As a result of unexplained nuclear poisoning, Moosliumovo village has been almost totally deserted. A few locals struggle on in what has become a nuclear wasteland. Chelyabinsk, Russia. 16/10/2009.
During the Yeltsin years of the 1990’s, the KGB's files were opened to public scrutiny. Suspicions regarding neighbours spying on their neighbours were confirmed, but most importantly, the truth about industrial accidents was finally revealed, even the nuclear accidents that the Soviet Union had been able to cover up.
The Urals is Russia's main industrial region, supplying steel, military armaments and copper. Moosliumovo is a small village just outside the steel town of Chelyabinsk on the Russian Steppe.
In 1959, the townspeople woke up to a terrible explosion that
shook the ground and shattered windows. Soon animals and small children started to die because the water from the stream flowing through the village had been contaminated by the authorities dumping nuclear waste into the river.
The whole incident was covered up by the Soviet authorities, but the townspeople knew something truly appalling had happened because more and more people started dying of cancer, leukaemia and failing immune systems.
Today, the town is deserted but for a few unfortunate families who were not able to access the fund that had been set up to move them to a safer environment.
