This Abandoned Russian Island Almost Killed Us All | Unveiled

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This Abandoned Russian Island Almost Killed Us All</h4>

Today, there’s precious little of the Earth that remains wholly unexplored by humans. There is, though, an ever-increasing list of places that we went to once, but can’t go to again. Abandoned structures, towns, cities, and whole exclusion zones that, for one reason or another, are now too dangerous to return to. In this video, we’re traveling to an entire island that’s totally off limits.

This is Unveiled, and today we’re taking a closer look at the abandoned Soviet island that almost killed us all.

At the height of the Cold War between the USA and the USSR, we know that all manner of complex (sometimes surprising) developments were made in the fields of science and technology. The space race was, of course, center stage for most of it… but, away from the Sputniks and Apollos that were brazenly making headlines, there was a much darker and more insidious game afoot. Both the US and the Soviet Union were busily developing weapons of all kinds, including some that might have ended life on Earth entirely.

Vozrozhdeniya Island (otherwise known as Rebirth Island, as per its translation) was once inside the Soviet Union; it’s now on the modern day border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It was also once surrounded by water, in the middle of the Aral Sea… but, as the Aral Sea has been infamously drained in recent years, there’s actually now a solid landbridge between the island and the surrounding, dusty plains. Nevertheless, officially speaking, this piece of land remains just as isolated as ever, due to the very real danger of death were anyone to pay it a visit.

From the late-1940s through to the early-1990s (when the Soviet Union collapsed) the island was used almost exclusively for bioweapons testing. Over the years, it became the Soviet hub for germ warfare. A base on which Soviet scientists could develop and experiment with the deliberate spreading of things like anthrax, smallpox, and the plague. The accounts of what went on there are unsettling… both in terms of the risk at the time, and the long-term threat. 

In terms of its setup, Rebirth Island bore some similarities to other purpose-built Soviet sites, such as those around nuclear facilities. There was a small city known as Kantubek built on one half of the island, to house up to 1,500 people at its peak in the 1970s and ‘80s - including many of the Soviet Union’s best scientists. Inside the city, there were schools, houses and parks, with many of the workers and their families settling down there for years. On the other half of the island, though, were the research labs, testing ranges, and animal enclosures stocked with test subjects.

While anthrax wasn’t the only germ or pathogen tested there, it has become the most well known, with some even calling Rebirth Island Anthrax Island, outright. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union built up a massive stock of anthrax, a ruthless bacteria, the spores of which can infect a victim in a number of ways. When it comes into contact with the skin, it causes dark and ominous blisters; when it’s ingested, it triggers nausea, violent vomiting, and constant pain; if it’s inhaled, it brings severe fever, internal bleeding, and shortness of breath. Death rates can be as high as 90% or more, particularly when anthrax is inhaled… and especially at the time we’re talking about, in the mid-twentieth century, when there were far fewer and less effective treatments available. What’s staggering then, is that on Rebirth Island - less than eighty square miles of land in total - it’s thought that the Soviet Union at one time stored up to 200 tons of it. 

According to reports, the animals kept on the island were exposed to it, and then monitored until they died. And there were various attempts made to engineer anthrax into a workable weapon which, if it were ever used, would’ve been easily capable of killing thousands of people. It would’ve been impossible to hide or shelter from such a weapon, with the spores ruthlessly spreading through the air and into bodies. Less is known about the plans for smallpox, the plague, and for other lethal toxins… but, again, it’s thought that there were vast supplies being kept on Rebirth Island. Endless containers filled with different strains of brewing bioagents, presumably ready to unleash onto enemies if (and when) required. For obvious reasons, the debate surrounding nuclear weapons was drawing most of the world’s attention at the time when all of this was taking place… but, really, the likes of Rebirth Island posed a problem that was just as urgent. Between atom bombs and bacteria bombs, diplomatic tensions had rarely been higher.

Of course, history shows that the situation eventually changed, although many of the issues carried through. In 1991, just prior to the eventual breakup of the Soviet Union, authorities met to determine the future of the island. By then, it had become irreversibly contaminated with all kinds of potentially deadly substances, while the continued shrinking of the Aral Sea around it brought another problem - the effective moat that had surrounded the environment for so long was disappearing. The decision to end all operations and evacuate was made and implemented by the following spring. And, in light of international law banning the development and use of bioweapons, the variously poisonous products were swiftly gotten rid of. The remaining anthrax, for example, was reportedly buried somewhere on the island itself. However, in the years since, there have been numerous claims of leaks occurring, of hazardous materials re-emerging, and even of some local communities becoming infected. And herein lies the long-term problem, that the world is only just beginning to realize.

Under certain conditions, it is possible for the likes of anthrax or plague bacteria to retain its potency for years, even decades. We’ve increasingly seen evidence of this in recent times. In 2016, headlines broke worldwide following an anthrax outbreak in Siberia, in northern Russia, with it thought that melting permafrost was to blame. Researchers believe that the anthrax in this case had lain dormant in a reindeer carcass that had been buried in ice. But, when that ice thawed, and the body returned to the surface, the spores were re-released. Many were infected, while one child and at least 2,000 further reindeer died. Here, the carcass carrier was deemed to have been around 70 years old. That reindeer will’ve died somewhere around the year 1950, then, at a similar point in time as when the Rebirth Island experiments were first starting up. It goes to show that the threat of the island still very much remains in place.

At present, outbreaks of this kind are rare. There is a real concern that they will become more common, however, particularly in areas where anthrax (or the likes of) have been poorly disposed of in the past. But still, perhaps there’s no place on Earth where the threat is quite so severe as on Rebirth Island, on the Kazakh-Uzbek border. This is a unique place in our world, where one of the darker chapters of history could well leak into our future. For decades during the twentieth century, this was a site on which terrifying weapons were trialed and built. Significantly, it wasn’t only the Soviet Union who were pursuing this particular avenue of research, either. The US, the UK, and others are known to have experimented with similar examples of germ or biowarfare, as well. 

The potential risk to the rest of the world was massive at the time. One false move or, indeed, one deliberate attack, and a bomb laced with lethal disease really could have wiped out thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of people. Sickness could have set in and contagions could have spread. Whole ecosystems could’ve been contaminated, all over the world. Thankfully, weapons like those built on Rebirth Island weren’t widely used back then, and are outlawed today. But, still, they pose a massive problem for us in the twenty-first century, and for future generations. Because, how do we manage what’s been left over? How do we ensure that the dangers of past experiments won’t ever rise again?