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Shikhany
Shikhany (russian: Шиханы) is a town in Saratov Oblast, Russia, located north of Saratov on the right bank of the Volga River Population: . It has been a closed town since 1997, but lost this status on 1 January 2019. The town is located 2 kilometres from the major chemical weapons base, Shikhany-2 (previously known as Vol'sk-18). History The original settlement at Shikhany was founded in 1820 as part of the estate of Count Vasily Vasil'evich Orlov-Denisov. The first school was opened at the site in 1876. By 1917, there were still only five inhabitants resident in two houses. The subsequent expansion of the settlement was presumably as a consequence of the opening of the adjacent chemical warfare establishment. On the 30 June 1997, the town was transformed by an edict of President Yeltsin into a Closed Administrative-Territorial Formation (''ZATO''). Under the terms of this edict, travel to Shikhany was restricted and special police, procuracy and courts operated directly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian NBC Protection Troops
__NOTOC__ The Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops of the Russian Armed Forces (russian: Войска радиационной, химической и биологической защиты Вооружённых сил Российской Федерации (Войска РХБ защиты ВС РФ), Voyska radnatsionnoy khimicheskoy i biologicheskoy zashchiti Vooruzhyonn'kh sil Rossiyskoy Federatsii (Voyska RKhB zashchiti VS RF)) are an organisation designed to reduce the losses of the Ground Forces and ensuring their combat tasks assigned during operations in conditions of radioactive, chemical and biological contamination, as well as at enhancing their survivability and protection against high-precision and other weapons. In 1944, the Red Army's Chemical Troops had 19 brigades (14 technical and 5 chemical protection). After the end of World War II, most of them were disbanded. General Major Vladimir Pikalov (promoted to Colonel General by 1975) commanded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Novichok Agent
Novichok (russian: Новичо́к, lit=newcomer, novice, newbie) is a group of nerve agents, some of which are binary chemical weapons. The agents were developed at the GosNIIOKhT state chemical research institute by the Soviet Union and Russia between 1971 and 1993. Some Novichok agents are solids at standard temperature and pressure, while others are liquids. Dispersal of solid form agents is thought possible if in ultrafine powder state. Russian scientists who developed the nerve agents claim they are the deadliest ever made, with some variants possibly five to eight times more potent than VX, and others up to ten times more potent than soman. As well as Russia, Novichok agents have been known to be produced in Iran. In the 21st century, Novichok agents came to public attention after they were used to poison opponents of the Russian government, including the Skripals and two others in Amesbury, UK (2018), and Alexei Navalny (2020), but civil poisonings with this s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tomka Gas Test Site
Tomka gas test site (german: Gas-Testgelände Tomka) was a secret chemical weapons testing facility near a place codenamed Volsk-18 (Wolsk, in German literature), 20 km off Volsk, now Shikhany, Saratov Oblast, Russia created within the framework of German-Soviet military cooperation to circumvent the demilitarization provisions of the post-World War I Treaty of Versailles. It was co-directed by (начальник военно-химического управления Красной Армии), and German chemists Alexander von Grundherr and Ludwig von Sicherer.Sally W. Stoecker, Forging Stalin's Army: Marshal Tukhachevsky And The Politics Of Military Innovation , Routledge, 2018, pp.137-150/ref> It operated (according to an agreement undersigned by fictitious joint stock companies) during 1926-1933. After 1933 the area was used by the Red Army and expanded under the name "Volsk-18" or "Schichany-2" to Russia's most important center for the development of chemical war ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed Cities
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 installations that require much more space or internal freedom than is available in a conventional military base. There may also be a wider variety of permanent residents, including close family members of workers or trusted traders who are not directly connected with clandestine purposes. Many closed cities existed in the Soviet Union from the mid 1940s until its dissolution in 1991. After 1991, a number of them still existed in the CIS countries, especially in Russia. In modern Russia, such places are officially known as "closed administrative-territorial formations" (, ''zakrytye administrativno-territorial'nye obrazovaniya'', or ''ZATO'' for short). Structure and operations Sometimes closed cities may only be represented on classif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shihan (single Hill)
Shihan or Shikhan ( ba, Шихан) is a hill or ridge of isolated chalk hills that are stretched out along with the Belaya River, next to the Sterlitamak city in Bashkortostan Republic, Russia. Prominently standing out of the landscape (akin to buttes) they are notable local landmarks. In the Western Urals, the shihans geologically are reef residues left by ancient seas and are composed of sedimentary limestone. In the Urals, shihans are rocky peaks of the mountains. In the Volga region shihans often can be met on the slopes of river valleys. Shihans in Bashkortostan The ridge in Bashkortostan consist of four isolated mountains: Toratau, Shakhtau, Yuraktau and Kushtau, forming a narrow chain stretching along the Belaya River () for 20 km. The mountains are located nearby Sterlitamak, Ishimbay and Salavat cities and are remnants of Fringing reef that formed in warm seas of early Permian period. The sediments have fossils that mostly consist of remains of ancient invert ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 installations that require much more space or internal freedom than is available in a conventional military base. There may also be a wider variety of permanent residents, including close family members of workers or trusted traders who are not directly connected with clandestine purposes. Many closed cities existed in the Soviet Union from the mid 1940s until its dissolution in 1991. After 1991, a number of them still existed in the CIS countries, especially in Russia. In modern Russia, such places are officially known as "closed administrative-territorial formations" (, ''zakrytye administrativno-territorial'nye obrazovaniya'', or ''ZATO'' for short). Structure and operations Sometimes closed cities may only be represented on classif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Closed Administrative-territorial Formation
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 installations that require much more space or internal freedom than is available in a conventional military base. There may also be a wider variety of permanent residents, including close family members of workers or trusted traders who are not directly connected with clandestine purposes. Many closed cities existed in the Soviet Union from the mid 1940s until its dissolution in 1991. After 1991, a number of them still existed in the CIS countries, especially in Russia. In modern Russia, such places are officially known as "closed administrative-territorial formations" (, ''zakrytye administrativno-territorial'nye obrazovaniya'', or ''ZATO'' for short). Structure and operations Sometimes closed cities may only be represented on classif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saratov Oblast
Saratov Oblast (russian: Сара́товская о́бласть, ''Saratovskaya oblast'') is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast), located in the Volga Federal District. Its administrative center is the city of Saratov. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 2,521,892. Geography The oblast is located in the southeast of European Russia, in the northern part of the Lower Volga region. From west to east its territory stretches for , and from north to south for . The highest point of Saratov Oblast is an unnamed hill of the Khvalynsk Mountains reaching above sea level. The oblast borders on: * Volgograd Oblast to the south * Voronezh and Tambov oblasts to the west * Penza, Samara and Ulyanovsk oblasts to the north; * Kazakhstan (West Kazakhstan Region) to the east Natural resources Of particular agricultural importance are valuable agricultural ordinary and southern chernozyom areas; chestnut soils are widespread. The oblast has many water resources: besides t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cities And Towns In Saratov Oblast
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be defined as a permanent and densely settled place with administratively defined boundaries whose members work primarily on non-agricultural tasks. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, production of goods, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organisations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process, such as improving efficiency of goods and service distribution. Historically, city-dwellers have been a small proportion of humanity overall, but following two centuries of unprecedented and rapid urbanization, more than half of the world population now lives in cities, which has had profound consequences for g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited, Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sergei Skripal
Sergei Viktorovich Skripal ( rus, Серге́й Ви́кторович Скрипáль, p=sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈvʲiktərəvʲɪtɕ skrʲɪˈpalʲ; born 23 June 1951) is a former Russian military intelligence officer who acted as a double agent for the UK's intelligence services during the 1990s and early 2000s. In December 2004, he was arrested by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) and later tried, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He settled in the UK in 2010 following the Illegals Programme spy swap. He holds both Russian and British citizenship. On 4 March 2018, he and his daughter Yulia, a Russian citizen who was visiting him from Moscow, were poisoned with a Russian-developed Novichok nerve agent, and were admitted to Salisbury District Hospital in a critical condition. The poisoning was investigated by the British intelligence service as an attempted murder. On 29 March, Yulia was reported to be out of critical condition, and was " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
