Asbest, city, Sverdlovsk oblast (province), west-central Russia. It lies in the eastern foothills of the middle Ural Mountains. Developed from the settlement of Kudelka, founded in 1720 around the first Russian discovery of asbestos—from which it takes its name—it became a city in 1933. Asbestos production from the Bazhenovo deposit has been carried on since the 1880s. A century later the city was still the largest producer of asbestos in the country, contributing about 70 percent of national output. There is a local factory for the concentration of asbestos, a medical institute, and a mining college. Pop. (2006 est.) 72,822.