land were commonplace but it was not until the 1990s that these problems were fully recognized or discussed in the press. Indeed, so endemic were problems at the Balakovo power plant that in January 2004 yet another stoppage occurred, introducing the possibility of further radiation leaks and demonstrating that this important plant serving the Volga region is not operating efficiently (Malfunction stops Russia'sa, 2004).
In the early 1990s, Feshbach (1992) has noted that there were 600 unmarked radioactive waste dumps scattered around Moscow with at least that many in St. Petersburg and dozens of other cities across the Soviet Union. Cleaning up the radioactive waste was estimated as costing hundreds of billions of dollars that Moscow (let alone the governments in the former satellite countries) simply did not have (Feshbach, 1992). Most Soviet era nuclear plants were built without following the kinds of standards and safeguards that were typical in the West. Operating procedures are shoddy and most of these reactors lack
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