Kyshtym is a town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia, located on the eastern slopes of the Southern Ural Mountains 90km northwest of Chelyabinsk, near the town of Ozyorsk. Population: 36,000 .HistoryIt was established by the Demidovs in 1757 around two factories for production of cast iron and steel. It was granted town status in 1934.In 1910, Herbert Hoover's company helped modernize the copper, iron and steel industry associated with Baron Mellor Zakomelsku's Kyshtim's estate. Copper production, using pyritic smelting, eventually reached 25,000,000 pounds a year. According to Hoover, a small iron industry had existed there "for one hundred and fifty years", which produced a secret process for generating sheet iron "unusually resistant to rust." The process "consisted of alternately heating the sheets and sweeping them when hot with a wet pine-bough. The effect was to create a coating of FeO4 which was rust-resistant."Administrative and municipal statusWithin the framework of administrative divisions, it is, together with twelve rural localities, incorporated as the Town of Kyshtym—an administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the Town of Kyshtym is incorporated as Kyshtymsky Urban Okrug.