evidence: Vozrozhdeniye island is located in the Aral Sea approximately 1,300 miles (2,092 km) to the east of Moscow. The island was used as biological weapons test site for the former Soviet Union. Now decommissioned, the island has served for decades as the repository of a large quantity of spores of Bacillus anthracis, the bacterial agent of anthrax , and other disease-causing bacteria and viruses . Vozrozhdeniye island translates as Renaissance island. The island was used for open-air testing of bioweapons. The sparse vegetation on the island, remote location, and summer temperatures that reach 140°F (60°C) reduced the chances that escaping bioweapons would survive. Besides the testing of anthrax bioweapons, Soviet archives indicate that the microbial agents of tularemia , plague, typhoid, and possibly smallpox were used for experimentation. [...] Vozrozhdeniye island has remained unguarded since that time. The main reason has been the isolated location of the facility in the middle of the Aral Sea. Over the past two decades, irrigation demands for water have depleted the freshwater sea to such an extent that the sea is becoming smaller. Many scientists now fear that Vozrozhdeniye Island might soon be directly connected to the mainland, making the stockpiled weapons more vulnerable to bioterrorist theft.