Zheleznodorozhny () is an inhabited zone and city in Moscow Oblast, Russia, located east of Moscow. It was technically abolished and merged into the city of Balashikha in January 2015. Population: Its name means "Railway", and its flag and coat of arms both had lines resembling railway tracks.
Founded in 1861 to service the railway station of Obiralovka (), the settlement became famous as the location where the main character of Leo Tolstoy's 1878 novel Anna Karenina committed suicide. It was renamed Zheleznodorozhny (Russian adjective meaning "railway"; example of use: "zheleznodorozhnaya stantsiya" "railway station") in 1939 and granted town status in 1952. In the 1960s the settlements of Kuchino (), Savvino (), Temnikovo (), and Sergeyevka () became part of Zheleznodorozhny. Kuchino is historically associated with the name of Andrei Bely, the Russian poet who lived there between 1925 and 1931.
In January 2015 Zheleznodorozhny was abolished and its territory merged into the city of Balashikha.
Within the framework of administrative divisions, it was incorporated as Zheleznodorozhny City Under Oblast JurisdictionâÂÂan administrative unit with the status equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, Zheleznodorozhny City Under Oblast Jurisdiction was incorporated as Zheleznodorozhny Urban Okrug.
The railway connecting Moscow and Vladimir runs through Zheleznodorozhny, which is served by Kuchino and Zheleznodorozhnaya railway stations of the Gorkovsky suburban railway line.
In 2013 according to the Virginia-based Taia Global, military unit 35533, which is a research institute owned by the FSB, uses the postal code for Zheleznodorozhny. Taia Global asserted that Military unit 35533 is the "FSB Scientific Research Unit No. 1", which is part of the Third Scientific and Technical Directorate of the FSB and, in 2013, military unit 35533, which was headed by Major General Alexei Reznev, specialized in research in the field of information technology, hardware and software development. Since 2010 according to Taia Global, military unit 35533's interests have included digital signal processing systems, wireless network equipment research, and text encryption research and supports research into "anthropomorphic methods of speech analysis and processing," as well as "methods for automatic voice recognition" and "methods for changing and imitating the voice of a given individual.". Allegedly, these electronics can be used both to create eavesdropping technologies and to falsify communications for Russian intelligence services.