DEEP inside the mountains in Russia, Putin is hiding a secret city which is even more radioactive than Chernobyl.
Codenamed City 40, Ozersk in Russia’s southern Urals is completely cut off from the outside world – and is the birthplace of the Soviet Union’s nuclear programme.
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The place may appear to look normal at the surface – with shops, schools, restaurants and apartments, but the Russian city seems to exist in a parallel universe.
Residents of Ozersk need special visas to leave the place, foreigners are not allowed in, and barbed wire fences surround the borders as signs read “no trespassing”.
Ozersk was built in secrecy for workers operating in the Mayak nuclear plant – a secret facility built by Soviet officials in a bid to stand off the nuclear-powered US during the Cold War era.
For several decades, the place was kept out of the maps, and even the names of the residents were erased from all records including the Soviet Census.
The city was designed to provide homes for the workers and citizens who were transported here to help the Soviets build an atomic bomb.
Soviet officials would select residents for the city who would then be forbidden from leaving or contacting the outside world.
Many were considered missing by their families as they appeared to vanish off the face of the earth.
The city was regarded as a paradise while much of the Soviet Union suffered through famine under the crushing rule of the Communist regime.
Residents were left to want for nothing so they would never think about leaving and potentially exposing the city’s secrets.
However, the Mayak nuclear plant went through the biggest nuclear disaster, and the incident was forced to sweep under the rug.
The facility allegedly dumped 200million curies worth of radioactive material into the environment around Ozersk.
That staggering figure is the equivalent of four Chernobyls.
And the residents also suffered the Kyshtym disaster in 1957, the worst nuclear disaster the world had seen before Chernobyl.
Radiation bathed the city when a cooling system exploded at Mayak with the force of 100 tons of dynamite.
Ironclad records and decades of Soviet cover-ups mean it is unclear how many people have died of conditions linked to radiation.
Soviet authorities wooed the leftover residents by telling them they were the “nuclear shield and saviours of the world” despite the danger.
Ozersk is dubbed the “graveyard of the earth” and has a “lake of death” even more radioactive than any other place.
And while the curtain has now lifted, it is still a strange place cut off from much of the rest of Russia.
Residents still live in the shadow of the Mayak nuclear plant where almost all of Russia’s reserve nuclear material for its reactors and weapons is stored.
Fruit and vegetables have to be checked by Geiger counters to see how radioactive they are before being sold.
Russia has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal, with an estimated 6,490 total warheads – just edging out the US.
And under Putin’s orders, they continue to strive for more and more powerful weapons despite shaky arms control pacts with Washington.
Filmmaker Samira Goetschel wrote in The Guardian in 2016 about the city as she produced a documentary on it, City 40.
She said it is estimated some 500,000 people living in the city and its nearby areas have been exposed to five times as much radiation as those living near Chernobyl.
Describing it as like a 1950s American town that is “too perfect”, she said the people who live their know the dark truth.
“Their water is contaminated, their mushrooms and berries are poisoned, and their children may be sick,” she wrote.
“Ozersk and the surrounding region is one of the most contaminated places on the planet.”
However, she added the majority “do not want to leave” as they believe they are Russia’s “chosen ones” who take pride in their special status.
Goetschel explained this mindset is passed down from the first generation who lived in City 40.
Residents today still boast about living in Ozersk and consider it a place where you can get the “best of everything for free”.
Those who live in Ozersk have a collective mindset and see the fences as keeping outsiders out, rather than keeping them in.
One such local journalist told the filmmaker that even though they know living in City 40 is “slowly killing them” – they just want to be left in “peace”.
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