Uchquduq (sometimes spelled as Uchkuduk, ; ) is a city in the north of Navoiy Region,

Uzbekistan , image_flag = Flag of Uzbekistan.svg , image_coat = Emblem of Uzbekistan.svg , symbol_type = Emblem of Uzbekistan, Emblem , national_anthem = "State Anthem of Uzbekistan, State Anthem of the Republ ...

. It is the seat of Uchquduq District. The city's name means "three draw-wells" in Uzbek. It is located at , at an altitude of 193 meters in the middle of the

Kyzylkum Desert The Kyzylkum Desert (, قِیزِیل‌قُوم; , قىزىلقۇم) is the 15th largest desert in the world. Its name means ''Red Sand'' in Turkic languages. It is located in Central Asia, in the land between the confluent rivers Amu Darya and ...

. Its population is 26,800 (2016).

History

Uchquduq was founded in 1958, after a small prospecting party found deposits of

uranium ore Uranium ore deposits are economically recoverable concentrations of uranium within Earth's crust. Uranium is one of the most common Chemical element, elements in Earth's crust, being 40 times more common than silver and 500 times more common than ...

. In the late 1960s, the development of open pit and underground mining led to the rapid growth of the settlement, with workers, engineers and technicians from all over the Soviet Union. It was elevated to city status in 1978. Until 1979, Uchquduq had the status of a " closed secret city," as it supplied much of the raw material for

nuclear weapons A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission, fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion, fusion reactions (thermonuclear weap ...

in the

Soviet military The Armed Forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, also known as the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union, the Red Army (1918–1946) and the Soviet Army (1946–1991), were the armed forces of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republi ...

arsenal. The mining operations are now under the control of the

Navoi Mining and Metallurgy Combinat NMMC (, ) is the largest Uzbek industrial enterprise, is involved in the mining industry, and is one of the top ten largest gold producers in the world. The company's most important gold ore deposits are located in the Kyzyl Kum Desert. In 2008 ...

(NMMC), which continues to mine and process uranium using

in-situ leach In-situ leaching (ISL), also called in-situ recovery (ISR) or solution mining, is a mining process used to recover minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into a deposit, ''in situ''. In-situ leach works by artificially dis ...

processes. The company also produces gold by the same process.

Aeroflot Flight 5143 Aeroflot Flight 5143 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight between the Soviet Union, Soviet cities of Qarshi, Karshi and Saint Petersburg, Leningrad with a stopover in Ufa, operated by the Uzbek division of Aeroflot. On July 10, 1985, the T ...

crashed near Uchquduq on July 10, 1985; this was the deadliest air disaster in the Soviet Union. The Uzbek group Yalla made a Soviet-wide hit named after the city.

References

Populated places in Navoiy Region Cities in Uzbekistan Uranium mines in the Soviet Union Mining in Uzbekistan Nuclear weapons program of the Soviet Union Cities and towns built in the Soviet Union Closed cities {{Uzbekistan-geo-stub