Modern-day Dzerzhinsk is a large center of the Russian chemicals production industry. In the past, the city was also among Russia's principal production sites for chemical weapons. Owing to its strategic significance, this city was, until recently, officially closed to foreign visitors. Manufacture of various chemical weapons started in 1941, particularly concentrating on the production of lewisite—the poisonous effects of which are owed to its arsenic trioxide content—and yperite. The factory producing these substances was called the Kaprolactam Organic Glass Factory, and in addition to its arsenic-based weapons, also produced prussic acid and phosgene. Chemical weapons production at Dzerzhinsk ceased in 1965. Some materials were transferred to storage units, while large amounts of waste material—frequently containing high concentrations of arsenic—were buried in dumps on the site of the factory. Full dismantling of the yperite facility was commenced in 1994. As of 1998, the lewisite production unit was still not completely disassembled. , Dzerzhinsk had 38 large industrial enterprises, which export their goods worldwide. About one thousand varieties of chemical products are produced in Dzerzhinsk. The largest factories, which exist as of 2012 or existed in the past, include:
Sverdlov Plant, FSE manufactures munitions, battle and industrial explosives, and chemicals for industrial purposes. The plant is included in the presidential list of the country's strategic enterprises. This is Dzerzhinsk's largest factory.
JSC Kristall Research Institute, a military explosives factory, part of the Sverdlow Plant, which suffered a serious explosion in June 2019.
Korund, JSC. This plant produces corundum for lasers and other applications. It is the oldest enterprise in Dzerzhinsk. In 2004, the plant was temporarily closed due to bankruptcy.
According to the September 12, 2007, study by the Blacksmith Institute, Dzerzhinsk is one of the worst-polluted cities of the world and has a life expectancy of 42 years for men and 47 for women, with the 2003 death rate exceeding its birth rate by 260%. Environmental action groups such as Greenpeace attribute such low life expectancy to high levels of persistent organic chemicals, particularly dioxins. The Blacksmith Institute also names sarin, lewisite, sulfur mustard, hydrogen cyanide, phosgene, lead, and organic chemicals among the worst pollutants. Parts of Dzerzhinsk's water are contaminated with dioxins and phenol at levels that are reportedly seventeen million times the safe limit. Dzerzhinsk's environmental agency estimates that almost 300,000 tons of chemical waste were dumped in the city between 1930 and 1998. The Ecology Committee of the Russian State Duma also considers Dzerzhinsk among the top ten cities with disastrous ecological conditions. Dzerzhinsk's City Administration, however, asserts that the Blacksmith Institute report is false, stating, for example, that since sarin had never been produced in the city, it cannot be one of the major pollutants. Also, according to the city's health department, the average life expectancy in the city was 64 years in 2006. Askhat Kayumkov, the head of the Dront public ecological organization, which was quoted as a source by the Blacksmith Institute, states that his organization never provided the Blacksmith Institute with data of any kind. Furthermore, he does not believe that Dzerzhinsk is one of the most polluted cities in Russia, much less in the whole world. Additionally, a 2000 audit report by the Audiekometal organization, based in Moscow, asserted that, for the previous ten years, Dzerzhinsk had not made it to the top ten most polluted cities of the Russian Federation, and that the level of pollution in the city was "moderate". In the end, however, despite the ecological situation in the city being at its best in the previous 80 years, several locations in the city pose a tangible ecological risk. These sites include the landfill, toxic wasteburial grounds, and a so-called "white sea", composed of disposed chemical wastes. These sites are kept under constant ecological monitoring. In June 2019 a massive explosion at JSC Kristall Research Institute injured 79 people and destroyed 180 homes in the neighbourhood.
Sights
, the unique architectural construction—the steel lattice hyperboloid tower built by Soviet engineer and scientist Vladimir Shukhov in 1929—is located near Dzerzhinsk on the left bank of the Oka River. There used to be two towers, but one was stolen for scrap metal in 2005.
