Gorodomlya Island

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Gorodomlya Island sits on Lake Seliger in Tver Oblast, Russia, about 300 km northwest of Moscow. The settlement of Solnechny is located on the island.

In 1930 the Soviet government built a research center on Gorodomlya for studying foot-and-mouth disease, which opened in 1932. The main complex covered about 25,000 square metres and included laboratories, production facilities, a guinea pig nursery, a wastewater plant, a museum, a library, a micro-photo laboratory, a cinema, and a 100-seat lecture hall.

In 1934–35 the facility was transferred to the Red Army’s Biotechnical Institute (BW), with the code V/2-1094. German intelligence later said experiments there looked at dangerous pathogens such as tularemia and plague. After Germany invaded in 1941, the BW facility was evacuated to Kirov and used later as a convalescent hospital.

In 1946, more than 170 German rocket scientists, including Helmut Gröttrup and Fritz Preikschat, were brought to Gorodomlya to help with the Soviet space program. The island’s German community faced harsh conditions at first, with no electricity or running water, but these problems were largely solved by the end of 1947. The German settlement became Branch 1 of the NII-88 research bureau, which worked on the V-2 rocket and the R-1 rocket (a V-2 built with Russian parts).

In 1952 about 100 German scientists returned home. Branch 1 of NII-88 later became part of the Zvezda branch of the Academician Pilyugin Center, a Roscosmos subsidiary.