Soviet biopreparation: inside the toxic matryoshka When people think of pharmaceutical companies, they immediately associate the word pharmaceutical with medicine. There are scientists dedicated exclusively to finding the remedy for cancer and incurable diseases. These professionals have dedicated their educated lives to helping the sick human population recover. At first glance, All-Union Production Association Biopreparat looked like a pharmaceutical company. It presented itself to the world as a civilian pharmaceutical and vaccine company. Behind closed doors, however, unbeknownst to most of its 32,000 employees, lies a malicious activity directed by the Russian government: biological weapons research and development. This activity was a mysterious metaphor for Matryoshka dolls (McLeish, p. 60). The Soviet Central Committee and Council of Ministers (SCCM) founded the All-Union Biopreparat Production Association in 1972. Biopreparat had several facilities across the country, one of which was located in the former Soviet Union city of Stepnogorsk, now Kazakhstan. It is estimated that there were 47 facilities spread across the Soviet Union. Igor Domaradsky, a native of Saratov, had succeeded as a public health official. While serving as head of the Plague Institute in Rostove, he was recruited to participate in the Soviet biological weapons defense program. “Problem number 5” is the name of the defense program in which Igor served. At 48, Igor continued his vaccine research to improve his biological sciences. Incidentally, his research was eventually used for the offensive biological weapons program. In his memoirs, Domaradsky recounted that the research opportunities, the high salary and the patriotism... middle of paper... The world told from inside the man who ran it, by Ken Alibek; Stephen Handelmann]. American Association for the Advancement of Science, 285(5340), 1019-1020.Guillemin, J. (2004). [Review of the book Biowarrior: Inside the Soviet/Russian Biological War Machine by Wendy Orent; Judith Miller; Allan P. Zelicoff]. The history of scientific society, 95(3), 527-528.Wade, D. (2000). Biohazard: The Bioweapons Story [Review of the book Biohazard by Ken Alibek; Stephen Handelmann]. American Institute of Biological Sciences, 50(8), 716-719.Guillemin, J. (2002). The 1979 anthrax epidemic in the USSR: applied science and political controversy. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 146(1), 18-36.McLeish, C. (2009). The opening of the secret city of Stepnogorsk: biological weapons in the former Soviet Union. The Area Institute of British Geographers, 42(1), 60-69.