Gorodomlya Island

Gorodomlya Island (остров Городомля) is located on Lake Seliger in Tver Oblast, Russia, 300 kilometres (200 mi) northwest of Moscow.

In June 1930, the People's Commissariat of Agriculture (Narkomzem) began construction on Gorodomlya Island of the Scientific-Research Institute for the Study of Foot-and-Mouth Disease.

It was opened officially in October 1932 and incorporated the very best Soviet and imported equipment and its huge main building, occupying 25,000 square metres, incorporated both production facilities and research laboratories, a guinea pig nursery, biological wastewater treatment facilities, a museum, a library, a micro-photo laboratory, a cinema and a 100-seat lecture room.

Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 and following the capture of Kalinin in October, the BW facility was evacuated from the island and eventually relocated to Kirov.

[3] In 1946, more than 170 German rocket scientists and engineers, including Helmut Gröttrup and Fritz Karl Preikschat, were brought to the island to work on the Soviet space program.