Dzerzhinsk is a city in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, Russia, located along the Oka River. In Soviet times, it was the largest center of the chemical industry in the USSR, in this connection the ecological situation in the region was in an unsatisfactory condition. The city was also among Soviet's principal production sites for chemical weapons. Nowadays some of the chemical factories, such as Korund, OrgSteklo, Zarya, DzerzhinskHimMash are partially or completely abandoned.