Kyshtym is a name that most people know from a disaster rather than from the town. In September 1957, a storage tank at the Mayak nuclear complex exploded, scattering radioactive material across the eastern Urals in what is still one of the worst nuclear accidents in history. The plant was secret, and the city that served it, now called Ozersk, did not appear on any map, so the accident was named after the nearest known place, which was Kyshtym. The town itself, about ten kilometres from the plant, was not at the centre of the contamination, and today it is an ordinary, rather pleasant small city of forty thousand, but the shadow of the name has never quite lifted. The Soviet authorities kept the accident secret for decades, and the first public acknowledgement came only in the late 1980s.
Away from that history, Kyshtym sits in a landscape of lakes. The area between Kyshtym and Miass is a chain of deep, clear bodies of water set among pine forests, low hills and granite outcrops, and many are popular for swimming, camping and fishing. The town grew around an ironworks and a copper smelter in the eighteenth century, and later became a centre for kaolin and clay. Its streets are tidy, with a lake at the centre and a railway line that has carried the Trans-Siberian traffic for over a century.
For a rider, the roads here are flat to rolling, running through forest and farmland, with moderate traffic and a mostly good surface on the main routes. The route between Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg passes through, and trucks are common. Side roads to the lakes are quieter, sometimes sandy, and often charming in summer, when the smell of pine and hot sand hangs in the air. Weather is typical for the Urals, with changeable skies and sudden storms in July, and long, cold winters.
If you stop here, you will find all the basics: several petrol stations on the main roads, shops, cafés and a couple of modest hotels. It is a practical stop, and the lakeside is pleasant for a rest. Avoid wandering into restricted areas near the nuclear zone, which are signposted, and check local advice if you plan to leave the main roads.
Sit by the lake for a quarter of an hour. It is a small, peaceful corner, and the history is something to keep in mind.