed for 400 prisoners, was opened. However, it was also closed in 1929-1930. No cryptic reasons. It was just that the flywheel of the Soviet repressive machine was accelerating, the number of prisoners increased, and this required the creation of places of detention of a different format.
In 1936, an expedition of military biologists headed by the father of the Soviet bacteriological program, Professor Ivan Velikanov, landed on Vozrozhdenie Island. Researchers have 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 Vozrozhdenie Island. Since 1942, the Barkhan biochemical test site - the 52nd field research laboratory (PNIL-52) - military unit 04061 began to operate here. Then, in the northern part of the island, a military town of Kantubek was built, officially called Aralsk-7.
Between the former Vozrozhdenie Island in the south and the Kulandy Peninsula in the north, where the Kazakh aul of the same name is now located, there is only a small strait. But even at the beginning of the 2000s, it was necessary to go by boat for at least 3 hours from Kulanda to the training ground, and then another 60 km to go by car. More on this later.
The test site occupied the southern part of the island. The tests consisted of detonating shells and spraying from an aircraft strains developed on the basis of 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 affected area, conscripts would arrange cages with experimental animals or tied them to stakes. Nearby were installed "vacuum cleaners" - 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 reminiscent of the "dirty bomb" test procedure on the islands of Lake Ladoga.
This is how the test on Vozrozhdeniye Island is described in the book by Ken Alibek, the former scientific director of biological weapons and biosecurity programs in the USSR, and then the initiator of the elimination of these programs, Ken Alibek “Caution! Biological weapons! ":" On a dull, windy island near the shores of the Aral Sea, there are about a hundred monkeys tied to pillars stretching in long parallel rows almost to the very horizon. A dull clap 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 shrill and rush about, pulling on the leashes that hold them. Monkeys try to escape by covering their heads, hiding their nose and mouth. But the animals are doomed: they will soon die."
The monkeys were chosen because their respiratory organs are most similar to human ones. The monkeys in Aralsk-7 were supplied by the Sukhumi nursery, but for some experiments it was necessary to get animals abroad. In the 1980s, 500 monkeys were purchased from Africa through a network of front companies and delivered to Vozrozhdenie Island through the USSR Foreign Trade. The anthrax strain Anthrax-836 and specially bred "fighting" plague bacteria were tested on them. By their death, the animals have proved that the developed strains are capable of "penetrating" 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.
The tests were also carried out on rabbits, sheep and horses. They were specially grown for "laboratory needs" on the nearby Kulandy Peninsula.
Large water remained only in the Northern Aral, which turned into an autonomous body of water, 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 only 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 adjacent barracks are unusual and mysterious,” writes the own correspondent of the newspaper Trud. Tashkent "Valery Biryukov in the article" Secrets of the Island of Renaissance "(" Trud ", October 25, 2001). “Judging by the well-preserved inscriptions and tablets, women lived in the other barracks. Moreover, judging by the conditions of their detention, these were most likely prisoners. In the laboratory building itself, several rooms, similar to examination rooms, are equipped with gynecological chairs. The room adjacent to them has only one hermetically sealed door. A stainless steel pipe is lowered from the ceiling, about a meter before the floor. In another room, several dozen beautifully executed male and female mannequins with bendable arms and legs are stored. A rich biology library 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 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, boiler-like facility, but there are no boilers there. Three pipes, painted in different colors, extend from the tanks towards the laboratory building. Strange, but in forty-four years of existence, the secret garrison has not acquired its own cemetery. A crematorium functioned here."
Now comes the fun part. Polygon "Aralsk-7", or the village of Kantubek, as it was called on all maps, is located here (shown by an arrow).
At the test site and in the laboratory, terrible things were happening, and the city of Aralsk-7 at that time lived peacefully or slept peacefully. It was no different from other closed Soviet cities: a dozen residential buildings, a canteen, a club, shops, a stadium, barracks, parade ground, and a power plant. The population of Aralsk-7 reached 1500 people - military, scientists, other specialists and their families. Children went to school, their parents went to work. The soldiers were engaged in drill on the parade ground. In the evenings, films were shown in the officers' house, and on weekends, picnics were held on the shores of the Aral Sea.
The island was connected with the "mainland" by sea and air traffic. Fresh water, food and equipment were delivered 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 strip was determined depending on which wind was blowing. Vozrozhdenie Island was distinguished by strong winds.
By the way, the local wind rose served as protection for Aralsk-7 from a biological threat. 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 direction opposite from the military town. True, they say, 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 landfill. All test participants underwent mandatory quarantine. The hot climate served as additional insurance. Most bacteria and viruses cannot withstand prolonged exposure to local temperatures. Therefore, as a rule, tests were carried out in the late afternoon. A layer of cold air that covered the warmed-up ground trapped bacteria, thereby reducing the risk of infection being carried outside the landfill.
The protection of the top-secret island from prying eyes was provided by military boats and patrol cars on land that continuously ply the sea. The laboratory building and the landfill were surrounded by several rows of barbed wire.
On images from space, the polygon can be recognized by the so-called "star". This is a unique field airfield built of 4 concrete strips. The creation of such a special design was dictated by the very changeable winds on the island. Those. a transport plane could land here in almost any weather conditions.
In a literal sense, Aralsk-7 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 becoming shallower; in the 1990s, the area of the Vozrozhdenie Island increased almost 10 times. It has become more and more difficult to protect such a vast territory.
Another reason, more serious, is the collapse of the USSR. In 1990, Ken Alibek, already mentioned by us, handed a note to the country's 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 most necessary things, left furniture and even the main value of that time - color televisions. Equipment was also abandoned - brand new trucks and tractors, spare parts for them, as well as laboratory equipment. Only the most valuable was removed from the equipment. Dangerous strains were either destroyed or preserved in burial grounds.
For some time Aralsk-7 was empty. Then the marauders were drawn into it.
In 1998, ecologists, epidemiologists and geologists visited Vozrozhdenie Island. Among the epidemiologists were American specialists. The general conclusion they made was that this place poses no threat, either bacteriological or ecological. Today, the 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 here underground. The military are reluctant 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 landfill there was a pier where ships and barges with cargoes necessary for the life of the landfill came.
This image shows that the concrete slabs have been removed from all four airfield lanes.
Some slabs are neatly stacked to the side. These are already traces of the marauders' work. After the military left the training ground, it actually remained abandoned and without protection, which was used by the local population and criminals. 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 located where they have always been. Some buildings are half destroyed, others are completely destroyed.
1 - soldiers' barracks and training ground headquarters. 2 - residential area, multi-storey buildings for officers and their families.
Boiler room of the landfill. 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 pipes were removed from the island by looters.
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.
In general, you can find a lot of information related to the Renaissance Island on the network. However, it is all scattered, and due to the complete absence of any official data, the ghost landfill has overgrown with 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 shoot. 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. The internal structure of the main laboratory complex is filmed here in detail. Perhaps this one will somehow shed light on what kind of work was carried out at the landfill.
So, the way to the landfill begins from the ex-Kulandy peninsula, where a large aul is located and a horse farm, which is quite large for these forgotten places. Camels are also bred here.
It is known that the main types of experiments with weapons of mass destruction were carried out on horses. And these horses were supplied to the landfill by the Kulandy horse farm.
And this is the Island of Renaissance itself - a marina for ships and barges that delivered all kinds of cargo and fresh water here.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the landfill became the "property" of two newly independent states: the pier on the island and the support base "Chaika", located not far from Aralsk (now there is nothing left of it - local residents have smashed it brick by brick), went to Kazakhstan. The airfield, administrative and laboratory areas 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 was almost 10 years old, since 1992, when the personnel was evacuated from there, and was not guarded by anyone.
By the way, we got there, having agreed with the "foreman" of local stalkers. There was only one condition - not to remove them. Two teams were dismantling the landfill structures - one worked on the island, the second took out building materials, pipes, diesel fuel and other useful things in the direction of Aralsk. Local fishermen in their old motor boats transported all this across the strait. In 2001, it took about three hours to sail on it. The island connected to the mainland sometime in 2009. The stalkers had at least two high-passable trucks - the three-axle Ural on Kulandy and the old GAZ-66 abandoned by the military on the island. Its stalkers restored it to an operational state, bringing spare parts to the island.
The range was covered by military boats.
Patrol boat of project T-368 with serial number 79 was built in 1973. This is one of the modifications of the Soviet torpedo boats. Enterprise G-4306 - Sosnovsky shipyard. Located in the city of Sosnovka, Kirov region of the Russian Federation. The plant is located 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 the Vozrozhdenie Island.
Administrative zone 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 here. Apparently, they provided energy for the landfill.
Alley with street lighting in the administrative area.
The remains of a powerful compressor.
The building was built in 1963.
It was an officers' club and part-time cinema. In general, the history of the test site began in the distant 30s, when an expedition led by the famous Russian bacteriologist Ivan Velikanov landed on Vozrozhdenie Island. His task was to investigate the possibility of using the bubonic plague as a means of destroying enemy personnel. Subsequently, the Japanese invaders were very successful in this in China, setting absolutely monstrous experiments on people there. Professor Velikanov was arrested by the NKVD in 1937, and the work was curtailed until the beginning of the Cold War. So, there are several, so to speak, cultural layers at the test site.
Polygon communication node.
There was a military hospital and a polyclinic on the Vozrozhdeniye Island.
Arch at the entrance to the residential area of the landfill.
A two-story kindergarten building. Military microbiologists lived on Renaissance Island with their wives and children.
The residential area of the landfill is made of solid silicate brick houses. They are the best preserved.
View of the administrative area from the roof of a residential building. The soldiers' barracks and the headquarters building are visible.
The administrative zone also consisted of the same type of one-story panel board houses.
Obviously, the peak of research on biological weapons occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was then that the number of military specialists and their families permanently residing on the Renaissance Island, according to various sources, reached 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 weapons of mass destruction based on biological weapons. However, research was carried out in secret, both in the United States and in the USSR.
The stool remained on the balcony of the officers' apartment. The 92nd year, when the landfill was closed by presidential decree, was a real disaster for the people who worked on the island. The evacuation of personnel proceeded so rapidly that the military threw all bulky items in their 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 and lubricants warehouses, vehicles and much more were actually abandoned at the site. True, as they say, stalkers, food supplies turned out to be unfit for consumption, as they were covered with chlorine and filled with lysol. Before leaving the test site, the military carried out 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 bathtubs, however, except for two taps with cold and hot water, a third was connected to them - with a disinfectant.
These ominous structures are so-called "blast chambers". The principle was as follows: the room was divided into two parts - "dirty" and "clean". Both could only be accessed by going through a 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 wound 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.
"Explosion chambers" are located on the second floor of the complex in a completely isolated room with sealed doors.
And this room is a "stone bag" - three sanitary inspection rooms lead to a room without windows.
There is a camera, type 5 K-NZh, number 254, released in 1974. Such devices are used to work with radioactive materials. The specialists of "Aralsk-7", apparently, adapted it for biological experiments.
Materials for experiments were fed into the chamber through this shutter.
Biohazard sign on second floor airtight door.
In these cabinets, most likely, the packaging of biological agents was carried out. It could be, for example, a vaccine against an especially dangerous infection.
And this is perhaps the most interesting image! On the door to another "stone bag" the following is written: "Dangerous! T - 37, T +27 ". Experts 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 test site. The graffiti in the upper left corner of the door is already a new "cultural layer". The stalkers left him.
The military left the range so quickly that they did not even have time to “cover their tracks”, leaving plates with the names and initials of those responsible for this or that area.
Officer A. V. Mironin was responsible for the male sanitary inspection.
And for the dangerous furnace No. 6 VP Dushaev. What was burned in this oven, one can only guess.
And here is another curious inscription. Conscripts also worked in the laboratory. Now they are already 46 years old. Probably, they could tell a lot about this place, but, apparently, they are under an almost lifetime nondisclosure agreement.
The room for experiments - a thick window, as in a nuclear power plant, a centrifuge, a bathtub, and a steel box of some unknown purpose with a powerful lock. Everything is painted in an unpleasant protective color.
This is how the main laboratory complex looks from the inside …
… but like this - outside …
What else do we know about this mysterious place?
In the period from 95th to 98th years, an American reconnaissance mission visited Renaissance Island in order to collect the maximum amount of data and samples from the test site. For this, the American side allocated 6 million dollars 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, incidentally, 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 sensitive American leadership, allegedly began searching for oil and gas deposits in the region of the island. The Kazakh side also carried out similar surveys. 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 closed everything again, and getting some information from Uzbekistan can be about as successful as expecting publicity on North Korea's missile program.
Somewhere by 2010, information slipped through the media that the graves had been destroyed. But again, it has not been confirmed by anyone. 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 Renaissance 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, in this whole story there is some kind of understatement. And the events of the last decade confirm this.
2003-th year. The SARS epidemic is literally killing people in China. In different countries of the world, several thousand people die from this mysterious disease, from which there is no vaccine or medicine. Scientists (at the official level) racked their brains as to why a harmless coronavirus that does not infect humans became so aggressive towards this biological species. The unofficial one was about biological weapons: the coronavirus went through a process of genetic modification. A piece of DNA was inserted into it, a disease that is very dangerous for adults - measles. And what is interesting, the children did not get sick with atypical pneumonia. As a result, the virus disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. Moreover, without any consequences. Now let's remember what the biggest world event took place in 2003 - the US invasion of Iraq with the aim of overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime. And all over the world, thousands of antiwar actions took place on the streets of cities.
Just a coincidence?
2007th year. Another epidemic of a viral disease from which it is impossible to defend itself is bird flu. The most aggressive was the H5N1 strain. And here, by a miraculous coincidence, the only effective means of fighting the infection turns out to be at the world's only pharmaceutical company, the Swiss F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Ltd - a drug called Oseltamivir with the Tamiflu trademark. Its income in a matter of months grows to astronomical amounts.
And finally, 2014. In southwestern Africa, hundreds of people a day are mowed down by Ebola haemorrhagic fever. 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, but not so much as to pose a threat on a global scale. What did the US and Russia do first? They sent their military microbiologists to the affected countries in order to study the consequences of the disease, or maybe something else …