Vozrozhdeniya Island

2017-04-24T22:00:37Z

Albert SN:

{{about|the former island|the album by [[folk metal]] band [[Arkona (band)|Arkona]]|Vozrozhdeniye}}
{{Infobox islands
|name = Vozrozhdeniya
|sobriquet =
| map = Vozrozhdeniya Island.jpg
|native name = {{lang-kk|Возрождение аралы}}<br>{{lang-uz|Vozrojdeniye oroli}}
|native name link =
|image name = |image caption = |image_size = |image_alt =
|location = Central Asia
|coordinates = |area km2 = |area footnotes = |publisher = |rank = |coastline km = |highest mount = |elevation m =
|official_languages = [[Uzbek language|Uzbek]], [[Russian language|Russian]]
|country = [[Kazakhstan]]<br/>[[Uzbekistan]]
|country largest city = |country 2 = |country 2 admin divisions title = |country 2 admin divisions = |country 2 largest city =
|population = 1,500
|population as of = 1980s
|ethnic groups =
|density km2 =
}}

[[File:Modis aral.jpg|thumb|300px|Rebirth Island joins the mainland in mid-2001.]]

'''Vozrozhdeniya Island''' ({{lang-ru|'''Остров Возрождения''', ''Ostrov Vozrozhdeniya''}}, which translates as '''Rebirth Island''' or '''Renaissance Island'''), or Voz Island for short, was an [[List of islands in lakes|island]] in the [[Aral Sea]]. The former island's territory is split between [[Uzbekistan]] and [[Kazakhstan]]. In 1954, the [[Soviet Union]] constructed a biological weapons test site called '''Aralsk-7''' there and on the neighboring [[Komsomolskiy Island]].<ref>Dembek, Zygmunt F., Julie A. Pavlin, and Mark G. Kortepeter (2007), “Epidemiology of Biowarfare and Bioterrorism”, Chapter 3 of: [http://www.bordeninstitute.army.mil/published_volumes/biological_warfare/biological.html Dembek, Zygmunt F. (2007), ''Medical Aspects of Biological Warfare''], (Series: [[Textbook of Military Medicine|Textbooks of Military Medicine]]), [[Washington, DC]]: The [[Borden Institute]], pp 51-52.</ref>

==Geography==
Vozrozhdeniya was once a small island; in the 19th century its size was only {{Convert|200|km2}}.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|title = Аральск-7 — закрытый город-призрак, где испытывали биологическое оружие|url = http://bigpicture.ru/?p=482671|website = BIGPICTURE.RU|accessdate = 2015-12-13}}</ref> However, in the 1960s, the island began to grow in size; the Aral Sea began drying up due to its feeder rivers being dammed by the Soviet Union for agricultural projects.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/09/world/grand-soviet-scheme-for-sharing-water-in-central-asia-is-foundering.html | title=Grand Soviet Scheme for Sharing Water in Central Asia Is Foundering | author=Michael Wines | date=9 December 2002 | accessdate=29 October 2012 | work=The New York Times}}</ref> The shrinkage of the Aral continued and accelerated over time. Vozrozhdeniya became a peninsula in mid-2001 when the channel to its south dried up completely and became a land bridge.<ref>[[NASA]] Visible Earth - [http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=2036 “Rebirth” Island Joins the Mainland], [http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?id=4343 Aral Sea]</ref> Upon the disappearance of the Southeast Aral Sea in 2008, Vozrozhdeniya became technically indistinguishable from the surrounding land. It briefly reemerged as a peninsula in 2010 when the eastern basin was flooded by heavy snow melt before once again becoming indistinguishable as a unique geographic feature.

==History==
In the 1920s, leaders of the [[Red Army]] were searching for an appropriate place to build a science and military complex for inventing, producing, and testing bioweapons.<ref>{{Cite web|url = http://bigpicture.ru/?p=482671|title = Аральск-7 — закрытый город-призрак, где испытывали биологическое оружие|date = 2014-02-20|accessdate = |website = Big Picture|publisher = }}</ref> The potential of bioweapons to quickly and cheaply kill large numbers of people was considered beneficial to the leaders' goal of expanding a proletarian revolution across the world.<ref name=":0" />

An ideal location for such complex would be a relatively large island {{Convert|5|-|10|km|abbr=on|0}} from a coast. Initial sites discussed for this complex included [[Lake Baikal]], but choices were narrowed down to the [[Solovetsky Islands]] in the White Sea, [[Gorodomlya Island]] located on [[Lake Seliger]] and Vozrozhdeniya Island.<ref name=":0" /> The [[Russian Civil War]] and several unsuccessful attempts to build the complex from 1936-1941 led to a belief that such a complex must be built far from the Soviet Union's borders with other nations.<ref name=":0" /> Vozrozhdeniya Island's location in the middle of the Aral Sea, well within Soviet borders, satisfied this consideration. In 1948, a top-secret Soviet [[bioweapon]]s laboratory was established on the island which tested a variety of agents, including [[anthrax]], [[smallpox]], [[Plague (disease)|plague]], [[brucellosis]], and [[tularemia]].<ref>{{cite book|author=[[Tom Mangold]]|author2=Jeff Goldberg |title=Plague Wars: The Terrifying Reality of Biological Warfare|publisher=Macmillan|year=2001|pages=46–47|isbn=9780312263799|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9_9Q7cZh91YC&pg=PA46}}</ref> In 1954, the site was expanded and named Aralsk-7, one of the main laboratories and testing sites for the [[Soviet Union]]'s Microbiological Warfare Group tasked with inventing and testing the effects of multiple fatal diseases.<ref name=":0" />

In 1971, an accidental [[Aral smallpox incident|release of weaponized smallpox]] from the island infected ten people, of whom 3 died. In the 1990s, word of the island's danger was spread by Soviet defectors, including [[Ken Alibek]], the former head of the Soviet Union's bioweapons program.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hoffman|first=David|title=The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy|publisher=Random House|year=2009|pages=460|isbn=9780385524377|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JQGHqScEFtoC&pg=PA460}}</ref> According to released documents, [[anthrax]] [[spore]]s and [[bubonic plague]] [[bacillus|bacilli]] were made into weapons and stored at the complex. The main town on the island, where scientists and employees of the complex lived, was called [[Kantubek]], which lies in ruins today, but once held approximately 1,500 inhabitants. The official Soviet name of this city was the same as the weapons complex itself: Aralsk-7.<ref name=":0" /> It contained simple infrastructure that consisted of a social club, a stadium, a couple of schools and shops.<ref name=":0" /> A unique airfield "Barkhan" was also located close to Kantubek. It was the only airfield in the Soviet Union with four runways, in an intersecting [[Starburst (symbol)|starburst]] pattern. The weather on the island changed very frequently; thus, planes landed on one of the four runways depending on weather and wind direction at the time.<ref name=":0" />

After the Soviet Union dissolved, the idea of mass destruction lost its relevance; Aralsk-7 was closed in November 1991.<ref name=":0" /> All people who lived on Vozrozhdeniaya Island were evacuated within several weeks; civil and military infrastructure were abandoned and Kantubek became a [[ghost town]].<ref name=":0" /> Many of the containers holding biological agents were not properly stored or destroyed, and over the last decade many of these containers have developed leaks.

In 2002, through a project organized and funded by the United States with the assistance of Uzbekistan, 10 [[anthrax]] burial sites were decontaminated.<ref>{{cite news| url=http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2002/09/16/328574/index.htm | work=CNN | first=Bill | last=Powell | title=Are We Safe Yet? For all the warnings, there hasn't been another attack. But the hard work of enhancing homeland security has only just begun. Here's what we need to do | date=16 September 2002}}</ref>

==In popular culture==
The former island and its laboratory have subsequently appeared in novels and video games. In ''[[Command & Conquer: Generals]]'', the island was under U.S. occupation but was captured by the fictional Global Liberation Army. The area and its former biological weapons base and laboratories were also featured in a mission in ''[[Call of Duty: Black Ops]]''. The novel ''The Home Team: Weapons Grade'' also mentions the site; the book's villains dig two metric tons of "Anthrax 836" up from an impromptu dump site 11 km from the island for use in a terror plot.<ref name="Chalker/Dockery">{{cite book | title=The Home Team: Weapons Grade | publisher=Avon Books |author1=Chalker, Dennis |author2=Dockery, Kevin |lastauthoramp=yes | year=2006 | location=New York, New York | pages=373 | isbn=9780061746901}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Biopreparat]]
*[[Ken Alibek]]
*[[Kantubek]]
*[[Gruinard Island]] in Scotland, another location formerly used for anthrax testing.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://sometimes-interesting.com/2014/11/29/abandoned-anthrax-vozrozhdeniye-island/ Abandoned Anthrax: Vozrozhdeniye Island.] ''Sometimes Interesting''. 29 Nov 2014
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAFGx9nU3q4 Youtube: Going To Extremes: Voz-Island (Part 1)]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_2lJ4gtMLE Youtube: Going To Extremes: Voz-Island (Part 2)]
* [https://www.theguardian.com/science/2005/apr/21/russia.internationalnews Welcome to Anthrax Island - Guardian Unlimited]
* [http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=5108 Rebirth Island joins the mainland (2000 and 2001 satellite images)]
* [http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16277 NASA satellite image comparison between 1989 and 2003]
* [http://cns.miis.edu/pubs/programs/dc/briefs/011802.htm Biological Decontamination of Vozrozhdeniye Island: The U.S.-Uzbek Agreement]
* [http://cns.miis.edu/opapers/op1/ Former Soviet Biological Weapons Facilities in Kazakhstan: Past, Present, and Future]
* [http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/vozrozhdenly.htm 1960's Satellite images of Soviet laboratory]
* [http://www.theworldgeography.com/2011/10/top-9-most-inhospitable-places-in-world.html Top Inhospitable Places in the World]

{{U.S.S.R. biological weapons}}

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[[Category:Islands of Uzbekistan]]
[[Category:Lake islands of Kazakhstan]]
[[Category:Islands of the Aral Sea]]
[[Category:Former islands]]
[[Category:Military installations of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Biological warfare facilities]]
[[Category:International islands]]
[[Category:Kazakhstan–Uzbekistan border]]
[[Category:Weapons test sites]]

[[sv:Aralsjön#Ostrov Vozrozjdenija]]

Kazakhstan Encyclopedia - User contributions [en]

Vozrozhdeniya Island