Laboratory block PNIL-52 ( Biological Weapons Laboratory )

Uzbekistan / Korakalpogiston / Moynoq /
 abandoned / shut down  Add category
Laboratory block Aralsk-7 was built in the early 50's to conduct research microbiological (bacteriological) weapons on animals.

"... Unusual and mysterious laboratory building and the adjoining barracks. Judging by the well-preserved inscriptions and panels in some barracks were mostly women. In fact, according to the terms of their content, it is likely to have been concluded. In the laboratory housing several facilities similar to the observation rooms, equipped with gynecological chairs. neighboring room has only one hermetically sealed door. From the ceiling, do not reach the floor about meter, falls tube of stainless steel. Even in a room stockpiled several dozen well-made men and female mannequins with flexible arms and legs. There is a rich library of biology and a huge warehouse of all kinds of special dishes and flasks.
The iron doors in most basements welded and are not open to this day. Throughout most safes scattered in different sizes. Over forty-four years of its existence a secret garrison never got their cemetery. It operated crematorium.

In 1998, arrived geologists, ecologists and epidemiologists, including American experts Pentagon. At the same time, Uzbek and American environmentalists have concluded that the environmental situation on the island is quite good ... "
meteocenter.net / photo / island /
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoT9Kds2dYg&list=PLOM663ZfPdpsb...
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   45°8'14"N   59°18'40"E
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Comments

  • mmmmm..... anthrax.... Man, those Soviets were a bunch of slobs, leaving anthrax and grounded ships laying around all over the place.
  • The military-industrial complex of the former Soviet Union used the territory of Kazakhstan as a testing ground for various types of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons at Semipalatinsk. Soviet officials perpetuated the myth that the test sites were harmless and categorically denied any adverse effects on the Kazakhstani people, whose deteriorating health they sought to explain as a consequence of natural factors. In fact, the grave environmental and health effects of nuclear weapons testing at Semipalatinsk are now clear. Less well known are the consequences of biological weapons testing on the territory of Kazakhstan. From 1936 to 1992, Vozrozhdeniye Island, an island in the western part of the Aral Sea whose territory is divided between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, was the major proving ground in the Soviet Union for the open-air testing of biological warfare (BW) agents. According to information provided by Z. A. Rakhmatulin, the former chief of staff at the test site during the 1980s, and by G. L. Lepyoshkin, the former general director of the National Center for Biotechnology in Stepnogorsk, a variety of BW agents were tested on Vozrozhdeniye Island, including the microbial pathogens that cause plague, anthrax, Q-fever, smallpox, tularemia, and Venezuelan equine encephalitis, as well as botulinum toxin. Some of the pathogens tested in aerosol form were genetically modified strains that produce atypical disease processes and are resistant to existing medications, potentially complicating diagnosis and treatment. The environmental consequences of such tests were sometimes dramatic. In 1984 in the Volga-Ural steppe, and again in 1989 in the Torghai oblast, hundreds of thousands of saiga antelope died over a short time. These massive die-offs were officially attributed to outbreaks of pasteurellosis, a disease caused by the bacterium Pasteurella haemolytica. Yet they were almost certainly the result of openair BW testing on Vozrozhdeniye Island. It is also known that during the late 1980s, large quantities of anthrax spores that had been mass-produced and stockpiled in Russia were transported to the island for decontamination and burial. There are conflicting opinions on the dangers posed today by the legacy of BW testing on Vozrozhdeniye Island. Experts from the former Soviet military-industrial complex who worked on the island contend that the extermination of rodents from testing areas prior to the release of live BW agents, and subsequent clean-up operations, completely removed any danger that infectious agents would persist at the testing grounds. Soviet officials also counted on the intense solar radiation during the summer months to disinfect the testing grounds after they were closed down. Other experts disagree. Ultraviolet radiation can kill only exposed, living microbes and viruses—not bacterial and fungal spores that persist beneath the surface of the soil. Moreover, because of the extensive downwind range of the tests, and the possibility that some of the microbes could have infected insect or animal hosts(such as fleas or rodents) that serve as persistent reservoirs of disease, infectious agents may have spread throughout the territory of Vozrozhdeniye Island. Today it is impossible to guarantee with any certainty the absence of dangerous biological contamination at the former BW test site, which remains a potential health hazard not only to the population of Central Asia but to other peoples as well. Because of several factors—the rapid shrinkage of the Aral Sea, which recently turned Vozrozhdeniye Island into a peninsula of the Uzbek mainland; the plans for oil and gas prospecting by international oil companies; and the largely unregulated visits to the island by local people scavenging for abandoned metal and equipment—there is an urgent need to decontaminate and rehabilitate the former BW testing ground. Solving this problem will require a comprehensive approach and the participation of specialists with a variety of expertise. Source: http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/opapers/op9/op9.pdf
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