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 transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

. Standing at 1,640 metres (5,381 ft) it is the highest mountain in the

Southern Ural Southern Ural - the south, the widest part of the Ural Mountains, stretches from the river Ufa (near the village of Lower Ufaley) to the Ural River. From the west and east the Southern Ural is limited to the East European, West Siberian Plain and ...

section, and is featured within the South Ural Nature Reserve. 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 territori ...

that a secret extensive

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...

complex of the Russian government or Russian Armed Forces is contained within the mountain, similar to the

Cheyenne Mountain Complex The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a Space Force installation and defensive bunker located in unincorporated El Paso County, Colorado, next to the city of Colorado Springs, at the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, which hosts the activities o ...

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

Bunker complex claims

Yamantau, along with Kosvinsky Mountain (600 km to the north), are claimed by the

of being home to a large secret nuclear facility or

, or both. Large excavation 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 radioi ...

imagery after the fall of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

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

site, a repository for Russian treasures, a food storage area, and a bunker for leaders in case of nuclear war. Responding to questions regarding Yamantau in 1996, Russia's Defense Ministry 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 The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is the name for each of a series of United States federal laws specifying the annual budget and expenditures of the U.S. Department of Defense. The first NDAA was passed in 1961. The U.S. Congress o ...

for 1998, stated that the Russian Federation kept up a "deception and denial policy" about the mountain complex after U.S. officials had given

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 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'' 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

Name

Bunker complex claims

In popular culture

See also

References

External links