The 22 Soviet Towns That Vanished Without a Trace... Until 1989

In 1957, a massive explosion at the secret Mayak plutonium facility in Chelyabinsk-40 created the Kyshtym disaster, spreading severe radioactive contamination across the Ural Mountains. To hide this catastrophic nuclear waste failure from Western intelligence and CIA spy planes, the Soviet Union systematically erased 22 agricultural villages from the map and disguised the exclusion zone as a state nature reserve. Discover the declassified history of this massive Cold War cover-up and its legacy.