Uranium mining in Asia started during World War II in Tabošar, the present-day Istiklol in the north of Tajikistan. According to a decree by Soviet leadership in 1942, four tonnes of uranium were supposed to be produced in just a few months, to supply the raw material for the first Soviet nuclear bomb. As in Kyrgyzstan, uranium mining and processing in Tajikistan was also treated as a state secret by the Soviet regime. When the last mine was closed in 1992, a total of 20,000 tonnes of uranium had been extracted [4]. Taboshar was the first of many officially secret Soviet closed cities related to uranium mining and production. The main issue now is the cleaning up of the million tons of uranium tailings.

https://ejatlas.org/conflict/300m-radioactive-waste-from-soviet-times-in-taboshar-tajikistan