No Such Thing As Doomsday

An article from the Russian magazine Ogonek reported that in Russia and the other republics there are now 27 cities involved in strategic weapons production and development which have been closed to Westerners. Many of these facilities are purported to be located underground, encased in granite. The Russian government employs 755.000 people in these facilities. Between 1.500 and 2.000 of these people are scientists, the rest are technicians and workers.

In a July 1, 1997 Associated Press release titled "Yeltsin closes biological research town to outsiders" it was revealed that President Boris Yeltsin ordered that the town of Shikhany, in the Saratov region of central Russia, be closed to outsiders. Shikhany is the site of a biological weapons research center. According to the Russian newspaper Segodnya some 1.5 million to 2 million Russians still live in about 150 closed cities run by the defense and nuclear power ministries.