Yamantau ( ba, Ямантау, russian: гора Ямантау) is a mountain in the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...

, located in

Beloretsky District Beloretsky District (russian: Белоре́цкий район; ba, Белорет районы) is an administrativeConstitution of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Article 64 and municipalLaw #126-z district (raion), one of the fifty-four ...

Bashkortostan The Republic of Bashkortostan or Bashkortostan ( ba, Башҡортостан Республикаһы, Bashqortostan Respublikahy; russian: Республика Башкортостан, Respublika Bashkortostan),; russian: Респу́блик� ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

. Standing at 1,640 metres (5,381 ft) it is the highest mountain in the Southern Ural section, and is featured within the

South Ural Nature Reserve South Ural Nature Reserve (russian: Южно-Уральский заповедник) (also Yuzhno-Uralsky) is a Russian 'zapovednik' (strict nature reserve) protecting mountain taiga ecosystems in the highest part of the Southern Ural Mountains. ...

. Yamantau is notable as the subject of claims by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

that a secret extensive bunker complex of the

Russian government The Government of Russia exercises executive power in the Russian Federation. The members of the government are the prime minister, the deputy prime ministers, and the federal ministers. It has its legal basis in the Constitution of the Russia ...

Russian Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation (, ), commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military forces of Russia. In terms of active-duty personnel, they are the world's fifth-largest military force, with at least two m ...

is contained within the mountain, similar to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex.

Name

The name of the mountain is derived from "Yaman Tau" (Яман тау), which translates to "evil mountain", "bad mountain", or "wicked mountain" in the local

Bashkir language Bashkir (, ; Bashkir: ''Bashqortsa'', ''Bashqort tele'', ) is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak branch. It is co-official with Russian in Bashkortostan. It is spoken by approximately 1.4 million native speakers in Russia, as well as i ...

and the other Turkic languages of the Idel-Ural region.

Bunker complex claims

Yamantau, along with

Kosvinsky Mountain Mount Kosvinsky Kamen, Kosvinsky Mountain, Kosvinski Mountain, Kosvinsky Rock or Rostesnoy Rock (russian: Косвинский камень, Косьвинский камень, Ростесной камень) is a mountain in the northern Ura ...

(600 km to the north), are claimed by the

of being home to a large secret

nuclear facility A nuclear power plant (NPP) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power stations, heat is used to generate steam that drives a steam turbine connected to a electric generator, generato ...

or bunker, or both. Large

excavation Excavation may refer to: * Excavation (archaeology) * Excavation (medicine) * ''Excavation'' (The Haxan Cloak album), 2013 * ''Excavation'' (Ben Monder album), 2000 * ''Excavation'' (novel), a 2000 novel by James Rollins * '' Excavation: A Memo ...

projects have been observed by U.S.

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...

imagery after the fall of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

, as recently as the late 1990s during the government of

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin ( rus, Борис Николаевич Ельцин, p=bɐˈrʲis nʲɪkɐˈla(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtsɨn, a=Ru-Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.ogg; 1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician wh ...

. During the Soviet era two military

garrison A garrison (from the French ''garnison'', itself from the verb ''garnir'', "to equip") is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a mil ...

s, Beloretsk-15 and Beloretsk-16, and possibly a third, Alkino-2, were built on the site. These garrisons were unified into the

closed town A closed city or closed town is a settlement where travel or residency restrictions are applied so that specific authorization is required to visit or remain overnight. Such places may be sensitive military establishments or secret research ins ...

of Mezhgorye (russian: Межгорье) in 1995, and the garrisons are said to house 30,000 workers each, served by large rail lines. Repeated U.S. questions have yielded several different responses from the Russian government regarding Yamantau, including it is a

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

site, a repository for Russian treasures, a food storage area, and a bunker for leaders in case of

nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear w ...

. Responding to questions regarding Yamantau in 1996, Russia's

Defense Ministry {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...

stated: "The practice does not exist in the Defense Ministry of Russia of informing foreign mass media about facilities, whatever they are, that are under construction in the interests of strengthening the security of Russia." In 1997, a United States Congressional finding, related to the country's National Defense Authorization Act for 1998, stated that the Russian Federation kept up a "deception and denial policy" about the mountain complex after U.S. officials had given Cheyenne Mountain Complex tours to Russian diplomats, which the finding stated "... does not appear to be consistent with the lowering of strategic threats, openness, and cooperation that is the basis of the post-

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

strategic partnership between the United States and Russia." PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 1119, NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 1998 (House of Representatives - June 19, 1997 (SEC. 1209 a.5)
/ref>

In popular culture

*Mount Yamantau is featured in the video game ''

Metro Exodus ''Metro Exodus'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by 4A Games and published by Deep Silver. It is the third installment in the ''Metro'' video game trilogy based on Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels, following the events of ''Metro 203 ...

'' where it has been taken over by cannibals. *Mount Yamatau also featured in the 2010 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops 1 where it houses a base for a ''fictional'' chemical weapon - the Nova 6.

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

The Return of the Doomsday Machine?
Yamantaw Ural Mountains Military installations of Russia Nuclear bunkers in Europe Secret military programs Secret places Strategic Rocket Forces

Yamantau Yamantau ( ba, Ямантау, russian: гора Ямантау) is a mountain in the Ural Mountains, located in Beloretsky District, Bashkortostan, Russia. Standing at 1,640 metres (5,381 ft) it is the highest mountain in the Southern Ura ...

Name

Bunker complex claims

In popular culture

See also

References

External links