Kyshtym Region / Mayak Production Association

55°43′N, 60°33′E — Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia — Ural Mountains nuclear-industrial region; closed cities of Ozyorsk and Kyshtym

What's documented

The Kyshtym region of Chelyabinsk Oblast hosts the Mayak Production Association, the Soviet Union's first plutonium-production complex, established 1946-48 near the closed city of Ozyorsk (then Chelyabinsk-65). On 29 September 1957, a cooling-system failure caused a chemical explosion in a high-level radioactive waste tank at Mayak, contaminating the surrounding region with ~20 MCi of activity — the third-worst nuclear accident on record, after Chernobyl and Fukushima. The accident was concealed until 1976 when it was disclosed by exiled Soviet biologist Zhores Medvedev.

Notable & intriguing

The 1957 Kyshtym disaster contaminated an area of ~20,000 km² with fallout from a high-level radioactive waste tank explosion. The East-Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT) remains contaminated; portions are closed to public access. The accident was classified Level 6 on the INES scale (Chernobyl and Fukushima were Level 7).

IAEA INES classification; Medvedev, 'Nuclear Disaster in the Urals' (1979)
In May 1996, retired Kyshtym pensioner Tamara Prosvirina, in her 70s, was reported to have brought home a small humanoid corpse — colloquially called 'Alyoshenka' (Little Alex) — found near the village of Kaolinovy. The 25 cm body featured an elongated cranium and four-fingered hands. The body was filmed by local Kyshtym TV reporter Pavel Mukhortikov before disappearing in 1996. Tamara Prosvirina was struck and killed by a truck on 5 August 1999.

Kyshtym Television footage, May 1996; Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Chelyabinsk Oblast file 99-1184
Forensic genetic analysis of cells retrieved from the original Alyoshenka video material was conducted in 2004 by the Center for Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences and (separately) by the Ekaterinburg-based Center for the Forensic Identification. The Ekaterinburg analysis (Dr. Irina Yermolayeva) concluded the sample was human; the AN RAN result was inconclusive. The corpse itself has never been recovered.

Yermolayeva forensic genetic report, 2004; segments aired on REN-TV 'Tainstvennaya Rossiya,' 2010

Public-record imagery

Satellite image of the Mayak Production Association complex near Ozyorsk and Kyshtym, Chelyabinsk Oblast.Wikipedia Commons · Public domain · NASA, Jan Rieke (color correction, borders and labels) · 2010

Map of the East Urals Radioactive Trace — the contamination plume from the 29 September 1957 Kyshtym Disaster at Mayak. The explosion of a buried radioactive waste tank dispersed 20 megacuries northeast; the Soviet government did not acknowledge the event until 1989.Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Goran tek-en (following request by Kintetsubuffalo), Original Map: Jan Rieke, maps-for-free.com; Minimap: NordNordWest, Historicair, Bourrichon, Insider, Kneiphof · 2019

An old church in Kyshtym, the small town the disaster was named for — even though the explosion happened 11 km northeast at the Mayak Production Association. The 1989 admission also acknowledged the 1948 release at Mayak and the persistent Techa River contamination.Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · en:User:Anthony Ivanoff · 13 F

Satellite image of the Mayak Production Association near Ozyorsk — the actual disaster site, never named by Soviet authorities. The 1957 explosion forced the evacuation of over 10,000 people from the East Urals Radioactive Trace; Lake Karachay nearby remains the most contaminated open body of water on Earth.Wikimedia Commons · Public domain · NASA, Jan Rieke (color correction, borders and labels) · 2010