re: Legacy of Statism: Aral sea completely gone

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Located in the central Aral Sea, Vozrozhdeniya Island was one of the main laboratories and testing sites for the Soviet Union's Microbiological Warfare Group. In 1948, a top-secret Soviet bioweapons laboratory was established here, which tested a variety of agents, including anthrax, smallpox, plague, brucellosis, and tularemia.[4] In 1971, a release of weaponized smallpox from the island infected ten people, of whom 3 died. In the 1990s, word of the island's danger was spread by Soviet defectors, including Ken Alibek, the former head of the Soviet Union's bioweapons program.[5]
It was here, according to recently released documents, that anthrax spores and bubonic plague bacilli were made into weapons and stored. The main town on the island was Kantubek, which lies in ruins today, but once had approximately 1,500 inhabitants. The laboratory staff members abandoned the small island in 1992.[6] Many of the containers holding the spores were not properly stored or destroyed, and over the last decade many of these containers have developed leaks.

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