Russia currently has 44 publicly acknowledged closed cities with a combined population of approximately 1.5 million people. The government calls them "closed administrative-territorial formations," or ZATO. Seventy-five percent are run by the Ministry of Defense; the rest are administered by Rosatom, the state nuclear agency. It is believed that about 15 additional closed cities exist whose names and locations have never been disclosed.
The system dates to the late 1940s, when the Soviet Union built nuclear weapons facilities and military research sites in remote locations deep in the Urals and Siberia, out of reach of enemy bombers. The cities were "sometimes represented only on classified maps that are not available to the general public" and given fake names — a settlement might be listed as a nearby village, with mail addressed to the closest large city plus a special postcode. Sarov, one of Russia's primary nuclear weapons labs, was designated Arzamas-16, despite being 75 kilometers from the actual Arzamas.
Access required security clearance from the KGB. Perimeters were guarded by barbed wire and towers. Residents were expected not to reveal where they lived, but in exchange received better housing and better-stocked stores than anywhere else in the country.
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