Mezhgorye (Mount Yamantaw)
Like its American cousins, totally out of anybody’s itinerary. Founded in 1979, Mezhgorye is a closed military town in Russia that houses staff working on the highly secret Mount Yamantaw, believed to be a nuclear bunker or facility. Mount Yamantaw itself is impressive, standing at 1,640 metres (5,381 ft), the highest mountain in the southern Urals. American spy satellites have picked up images of large excavation projects as recently as the late 1990s, during the time of Boris Yeltsin’s pro-Western government, after the fall of the Soviet Union. Two garrisons, Beloretsk-15 and Beloretsk-16, were built on top of the facility. Replying to American questions on the activity spotted on the mountain, the Russians have given a whole slew of answers including that it is a mining site, a repository for Russian treasures, a food storage area, and a bunker for leaders in case of nuclear war. And like the American nuclear facilities, you won’t be able to visit it.
