INTRODUCTION
The so-called Kyshtym Disaster has been an intriguing puzzle
for more than 20 years. The city of Kyshtym (55°42'N 60°34'E) is
located on the east side of the Ural Mountains on the railroad
linking the industrial cities of Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk
(Pig. 1). The area has a long history of munitions production
dating back to the time of the tsars, it is in this region that
the Soviets chose to build their first plutonium production facil¬
ity in the late 1940s.
The Kyshtym Complex lies approximately 15 km east of the city
of Kyshtym on the south shore of Lake Kyzyltash. The Soviets