evidence: Until 1948, Vozrozhdeniya was an anonymous patch of soil among the turquoise waters of the Aral Sea. The 75-square-mile island used as a launching base for local fishermen acquired a different purpose as the Soviet government decided to transform this isolated corner of the planet into a testing ground for some of the deadliest chemical weapons in existence. Unknown in the Western world, Vozrozhdeniya Island became the host of the top-secret Aralsk-7 project. From the end of WWII to the fall of the Union, this remote territory remained a hidden site where poisons and viruses were converted into weapons. According to the BBC, anthrax was cultivated in large fermenting vats next to smallpox, bubonic plague "and exotic diseases including tularemia, brucellosis, and typhus." With the fall of the Soviet Union, the goings-on on Vozrozhdeniya gradually emerged from the shadows, and while a joint American-Uzbek operation attempted to clean up the place, reports on the safety status vary widely. What’s more, the island is no longer an island — with the evaporation of the Aral Sea, Vozrozhdeniya has become part of Uzbekistan’s Karakalpakstan desert, and the contaminated soil is now connected to the rest of Uzbekistan’s territory.