Mount Yamantau, or Yamantaw (, ) is a mountain in the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

, located in Beloretsky District,

Bashkortostan Bashkortostan, officially the Republic of Bashkortostan, sometimes also called Bashkiria, is a republic of Russia between the Volga river and the Ural Mountains in Eastern Europe. The republic borders Perm Krai to the north, Sverdlovsk Oblast ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. Standing at , it is the highest mountain in the

Southern Ural Southern Ural (, ) encompasses 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 Plain, W ...

section, and lies within the South Ural Nature Reserve. An extensive secret

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 has allegedly been built under Yamantau, per

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

claims, by the

Russian government The Russian Government () or fully titled the Government of the Russian Federation () is the highest federal executive governmental body of the Russian Federation. It is accountable to the president of the Russian Federation and controlled by ...

or the

Russian Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military of Russia. They are organized into three service branches—the Russian Ground Forces, Ground Forces, Russian Navy, Navy, and Russi ...

, similar to the

Cheyenne Mountain Complex The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a United States 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 host ...

in the U.S. state of

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

Name

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

Bashkir language Bashkir ( , ) or Bashkort (, ) is a Turkic languages, Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak languages, Kipchak branch. It is official language#Political alternatives, co-official with Russian language, Russian in Bashkortostan. Bashkir has ap ...

. The meaning behind the name is believed to originate from the many inconveniences of the mountain – a big bear population, surrounding swamps and rocky slopes – resulting in its area being a troublesome herding place.

Geography

Yamantaw has two peaks: Big Yamantaw and Small Yamantaw . Both peaks are plateaus, with a big area and flat relief. Up to 1,000–1,100 m elevation, the mountain slope is covered with mixed forest, in some places with driftwood, occasional alpine meadows and rocky outcrops. Above 1,100 m elevation, there are no trees or bushes, and instead rock streams of various sizes, with grass, flowers and moss start to appear.

Bunker complex claims

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

of being home to a large secret

nuclear facility A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power st ...

, or both. Large excavation projects have been observed by U.S.

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

imagery after the fall of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

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

Boris Yeltsin Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Soviet and Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to ...

. During the Soviet era two military

garrison A garrison 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 military base or fortified military headquarters. A garrison is usually in a city ...

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 town is a settlement where travel or residency restrictions are applied. Historically, the construction of closed cities became increasingly common after the beginning of the Cold War, particularly in the Soviet Union. Since t ...

of Mezhgorye () 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 Yamantaw, including it being a

mining Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

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 War, military conflict or prepared Policy, political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are Weapon of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conven ...

. Responding to questions regarding Yamantaw 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 any 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 oversees the de ...

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 The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

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>

References

External links

The Return of the Doomsday Machine?
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yamantaw Mountains of Bashkortostan Ural Mountains Military installations of Russia Nuclear bunkers in Europe Secret military programs Secret places Strategic Rocket Forces Highest points of Russian federal subjects

Name

Geography

Bunker complex claims

See also

References

External links