Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Zlatoust-36 / Trekhgornyy
PO Zlatoust Machine-Building Plant
N 54°47' E 58°27'

Zlatoust-36, currently Trekhgorny, was established as a site of the Machine-Building Plant - a warhead assembly/disassembly facility. The town has a population of approximately 33,000. Of them, approximately 10,000 work at the warhead production facility. The Device-Building plant assembles nuclear warheads from physics packages that are produced by other serial warhead assembly facilities. Possibly the plant also manufactures depleted uranium components of nuclear warheads.

The facility has two associated large national warhead stockpile storage sites, located approximately 10 km east of the warhead assembly plant.

As with other nuclear industry enterprises in Ozersk and Snezhinsk, Trekhgorny is currently guarded by a division of the Interior Ministry troops stationed there.

Regional Context

The nearby Zlatoust Engineering Plant, not directly involved in nuclear weapons activities, is developing one of two Russian facilities [the other is the Votinks Plant] for the destruction of solid-fuel strategic missiles under the START arms reduction agreements.

The city of Zlatoust, which currently has a population of over 200,000, is situated on the border between Europe and Asia on the river Ay. Zlatoust is one of the most significant industrial centres in the Urals, with a number oflarge factories devoted to steel-milling, machine-building, and metal structures. There is a great number of small enterprises founded in Zlatoust alongside with the big plants. Production in Zlatoust ranges from from steel smelting and rolled metal to the maufacture of articles such as exavators, instruments, electric stoves, and shoes.

Zlatoust was founded in 1754 with the establishment of an ironworks named after Saint Zlatoust. In the early 19th century an arms factory was built in Zlatoust, producing sabres, swords, broadswords, forming the basis for the noteworthy Zlatoust steel-engraving craft. Products of the factory included hunter's knives and hatchets, wall panels and plates, boxes, caskets, trays, wine sets, vases and cups, featuring distinctive engraving, deep etching, blueing, gilding and metal carving.

Imagery Evaluation Report

As of 07 October 2000 the Space Imaging Carterra Archive had one image of this area, which was about 90% cloud-free.

Sources and Methods

• Thomas Cochrane, William Arkin, Robert Norris and Jeffrey Sands, Soviet Nuclear Weapons Nuclear Weapons Databook Volume IV, Natural Resources Defense Council [New York, Harper & Row, 1989].
• Thomas Cochrane, Robert Norris and Oleg Bukharin, Making the Bomb - From Stalin to Yeltsin [Boulder, Westview Press, 1995]

• Zlatoust-36 / Trekhgornyy Official Homepage
• Zlatoust Official Homepage

• Zlatoust-36 / Trekhgornyy 2000/06/03 2000060307341260000011600874