Muslyumovo

 dangerous place / area, radiation, ghost town

Muslyumovo is the closest village on the Techa to the Mayak plutonium plant to the northwest. A poor, rural village, the Techa River represents the town's only source of water for drinking and washing.

From 1940-57, the Soviet Union dumped millions of gallons of untreated liquid nuclear waste either into the Techa River itself or waste lagoons which fed directly into it. The Kyshtym explosion in 1957 further contaminated the river to the point where fish and plants died and the children who played in the river would get beta radiation burns on their feet just from standing on the river silt.

All during this period, the villagers were not evacuated and were told nothing was wrong with them while Soviet scientists studied them like guinea pigs to see how the radiation would affect them. Hundreds have since died of cancer.

Even after all those years, the river still shows radiation levels 1000 times higher than normal just standing by the bank.