They are trapped by barbed wire fences and heavily guarded gates, but have better-than-average access to groceries and other supplies that citizens outside of the city do not have.
Radioactive waste from the factory were insecurely dumped into the nearby Lake Irtyash and Techa River, creating some of the most polluted water bodies in the world,[3] with isotopes reaching as far as the Arctic Ocean.
Nadezhda Kutepova, an attorney and civil rights activist in Ozersk whose beliefs changed from thinking the town was doing its patriotic duty for the state to being confronted with the ecological damage being caused by radioactive waste, defends its citizens who have been affected by the radiation.
Journalists, scientists and other interviewees, some with their faces obscured, tell of life in the factory and the town and how their families have suffered from early deaths due to the unsecure handling of the radioactive substances.
[4] An epilogue tells of how Kutepova and her family later fled the area and were granted asylum in France after being persecuted by the Russian government for her activities.