There was something about the 1986 Chernobyl disaster that to this day keeps the atmosphere of secrecy around the exclusion zone. And the reason for this was, rather, not a meeting with a couple or two zombies at the barbed wire, but the violent fantasy of science fiction writers. So what exactly is Chernobyl? Interesting Facts about the Chernobyl zone and my personal memories we will consider.

I deliberately did not retouch this photo, only brightened it up a bit.
The graininess on it is the effect of radioactive radiation.

At the time of the disaster, I was 18 years old. I could get to the station as a liquidator while serving in Soviet army how my friend Oleg got there. After that, he was treated in a hospital for several months. I do not know anything about his fate after 1992. I hope that I am still alive and well.
But at this time I entered the military school... Therefore, this cup passed me.
After graduating from college, I joined the people who have been there.
In 1993-1994, I took part in the flight and monitoring of the Sarcophagus object.
During this time, 4 times. International observers have joined us twice.
We flew around the area of ​​the Sarcophagus object at a certain height in a helicopter and measured the radiation level by lowering the devices on the cable. Why this was done - I can't say, because all measurements were taken from the ground too. Moreover, there were a bunch of sensors on the object itself. More for the effect, probably flew.
There was no crazy background there, as sometimes it jumped in the media. Everything was within the normal range. Truth and norms there were slightly different, adjusted for the disaster. But all the same, it was possible to stay for some time without harm to health. In those days, the rest of the NPP units were still working. And the staff there changed every 2 or 4 weeks. I don't remember now.
We entered the station from the western side, flew out from the town of Korosten. The sight of the "Sarfag" made an unforgettable impression. Slightly to the west was the Duga object, a radar station in the city of Chernobyl-2. This is actually something! I have never seen such huge antennas! Even from a height of 500-700 meters, it is a grand spectacle.
In fact, it is difficult to convey all your feelings. But, then, I felt a little involved in all those tragic events of 1986.

Below, I want to give some facts that I did not find on the "chips".
Perhaps I was looking badly, so do not judge strictly for "boyans".

The scale of the disaster

We will begin to study interesting facts about Chernobyl from the moment of the disaster itself. The assessment of the scale of the Chernobyl disaster is also assessed by the amount of released radioactive material. To visualize the consequences of an accident, the amount of radioactive material released is compared to the first use of a nuclear weapon.
So, we know that the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945 was dropped atomic bomb... The Chernobyl accident released 500 times more destructive mass. The amount of radioactive materials was 50 million curies.

Accident victims

The first victims of radiation were firefighters, who went without special protection to extinguish the fire in the fourth reactor. Since the station was operating at the time of the accident, there were many people there. 134 of them received radiation sickness while at work in the first time after the release. About 30 people died from radiation sickness within the first month. To eliminate the consequences of the accident, 600 thousand people were called up. Many of them received more or less radiation dose.
In addition to the liquidators, a huge number of residents of the countries suffered, whose territories are closest to the current exclusion zone. In total, more than 8.4 million inhabitants were exposed to radiation in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia (then the united USSR). This is the scale of the consequences of the disaster. Since then it has become a ghost town of Chernobyl. Interesting facts, which we will talk about further, are amazing.

Radiation paths

Although the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is located on the territory of Ukraine, most of victims in Belarus. This was due to the direction of the wind at the time of the disaster. Agricultural land in Belarus turned out to be unsuitable for cultivation. The country had to abandon them, which led to a serious loss in the economy. What other interesting facts about Chernobyl and the entire exclusion zone are known to mankind?

Conserved danger

More than 95% of radioactive material has been mothballed under the Chernobyl sarcophagus (a shelter above the fourth power unit of the nuclear power plant). Considering that the large-scale consequences of the accident are due to the spread of an insignificant part of hazardous substances, the importance of the sarcophagus is excessive. The construction of a new shelter is already underway. Billions of dollars have been allocated for it. This hideout is almost complete. But about him in the next post.

The exclusion zone is inhabited!

In our perception, the exclusion zone is a territory forbidden for people. In the case of Chernobyl, this is justified. There was a radiation hazard waiting for people here and is still waiting, which means, according to logic, they should not be here. But people live in a restricted area! These are the interesting facts that modern Chernobyl gave us.
Those who ventured to return home to the fenced off territories, we today call self-settlers. According to 2014 data, about three hundred people live in Chernobyl and the villages and villages belonging to this area. Mostly these are old people who did not want to change their place of residence in 1986.

Now we know that swarms of zombies do not walk under the blackening trees of Chernobyl. There is beautiful nature and living, in the overwhelming number of absolutely normal animals. Moreover, self-settlers live in the exclusion zone - people who risked staying in their homes far from civilization. On this note, we are leaving Chernobyl. Interesting facts do not end there, since the atmosphere of mystery is created by the visitors of the zone themselves. It is replenished with graffiti depicting people's fantasies. And there is definitely something sacred about these creations on the street walls. Now it remains to decide whether the city of Chernobyl, Pripyat and other places of the radiation zone are worth visiting, or whether they should be left, as expected, an exclusion zone.

"Relatives have already come to say goodbye, but he took it - and did not die"

Thirty years ago, everything was the same. The cuckoo crowed in the same way. Storks flew to the nest. The birches that woke up in April were crying with clear juice.

People who have gone through Chernobyl, and thirty years later, are ready to talk about it for hours.

No matter how scary it sounds, but this is the most real, as many say, what happened to them in life.

And so they are still there - in the burned-out Pripyat, near the fourth reactor, in Russian and Belarusian villages, where radioactive rains and the Chernobyl winds blew that spring ...

In the exclusion zone, where others have no road.

Vyacheslav Kornyushin, head of the Bryansk "Union of Chernobyl".

Krasnaya Gora, Barsuki, Zaborie, Nizhnaya Mill ... These destroyed villages and settlements have survived only on old maps.

In the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, 900 settlements were affected by radiation.

Nowadays a little more than three hundred thousand people live here. And before - more than five hundred thousand. Most left, settled, died. Time, like radiation, spares no one.

Radioactive iodine decays within the first two weeks after the accidental release. Cesium is stored in soil for 90 years. Strontium - and even longer. Over time, the poison leaves the ground, washed away by rains and floods. But not right away, not right away ...

April 26, 1986 After the weekend, the radiologists went to work and saw that the background was off scale, but they decided that it was the instruments that had broken ... Only a few weeks later it became clear what had happened. And before that, just as in irradiated Kiev, the Bryansk workers calmly walked at the May Day demonstration, planted potatoes in the gardens, the accordion was playing with might and main ...

Yuri Bobrov, a witness of those events:

“A few days after May 1, I was summoned to the regional committee. The meeting was chaired by the then First Secretary Anatoly Fomich Voistrochenko. “Comrades,” he said. “Enemy voices are spreading rumors that there was an accident in Chernobyl ...” He was broadcasting so carefully that it became clear that it was so. Silence, apparently, was no longer possible, an order came from Moscow. The first secretary orders: go to the villages, hold meetings there. “But remember that our main task today is to revive the accordion in the countryside! Talk to people about this ”. To be honest, I thought I had misheard. "

Vyacheslav hopes that his daughter Nastya (below) can still be saved.

To Krasnaya Gora (as it turns out soon, the most infected point on the map of the region) from Bryansk - more than two hundred kilometers. “I was sent to several settlements,” Yuri Bobrov continues. - I go and think: what to really talk about with them? I decided to go through the questions international relations... It was a moonlit night. Silence. The downpour has just ended. The puddles on the ground were of an unnatural green color and shone strangely ... Later I learned that under the influence of radioactive contamination, the pigment had been washed out of the leaves. It was May 5 on the calendar. "

Everything will come later. Realization of the terrible truth. Panic. Endless checkpoints with decontamination and inspection. Slaughter of cattle and crying children. “Alarming helicopters flew, as in a war, over Krasnaya Gora,” recalls Major General Nikolai Tarakanov. Incredible imported food, bananas and canned food, which were massively imported into villages that were not so badly affected by the consequences of the accident, so that people would not just plant and sow their own that spring. “We used to preserve everything ourselves, but now there was a lot of imports,” recalls Lyudmila Ubogova, head of the administration of the Gordeevsky district of the Bryansk region, the resettlement zone. - And you know, over time, people generally stopped growing something of their own. Have forgotten how, or what. "

ZONE

Exactly 30 years before Chernobyl, in 1956, peat was found in a small village two hundred kilometers from Bryansk, named Mirny. Young people from all over the Soviet Union gathered for the development. They built a plant for the production of fuel briquettes, created families, gave birth ...

“There was no time to worry about myself, I had to save the children,” recalls Lyudmila Ivanovna Mazurevskaya, head of the Solnechny kindergarten in the village of Mirny. Thirty years ago she was just a girl - after teaching, she was 24 years old and her daughter was three.

“The kids are very young, some of them are only a year and a half. Three groups had to be evacuated, but they are crying, my mother is called, - recalls Lyudmila Ivanovna terrible days. "And I roar too."

The peat bogs that surrounded Mirny on all sides attracted radiation. The wind blew to the southwest of the region. The children were taken out into the night. They were not allowed to take things and toys.

“There was a lot of phono, the work was suspended until the circumstances were clarified,” says Grigory Zhgelsky, a foreman of the peat factory. “To prevent the radiation from scattering, the peat mountains, the so-called caravans, were temporarily covered with film.”

So these peat caravans, like uncleared heaps of garbage, have remained to this day. Orders came from above to move the plant to a new location. They even built a similar one in the neighboring area and also named it Mirny.

Mirny-2. But life there never got going.

Over time, gasification was carried out in the region, and no one needed peat, especially radioactive one. Everything was swallowed up by the swamp. Today Mirny is a ghost town with a population of just over a thousand people, but it is felt that there are residents here, and they love their homeland. The roads are clean, the balconies are painted in a solemn blue by May 1. Just like thirty years ago ...

HOSPITAL

Clinical and diagnostic center of the Bryansk region. Built and opened in 1993. With imported tomographs and ultrasound machines, incredible at that time. “The incidence curve in the first years after the accident went up sharply, but at the same time, mortality decreased, since many diseases, the same thyroid cancer, could be captured in the early stages,” says Andrei Bardukov, head of the Bryansk Region Health Department.

Chernobyl Valeria Bobkov.

There is a queue at the office of the Chernobyl victims, as always. Men of age with fat medical histories, grandmothers - it is clear that they are from the countryside. "And were there women among the liquidators?" - I am interested. “My daughter, for example, was sent to the exclusion zone on Krasnaya Gora. Every day she traveled to the villages with a car shop, selling food. I myself worked in the Department of Agriculture, they found accumulations of cesium and strontium in my body, "- somehow even proudly remarks 70-year-old Alexandra Nikolaevna.

“The children, of course, have moved to other cities - and thank God, and we will bear our cross to the end,” argues another patient, Antonina Ivanovna.

The pension is given 12 thousand, this elderly woman is recognized, according to the disability group of 2300 and another 2300 - as liquidators. "We have enough, we do not ask for anything else."

For most of those who continue to live in the resettlement zone, the main headache is getting an apartment from the state. Under the Union, although it was necessary, not so much was allocated, then, in troubled times, they stopped altogether - and only at the beginning of the 2000s they resurrected this federal program. But then there was also room for shenanigans.

“You could rent out your apartment and leave for a clean zone. The state annually allocated 6 billion rubles for this, - says Alexander Bogomaz, the current head of the Bryansk region. - It happened that people allegedly rented out their housing, received compensation for it, and continued to live where they lived. And those who helped the settlers to arrange required documents, had their own interest for this. Just think: if the state gave 3 million rubles for housing for resettlement, ordinary people received a maximum of one hundred thousand rubles in their hands. The rest went to intermediaries. These gray schemes have now been eliminated. Several billion rubles for last years we returned it to the federal budget. But the problem has not been completely resolved. Those who received compensation and continue to live in the resettlement zone are obliged to move from there. So after all, this money has already been spent by people - where should they go? .. ”Governor Bogomaz throws up his hands. By the way, his family also lives in the resettlement zone. Two sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren.

“I specifically asked the specialists how dangerous it is there. They answered me bluntly: thirty years ago, when you were 25, you could have suffered. And now there is nothing to be afraid of. "

People get used to everything. And nevertheless, according to statistics, children from parents exposed during the liquidation of the accident are 75 percent at risk. You can't run away from fate.

FATHER

In the small chapel of the diagnostic center I meet Vyacheslav Kornyushin, the head of the Bryansk branch of the "Union of Chernobyl". He stands in front of the icon of the Mother of God, which is called "Satisfy my sorrows."

“I had to die in Chernobyl. The nasal septum has been twisted since childhood, at the station he breathed through his mouth, and not through his nose, like everyone else. Acute radiation sickness began. They measured me with a Japanese apparatus, issued tickets, and sent me home urgently. I have been a source of infection for others. All my teeth flew out, my hair fell out ... My wife left me ... The indifference was complete. I didn't care what happened to me. "

For 8 months Vyacheslav Kornyushin was waiting for death. Relatives have already come to say goodbye to him. But he took it - and did not die.

Maybe he survived just in order to create the first organization of Chernobyl victims in Russia in 1987 in Bryansk. Prior to that, no one here had dealt with such issues, although the number of liquidators who returned from the zone increased every year.

His youngest daughter Nastya turned four when she felt bad at sea. Temperature of forty and bruises all over the body. Finally, the doctors said that the girl had a rare plastic anemia. “Nastya has nothing left in her blood. No hemoglobin, no leukocytes, no erythrocytes - everything is like water, ”the father worries.

Vyacheslav and his wife gave birth to their third son, Eremey, as a donor for Nastya - the rest of the relatives, including their eldest daughter Dasha, did not fit. But the youngest kid also had the wrong indicators. “We are ready for anything - every fifteen minutes Nastya needs to take special medications, but they cannot cure her. In foreign clinics, they requested 15 million rubles, and guarantees - no more than 20 percent. We would only have to last a year or two - my wife and I believe that they will definitely come up with a cure for this disease! "

Even Putin knows about Nastya Kornyushina, who is now 9 years old. In August 2011, at a meeting with representatives of regional public organizations and societies of disabled people, the president himself approached Vyacheslav Kornyushin and asked how he could help. “And how can you help here? ..” the father smiles bitterly. - In our entire Bryansk region - the only child with such a disease. Nastya does not go to school. We never have guests, our daughter also has no friends. Nastya needs a completely sterile atmosphere. It seems to glow from the inside. We have a small plot of land outside the city, it is behind a high fence, next to a forest, we go there for a short time, take off Nastenka's respirator so that she can breathe a little fresh air ... "

ARTIST

Self-portrait of Valery Bobkov.

“I have never regretted that there was Chernobyl in my life,” recalls 68-year-old artist Valery Bobkov today. - I did not regret the retinal burn and six operations on the eyes. The left one was never saved. The right one sees, but badly. For an artist, this is like death. Thanks to my wife Nina for being there all these years ... 127 paintings, the Chernobyl series, the most important thing that I managed to do in my life - they gave the sick and radiation-affected children the opportunity to go for treatment. It seems to me that only for this they were once created ... "

Artist Valery Bobkov lives in distant Cheboksary.

He painted most of his Chernobyl paintings in the deserted Pripyat, having spent six whole months in this city in 1988 almost without a break. In order to send his paintings from there to the mainland, they had to be decontaminated. Those that did not pass the dosimetric control were burned.

For the first time, Valery Bobkov came to Chernobyl by order, an ordinary liquidator. “Outside of working hours, I asked the political department to allow me to make sketches from places, sketches. I was supposed to go home in December, but instead I ended up in the hospital with a severe form of radiation sickness. "

Valery Bobkov, a disabled person of the 2nd group, returned to Chernobyl again. This time - voluntarily. "I felt so bad, I thought that I would never get up, I would not be able to work, the pictures of Chernobyl are the last thing I will do in my life."

Farewell to Pripyat. Sarcophagus and destroyed reactor. Feral dogs and cats. The old self-settlers who returned to the exclusion zone without permission. Weeping icons of Chernobyl ...

Foreigners offered him to sell the Chernobyl series for any money. Then, in the early 90s, the topic of the accident was on everyone's lips. Europe, Australia, even Alaska - where only his work has not been. “I refused fees. But he asked that irradiated children be sent abroad for treatment with the proceeds. ”

In 94, Valery Bobkov, together with his exhibition, came to Italy and the Vatican. I went with paints to the Vesuvius volcano. The one who destroyed Pompeii many thousands of years ago. “It seemed to me that it would be symbolic. Pompeii is nature's revenge for the arrogance of man, the Italian Chernobyl. "

Soon, an important Catholic cardinal came to visit the villa where the artist lived. "One big man I liked your Vesuvius, he said that this is the heart of Italy, and asked to take you to visit him. "

It was Pope John Paul II.

At a personal meeting, as a gift from the pontiff to Valery Bobkov, they brought out a silver cross with a diamond on a thin chain. “But I replied that our cross is different, Orthodox, but I’ll take the chain. Why not take it? .. "- the master recalls.

One of the paintings by Valery Bobkov, dedicated to the death of Pompey, was presented to the Pope and is now kept in the Museum of the Sistine Chapel.

And for the heroism shown in Chernobyl and Pripyat, the artist Valery Konstantinovich Bobkov has two orders - "For personal courage" and Friendship of peoples.

GENERAL

Nikolay Antoshkin. Photo: club heroev.rf

And this man received a Hero of the Soviet Union for Chernobyl. Colonel General. Deputy. Head of the Heroes' Club. In 2016, Nikolai Antoshkin was also nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The head of the combined aviation group, in the spring of 86, several times a day, Antoshkin climbed into the air contaminated with radioactive emissions.

... The order of Boris Shcherbina, the head of the government commission for liquidating the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, was as follows: "We need helicopters, and right now." The scientists decided that they would fill the reactor with sand.

To drop ten bags of sand, it was necessary to hover over the vent of the reactor for three to four minutes. The 150-meter pipe of the fourth block interfered. During takeoff and landing, highly radioactive dust was blown off from the surface of the earth by the working propellers. Experienced pilots, many have recently returned from Afgan ...

"A member of the government commission Valery Legasov asked me:" How many pilots do you say x-rays per hour at altitude? " - "1000-1500". And he: “No, you are deceiving them. There are 3000–3500 ".

... The first helipads were located 500-800 meters from the reactor. Once radiation background increased, they were pushed further. Each of the sites had its own flight leader and a brigadier with a radio station, a group of soldiers - a reserve soldier, a “partisan”.

“Once I was told by radio that the 'partisans' had mutinied: 'The level of radiation is high, we will not work.' I ask them: “Who is in front of you? General. In the zone - from the first day. As you see a running general, run too. Until he runs, you have to work. "

At the end of the day, the equipment went to decontamination, the pilots went to the bathhouse. Everyone who visited the zone was changed daily uniforms and boots. But it was already impossible to change the body ...

27 first crews. The characteristic "radiation tan" on the faces. Severe damage to the thyroid gland, lymph nodes and liver with radionuclides. In the blood - salts of uranium and plutonium, in the mouth - dryness, a taste of rusty iron.

And under the thickness of the sky, which keeps the car in the air, is the torn-up womb of the reactor, invisible, intangible and therefore such a seemingly not terrible death at first glance ...

For 10 days in the zone, I also picked up radiation, - continues the general. - Received about 605-608 roentgens. When I arrived home, I slept for a day and a half - my wife woke me up, gave me tea, and then fell asleep again.

In oblivion, his face again burned a terrible heat and choked the smell of gas. The temperature in the helicopter cockpit is like in a bath: sixty degrees or more. Radiation dust is deposited with a greasy coating on devices and people ...

In the Kiev hospital, doctors shied away from Antoshkin. The radiation counter, as it approached, began to buzz with all its might. The VIP patient was given vitamins and also sleeping pills. Nikolai Timofeevich took off his pajamas, put on a uniform with stripes and climbed over the fence - the general escaped. Not from danger - on the contrary.

And his subordinates tore out the sheets from the case histories, where it was written how many X-rays they received. They could not imagine life without heaven ...

"PARTIZAN"

Victor Nikultsev.

“If they told me in those days - rush to the reactor, as to an embrasure, I would definitely rush,” my next hero asserts quite seriously.

Viktor Nikultsev is a private "partisan" of Chernobyl. An ordinary working guy. One of the half a million guys like him who went through the crucible of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

“The summons came to me in the spring of 1987, a year after the accident. In general, they shouldn't have taken me to the "partisans" - I was only after the army, single, without children. Still they tried not to touch the young. The mother begged his father: "Go to the military registration and enlistment office, ask!" But dad flatly refused. My father is flint: during the war he was a juvenile prisoner of a concentration camp, and my grandfather was the commander of a partisan detachment. "

In May 1987, the organization of liquidation works was fine-tuned: everyone knew their place and their responsibilities. We got to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant by two cars. The first, "cleaner" one, delivered to the village of Lelev. “The state farm was once the richest,” Victor sighs. - And the houses are so beautiful, decorated with red granite. And what apples hung on the branches that year! The size of a half-watermelon! But we were not allowed to vomit them ... "

The vastness of the station, covered with an impenetrable sarcophagus; military trucks scurrying back and forth; life, boiling, as in an anthill - hundreds, thousands of identical "partisans" - ants. In the evenings, the artists came. Victor “captured” Barykin, Rosenbaum, but he didn’t hit Alla Pugacheva, which he bitterly regrets.

The irradiated forest was red in the distance; real partisans were once hung in it. It was forbidden to go there. In general, it was impossible to get out of order. Where everyone is, there you are.

When the "partisan" gained his radiation rate, he was sent home. In 86, it was 25 roentgens. From May 1, 1987 - 10. On July 25, 1987, an urgent order was received to remove 20-year-olds like Victor from the zone immediately. We returned back through Kiev. This time they were even allowed to walk along Khreshchatyk. “And I have never even been to Moscow before,” Victor shrugs. - Everyone came up to us, clapped on the shoulders: we are in camouflage, and on the chest - the inscription "Chernobyl nuclear power plant".

That Chernobyl was not in vain for him, Victor realized only five years later. He was 25 when the vessels began to "crumble". Then they tried not to associate it with Chernobyl. Not like the vessels - the country was disintegrating. They tried to forget about the benefits for the liquidators.

“To be honest, I personally stood in line for housing for more than ten years. I understand that there are a lot of people like me, you can't help everyone, so I'm not offended ... ”Now Viktor Nikultsev is 50. But at the same time he is a young father. The son and daughter are less than ten years old. “I got married very late, in my forties; everyone said that I deliberately waited for all the radiation to come out. No, it just happened. "

Former liquidators, once boys, are retiring. “I would like to return to Chernobyl, in my youth, to see how it is there? - Victor asks himself. - On the other hand, I think: why? .. "

BIRCH JUICE

And birches grow at the gates of the house of pensioners Ivan Semenovich and Valentina Aleksandrovna Boboriko. Mature trees, strong trunks are wrapped in white rags, and juice flows through them into half-liter plastic bottles. “It happens that my wife and I roll up forty cans,” the owner is proud. - Don't be afraid, drink! "

Before the trip to the dangerous zone, Galina Romanova, head of the radiation medicine department of the clinical diagnostic center of the Bryansk region, immediately warned me that the locals would be fed. And strenuously.

“When our first medical teams went to the infected areas, they came to us with children and whole families. And, of course, people carried gifts with them. And how not to take it? .. We usually reassured ourselves that from what is eaten once, nothing remains in the body. But those who constantly live there have harmful accumulations, of course. And so, once, it is not dangerous to treat yourself to it. And people will be pleased: few people come to them from outside now. "

Thinking for a second about how many X-rays there are, I drink a whole mug of juice. Cold juice, correct. “Yes, from one glass, tea, nothing will come, - as if a real doctor, soothes me and Ivan Semyonovich. - We have been living here for thirty years - in the resettlement zone, and nothing. Alive. Grandchildren come to us for the holidays. We grow cattle, collect berries, mushrooms ... By the way, won't you give the whites a jar to Moscow with you? "

Pure water. Pure land. Clean air and wind. This is so little, so natural - and so much. This becomes clear to someone who once lost everything.

But it is impossible to remember the bad forever, to wait for the bad. The birds return to their former places and build nests there again. And what about people ...

Ekaterina SAZHNEVA, Bryansk-Moscow.

At the end of 2003, the UN General Assembly recognized April 26 as the International Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Radiation Accidents and Disasters. Everyone knows: then, in 1986, there was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Two people died directly from the explosion, another 28 station employees - from radiation sickness. A total of 134 workers were affected. According to some reports, the total number of liquidators of the consequences of the disaster ranged from 200 to 600 thousand people.

The most intensive work was carried out in the period 1986-1987. It was then, on May 15, 1987, Major Vladimir Yekimov was sent to Chernobyl from the Kazakhstani Chernobyl from the headquarters of the Dzhezkazgan region of the Kazakh SSR (Dzhezkazgan, now Zhezkazgan). Now he is perhaps one of the few liquidators of the consequences of the accident who is not silent about those events. By the way, there are about 3.5 thousand participants in post-emergency work in the region. In the KROO for invalids "Union" Chernobyl "now retired Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Yekimov - Deputy Chairman Yuri Klykov. Of the goals of the "Union" - to help the participants in the liquidation in the restoration of their rights. But first things first:

- I myself come from Yaroslavl region, received a military education in Kostroma, - says Vladimir Aleksandrovich, - At the moment when the disaster occurred, I was 33. I served in the headquarters of the anti-radiation and chemical protection of the population of the Zhezkazgan region as the head of the department. Then we received a secret paper about the disaster. We, of course, understood that this poses a serious danger to the population in the zone of radioactive contamination. A year later, I was sent to clean up the consequences. The family was uneasy about this trip. My wife, a paramedic, kept a close watch on my health.

In May 1987, five officers of the armed forces of different types of troops were located in an apartment in the very center of Chernobyl. Their places of service covered almost the entire then USSR - Moscow, Dzerzhinsk, Gorky region, Tyumen, Guryev and Zhezkazgan of the Kazakh SSR.

- We spent more than two months there, - Vladimir Aleksandrovich recalls, - We worked at the nuclear power plant and in the Exclusion Zone. We were assigned to serve in the Department of Radiation Reconnaissance and Dosimetric Control of the Headquarters of the Operational Group of the USSR Civil Defense. Together with the radiation and chemical reconnaissance soldiers, we examined all the contaminated areas: at the NPP, in the industrial zone, around the NPP - 5, 10, 30 km zones. They measured radiation, collected data about it, prepared maps and reports on a daily basis for decision-making by the Government Commission working in Chernobyl. The health and lives of many thousands of those brave men who followed us into the radioactive hell depended on these decisions. There are three of us left today. The youngest of our officers' quintet is Captain Second Rank Vladimir Tsarenko from Guryev. He died of thyroid cancer before anyone else. The most experienced also passed away - Colonel Valery Tatarnikov from Dzerzhinsk. The rest are currently ill ...

Chernobyl nuclear power plant, 1987 Vladimir Ekimov second from the right

“But you don’t write that I have any health problems!” - briskly adds, laughing, a retired lieutenant colonel, - "Otherwise, all the fans will run away from me!"

All jokes, and the radiation exposure affected every liquidator.

REFERENCE: According to WHO international experts, exposure may ultimately cause approximately 4,000 deaths among emergency workers in the period 1986-1987, evacuees and people permanently residing in the most contaminated areas.

- Every day we carried out radiation reconnaissance on routes in the 30 km zone, carried out dosimetric control in the premises of the nuclear power plant. Their radiation dose was measured with dosimeters - one dosimeter hung around the neck, the second in the upper pocket, and the third on the boot. All of them recorded the radiation dose indicators during the work period. Where the radiation level was off scale, we had to run. Imagine how hard it was even for a person with good physical fitness: to move in protective equipment and gas masks. When the daily dose of radiation exceeded the norm, the liquidator was released from work the next day. During the whole business trip I was released twice. We carried out radiation reconnaissance where all the dirt left after the disaster was located. In the premises of the nuclear power plant, these are fragments of a radioactive substance of the uranium-235 type (it was this substance that was used in the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima in the "Malysh" bomb) in the form of small "tablets".

During the working period, the young Major Yekimov even had a chance to take part in the filming of a film about radiation reconnaissance and dosimetric control, it is called: "Organization of radiation reconnaissance and dosimetric control" (based on the experience of liquidating the consequences of the Chernobyl accident):

- I was a senior consultant and leader of the military personnel in conducting radiation reconnaissance. The film was shot on color film. The shooting was conducted by the Moscow studio "Krasnaya Zvezda" of the Ministry of Defense for two weeks.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant turned out to be identical to the nuclear power plant in Kurchatov. Vladimir Yekimov was extremely surprised when he saw the Kursk NPP for the first time. The soldier was sent to our region almost immediately after the fatal business trip. Here he served as the head of the RKhBZ department in the Civil Defense and Emergencies Directorate, then the Ministry of Emergency Situations in the Kursk region until 1996 - since then he has been on a well-deserved retirement and is now engaged in literary activity. Almost the only one writes about Chernobyl. He is the author of 4 stories and 9 poems on this topic. All works are placed in his books "Life is Beautiful", "Light of Earthly Love", "Plasma Veil".

Liquidator Vladimir Ekimov now

The liquidators are still in contact with each other. The state did not immediately begin to think about them.

- I, having authority, personally collected information on 374 contaminated settlements Kursk region. When I resigned, this figure was officially reduced to 120. I think this is wrong: the danger has not passed. The migration of radioactive substances occurs until complete decay.

But it is very difficult for liquidators to get benefits now. We have to collect a lot of documentary evidence of involvement in post-emergency work:

- And many do not even know about their rights to this day! When they find out, our organization helps them to collect the necessary supporting "papers" in order to qualify for some kind of payments. However, all this must be done through the courts. That is, the liquidators need to sue the state for what they are entitled to. We also help widows who should be paid material support. Everything always comes down to a colossal amount of documents. Everything needs to be proven. The officials have no understanding that the liquidator is a sick person. It seems to me that the state needs to change its “shy” attitude to the needs of the liquidators for a more attentive and loyal one. We fulfilled the Government's task to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident without any fear.

Now Chernobyl is a place of pilgrimage for tourists. But it is also the place where about half a million people donated their health. According to research data, liquidators are the main category, the most vulnerable to cancer, cardiovascular, circulatory, endocrine diseases and cataracts.

April 26, 1986 occurred Chernobyl disaster... The consequences of this tragedy are still felt throughout the world. She spawned many amazing stories... Below are ten stories that you probably did not know about the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster.

Buried village of Kopachi

After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) and the evacuation of residents of the adjacent territory, the authorities decided to completely bury the village of Kopachi (Kiev region, Ukraine), which was heavily contaminated with radiation, in order to prevent its further spread.

By order of the government, the entire settlement was demolished, with the exception of two buildings. After that, all the debris was buried deep in the ground. However, such a move only made the situation worse, as radioactive chemicals entered the local groundwater.

Currently, the territory of the former village of Kopachi is overgrown with grass. The only thing that remains of it is the warning signs of radiation hazard, which stand near each place where this or that building was buried.

The reason Chernobyl accident became a successful experiment

The experiment using the 4th power unit reactor, which directly led to the disaster, was actually intended to improve the safety of its operation. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant had diesel generators that continued to power the cooling system pumps even when the reactor itself was shut down.

However, there was a one minute difference between shutting down the reactor and the generators reaching full capacity - a period that did not suit the operators of the nuclear power plant. They modified the turbine so that it continued to rotate after the reactor was shut down. Without the approval of the higher authorities, the director of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant decided to launch a full-scale test of this safety function.

However, during the experiment, the reactor power dropped below the expected level. This led to the instability of the reactor, which was successfully resisted by automated systems.

And although the test was successful, the reactor itself experienced a powerful surge of energy, from which it literally blew its roof off. This is how one of the most terrible disasters in the history of mankind.

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant continued to operate until 2000

After the work on liquidation of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was terminated, Soviet Union continued to operate the remaining reactors until its collapse and the proclamation of Ukraine's independence. In 1991, the Ukrainian authorities announced that they would completely close the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in two years.

However, chronic energy shortages forced the Ukrainian government to postpone the closure of the nuclear power plant. However, the country did not have money to pay for the workers of the nuclear power plant, so every year at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant there were at least 100 safety-related incidents. In 2000, 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, the President of Ukraine, under strong pressure from leaders of other countries, finally decided to permanently close the nuclear power plant. In exchange, he was promised $ 1 billion to build two new nuclear reactors. Money was allocated, but no reactors, no money ...

In 1991, the second fire occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Considering gross violations of safety regulations, poor maintenance and insufficient vocational training personnel of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it is not surprising that after the 1986 disaster, another tragedy occurred here on one of the remaining steam generators.

In 1991, a fire broke out at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after steam turbines producing electricity at reactor 2 were transferred to routine maintenance. It was necessary to shut down the reactor, but instead, automated mechanisms accidentally rebooted it.

A burst of electrical energy caused a fire in the turbine hall. Due to the release of accumulated hydrogen, the roof caught fire. Part of it collapsed, but the fire was extinguished before it could spread to the reactors.

The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are costly to national budgets

Since the disaster was of a radioactive nature, the protection of the exclusion zone, the relocation of people, the provision of medical and social assistance victims and many other things initially took a huge amount of money.

In 2005, almost twenty years after the disaster, the Ukrainian government continued to spend 5-7 percent of the national budget on programs related to Chernobyl, after the coming to power of new President Poroshenko, spending fell sharply. In neighboring Belarus, in the first year after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the authorities spent more than 22 percent of the national budget on reimbursement of expenses related to the consequences of the Chernobyl tragedy. Today this figure has decreased to 5.7 percent, but this is still a lot.

Obviously, government spending in this regard will be volatile in the long run.

The myth of brave divers

And although the fire formed as a result of the first explosion was eliminated fairly quickly, molten nuclear fuel continued to remain under the ruins of the reactor, which posed a huge threat. If it reacted with the coolant (water) under the reactor, it could destroy the entire object.

According to legend, three volunteer divers, in the face of deadly radiation, dived into a pool of water located under the reactor and drained it. They died shortly thereafter, but they managed to save the lives of millions of people. Real story much more down-to-earth.

The three men actually went down under the reactor to drain the pool, but the water level in the building's basement was only knee-deep. In addition, they knew exactly where the water drain valve was, so they completed the task without any difficulty. Unfortunately, the fact that they soon died is true.

Swedish radiation detectors

On the day when the Chernobyl disaster occurred, the signal “ Radiation hazard". Emergency protocols were activated and most workers were evacuated. For almost a day, the Swedish authorities tried to establish what was happening at Forsmark, as well as other nuclear facilities. Scandinavian countries.

By the end of the day, it became clear that the likely source of the radiation was in the territory of the Soviet Union. The Soviet authorities only three days later informed the world about what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Eventually northern countries received a significant part of the Chernobyl radiation.

The exclusion zone has turned into a nature reserve

You might think that the exclusion zone (the huge area around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, forbidden for free access) is something like a nuclear desert. In fact, this is not the case. The Chernobyl exclusion zone has actually become a wildlife sanctuary. Since people no longer hunt here, all kinds of animals thrive in the exclusion zone, from wolves to voles and deer.

The Chernobyl disaster had a negative impact on these animals. Under the influence of radiation, many of them have undergone genetic mutations. However, three decades have passed since the tragedy, so the level of radiation in the exclusion zone is steadily decreasing.

The Soviet Union tried to use robots during the elimination of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Radiation killed the lives of thousands of brave people who took part in the elimination of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Soviet authorities sent 60 robots to their aid, but the high level of radioactivity instantly destroyed them. Also, remote-controlled bulldozers and modified lunar rovers were involved in the elimination of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Some robots were resistant to radiation, but the water used to decontaminate them rendered them unusable after the first use. However, robots were able to reduce the number of people needed to deal with the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster by 10 percent (the equivalent of five hundred workers).

The United States of America had robots that could cope better than the Soviet ones in dealing with the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. But since relations between the USSR and the United States were tense, America did not send its robots to Chernobyl.

Samosely

You will be surprised to learn that people continue to live in the Chernobyl exclusion zone decades after the disaster. The houses of most of them are located ten kilometers from the 4th power unit of the nuclear power plant. However, these people, mostly older people, are still exposed to high level radioactive substances. They refused to relocate and were left to fend for themselves. V this moment the state does not provide any assistance to the self-settlers. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and hunting.

Many self-settlers have already turned 70-80 years old. Today there are very few of them, since old age does not spare anyone. Oddly enough, but those who refused to leave the Chernobyl exclusion zone, on average, live 10-20 years longer than people who, after the accident at the nuclear power plant, moved to other places.

Chernobyl: memories of eyewitnesses of a tragedy that would have been better off

On April 26, 1986, a series of explosions destroyed the reactor and the building of the fourth power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This was the biggest technological disaster of the 20th century.

Svetlana Aleksievich's book "Chernobyl Prayer" contains the memories of the participants in this tragedy. Memories of the disaster. About life, death and love.

About love

It began to change - every day I met another person ... Burns came up ... In the mouth, on the tongue, cheeks - first small sores appeared, then they grew ... Mucous membranes left in layers ... White films ... Complexion ... Body color ... Blue ... Red ... Gray -brown ... And it is all mine, so beloved! It cannot be told! It cannot be written! And even to survive ... Saved by the fact that all this happened instantly; there was no time to think, there was no time to cry.

I loved him! I didn’t know how much I loved him! We just got married ... We walk down the street. Grab me in her arms and spin. And kisses, kisses. People walk by, and everyone is smiling ... Clinic of acute radiation sickness - fourteen days ... In fourteen days a person dies ...

About death

Before my eyes ... In full dress they put him in a cellophane bag and tied up ... And this bag was already put in a wooden coffin ... And the coffin was tied with another bag ... Cellophane is transparent, but thick as oilcloth ... And all this was already placed in a zinc coffin ... ... One cap remained at the top ... We were received by an extraordinary commission. And she told everyone the same thing that we cannot give you the bodies of your husbands, your sons, they are very radioactive and will be buried in the Moscow cemetery in a special way... And you must sign this document ...

I feel like I’m passing out. I am hysterical: “Why should I hide my husband? He who? Killer? Criminal? Criminal? Whom do we bury? " At the cemetery we were surrounded by soldiers ... We were under escort ... And they were carrying the coffin ... No one was allowed in ... We were alone ... We fell asleep instantly. "Quickly! Quickly!" - commanded the officer. They didn't even give the coffin a hug ... And - immediately into the buses ... All stealthily ...

Lyudmila Ignatenko, wife of the deceased firefighter Vasily Ignatenko

About the feat

They took a nondisclosure agreement from us ... I was silent ... Immediately after the army, I became a disabled person of the second group. At twenty-two years old. I grabbed my ... They carried graphite in buckets ... Ten thousand roentgens ... Rowed with ordinary shovels, shuffles, changing up to thirty "Istryakov's petals" per shift, the people called them "muzzles". They poured the sarcophagus. A giant grave in which one person is buried - senior cameraman Valery Khodemchuk, who remained under the ruins in the first minutes of the explosion. The pyramid of the twentieth century ... We still had three months to serve. We returned to the unit without even changing our clothes. They wore the same tunics and boots that they wore at the reactor. Until the demobilization ... And if they were allowed to speak, to whom could I tell? He worked in a factory. The head of the shop: “Stop getting sick, or we’ll reduce it.” Reduced. I went to the director: “You have no right. I am a Chernobyl survivor. I saved you. Protected! " "We didn't send you there."

At night I wake up from my mother's voice: “Son, why are you silent? You are not sleeping, you are lying with your eyes open ... And your light is on ... ”I am silent. No one can speak to me so that I can answer. In my language ... No one understands where I came from ... And I cannot tell ...

Victor Sanko, private

About motherhood

My girl ... She is not like everyone else ... So she grows up, and she asks me: "Why am I not like that?" When she was born ... It was not a child, but a living bag sewn up from all sides, not a single slit, only the eyes were open. The medical card says: “a girl born with multiple complex pathologies: anus aplasia, vaginal aplasia, left kidney aplasia” ... This is how it sounds in scientific language, but in ordinary language: no writing, no ass, one kidney ... do not live, such immediately die. She didn't die because I love her. I won't be able to give birth to anyone else. I dare not. I returned from the hospital: my husband will kiss at night, I'm trembling all over - we can't ... Sin ... Fear ..

Only four years later I was given a medical certificate confirming the connection of ionizing radiation (low doses) with its terrible pathology. They refused me for four years, they told me: "Your girl is a disabled child." One official shouted: “I wanted Chernobyl benefits! Chernobyl money! " How did I not faint in his office ... They could not understand one thing ... They did not want to ... I needed to know that it was not my husband and I that were to blame ... Not our love ... (Cannot stand it. Cries.)

Larisa Z., mother

About childhood

Such a black cloud ... Such a downpour ... The puddles turned yellow ... Green ... We did not run through the puddles, we just looked at them. Grandma closed us in the cellar. And she herself knelt down and prayed. And she taught us: “Pray !! This is the end of the world. God's punishment for our sins. ” My brother was eight years old and I was six. We began to remember our sins: he broke a jar of raspberry jam ... And I didn’t admit to my mother that I caught on the fence and tore a new dress ... click ... Behind her - a boy and a girl ... This is their cat ... The boy is nothing, but the girl shouted: "I won't give it up !!" She ran and shouted: “Darling, get away! Get away, dear! " And the soldier - with a large plastic bag ...

Mom and Dad kissed and I was born. I used to think that I would never die. And now I know that I will die. The boy was lying with me in the hospital ... Vadik Korinkov ... He drew birds for me. Small houses. He died. Dying is not scary ... You will sleep for a long, long time, you will never wake up ... I had a dream about how I died. I heard in a dream how my mother was crying. And I woke up ..

Memories of children

About life

I'm used to everything. For seven years I have been living alone, seven years since the people left ... It's not far, in another village, also a woman lives alone, I told her to come over to me. And I have daughters, and sons ... Everyone is in the city ... And I don't want anywhere from here! What to go? It's good here! Everything grows, everything blooms. From the midge to the beast, everything lives on. A story happened ... I had a good cat. The name was Vaska. In winter, hungry rats attacked, there is no escape. We climbed under the covers. The grain in the barrel - they gnawed a hole. So Vaska saved ... Without Vaska she would have died ... We will talk to him, have lunch. And then Vaska disappeared ... Maybe the hungry dogs attacked and ate where? My Vaska is gone ... And I wait a day, and two ... And a month ... Well, at all, it was, I was left alone. There is no one to speak to. I went through the village, calling on other people's cages: Vaska, Murka ... I called for two days.

On the third day - he sits under the store ... We looked at each other ... He is glad, and I am glad. He just won't say a word. "Well, let's go, - please, let's go home." Sits ... Meow ... I let him beg him: “Why are you going to be here alone? The wolves will eat. They will tear it apart. Went. I have eggs, bacon. " Here's how to explain? The cat does not understand the human language, but how did he enlighten me then? I walk in front, and he runs behind. Meow ... "I will cut off your bacon" ... Meow ... "We will live together" ... Meow ... "I will call you Vaska" ... Meow ... And so we have already spent two winters with him ...

Zinaida Evdokimovna Kovalenko, self-settlement

About living

I had to shoot point-blank ... The bitch lies in the middle of the room and the puppies are all around ... She hit me with a bullet right away ... The puppies lick their hands, fondle. Fooling around. I had to shoot at close range ... One dog ... Little black poodle ... I still feel sorry for him. They loaded them with a full dump truck, with a top. We are taking to the "burial ground" ... To tell the truth, it is an ordinary deep hole, although it is supposed to dig so as not to reach groundwater and cover the bottom with cellophane. Find a high place ... But this business, you understand, was violated everywhere: there was no cellophane, they did not look for a place for a long time.

They, if not killed, but only wounded, squeak ... Cry ... They poured them out of the dump truck into the pit, and this poodle climbs. Climbs out. No one had a cartridge left. There was nothing to finish off ... Not a single cartridge ... He was pushed back into the pit and so filled up with earth. It's still a pity.

Victor Verzhikovsky, hunter

And again about love

What could I give him besides medicine? What hope? He didn't want to die so much. The doctors explained to me: if there were metastases inside the body, he would quickly die, and they would crawl on horseback ... Along the body ... Along the face ... Something black had grown on him. The chin disappeared somewhere, the neck disappeared, the tongue fell out. Vessels burst, bleeding began. "Oh, - I shout, - again blood." From the neck, from the cheeks, from the ears ... In all directions ... I carry cold water, put some lotions - they do not save. Something creepy. The whole pillow will fill up ... I'll substitute the basin, from the bathroom ... The trickles hit ... Like into a milk pan ... This sound ... So peaceful and rustic ... I still hear it at night ... I call the ambulance station, but they already know us, they don't want to go ... Once called, an ambulance arrived ... A young doctor ... approached him and immediately backed away and backed away: “Tell me, is it not from Chernobyl by any chance? Not one of those who have been there? " I answer: “Yes”. And he, I am not exaggerating, cried out: “My dear, it would be over soon! Hurry! I saw how Chernobyl victims die ”.

I still have his watch, military ID and Chernobyl medal ... (After silence.) ... I was so happy! In the morning I feed and admire how he eats. How he shaves. As he walks down the street. I am a good librarian, but I do not understand how it is possible to love work. I only loved him. One. And I cannot live without him. I scream at night ... I scream into the pillow so that the children do not hear ...

Valentina Panasevich, wife of the liquidator

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