Photojournalist Michael Forster Rothbart’s work explores the human consequences of environmental contamination. His projects have taken him to Bhopal, India, the Semey Polygon nuclear testing site in Kazakhstan, oilfields in Azerbaijan, and the Canadian Arctic. A Fulbright Fellowship enabled him to spend two years in Chernobyl, photographing and interviewing those who remain a generation after the 1986 accident. He lived in Sukachi, Ukraine, a small farming village just outside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
Sukachi is a quiet village of 1,200. It has a school, 4 little shops to buy provisions, two liquor stores and two churches. There are two roads through Sukachi. One leads 12 miles north to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. The other dead-ends at the Kyiv Sea. Half the people of Sukachi are Chernobyl evacuees, relocated here from the abandoned village Ladizhichi. After midnight, Nina Dubrovskaya and Lena Priyenko walk two miles home to Sukachi from the nearest town, Ivankiv. The women, both divorcees, went out in search of company, but found all four bars empty. “When the money gets short, people just get drunk at home,” says Nina. What is it like to live near Chernobyl? It depends who you ask. “Is it even safe?” they ask in Kyiv. “Why would you want to live up there, in the middle of nowhere?!” When people in Sukachi ask where I live, I tell them I rent a room from Nina. “Oh, how convenient,” they say. “That’s right in the middle of the village!”
“The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.” — Book of Revelation 8:10 Is Chernobyl a sign of the coming apocalypse? Some who believe in prophesies think so, citing Biblical references to wormwood. Both wormwood and the related species mugwort are common in the Chernobyl region. In fact, mugwort—chornobyl in Ukrainian—gave its name to the twelfth-century town Chernobyl. The sole church still operating in the Exclusion Zone, St. Ilinsky in Chernobyl town, has this mural painted inside. “The angel stares with a heartfelt gaze into our souls, warning humanity about the possibility of life disappearing from the face of the Earth.” says Anna Korolevska, director of the Chernobyl museum. A more certain effect of the accident and evacuations has been loss of cultural traditions in the region. Women in Ivankiv formed the Krynychanka (Water Spring) ensemble to preserve and perform local folk music.
“I only went back once. I couldn’t stop crying.” — Galina Dondukova, former Pripyat kindergarten director Dolls lay scattered on a classroom floor of the Solntsye kindergarten in Pripyat, the abandoned city one mile from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. A closed Soviet city with population 49,360, Pripyat was built to house workers at Chernobyl. Today Pripyat is an eerie ghost town. Any valuables have long-since been stolen, but the toys remain. In the days following the Chernobyl accident, families were evacuated and told they could return in 3 days. Some have never returned, yet still mourn their paradise lost.
“Is this only—a fear of radiation? Perhaps rather—a fear of wars? Perhaps—the dread of betrayal, cowardice, stupidity, lawlessness? The time has come to sort out what is radiophobia. It is—when those who've gone through the Chernobyl drama refuse to submit to the truth meted out by government ministers — Lyuba Sirota, poet and activist, excerpt from her poem Radiophobia A closed storefront is plastered with signs from people trying to rent out apartments or sell household possessions. Today, the economic effects of Chernobyl are as serious as the radiation. Poverty and high unemployment are especially acute in radiation-affected areas, which new businesses have avoided due to the stigma of Chernobyl.
Petro wants to show me his certificate. It reads: “The bearer of this identification has a right to receive benefits and compensations stipulated by the Law of Ukraine, ‘On the status and social protections of citizens who suffered as result of the Chernobyl catastrophe,’ for participants in the liquidation… who worked in the Zone in May and June of 1986, regardless of the number of the days worked, or from July 1 to December 31, 1986 for no less than 5 days, or in 1987 for no less than 14 working days.” Petro Meshchenko worked as a liquidator in the clean up after the Chernobyl accident. He is now unemployed and lives in Ivankiv. As a “category 2 invalid,” he gets free fares on busses and trains, plus a few dollars a month in government benefits. Evacuees, residents of contaminated areas, the disabled, liquidators and their children all receive government support. In terms of contribution to family incomes, individual stipends are often insignificant, but the large quantity of beneficiaries creates a major strain on the Ukrainian national budget.
“It's depressing. Soon my job will cease to exist. I can only do the job I was trained to do for another two years here... I don't rule out going to work abroad. People have gone from here to China and Iran. I would not go to Iran, but China is a possibility.” — Oleg Ryazanov, control room shift supervisor The job of a Control Room Shift Supervisor in the Chernobyl First Block: sit in an empty room watching inactive machinery and make sure nothing happens. As long as nuclear fuel remains in temporary storage in the reactor halls, Oleg Ryazanov and his peers will continue to sit in their seats all day and all night. A wall of lights in the control room once showed the status of each rod in the reactor core. Just down the hall is the burnt-out Fourth Block control room, where a combination of design flaws and human error triggered the accident during a late-night safety test.
“Decommisioning the nuclear power plant requires twice as much technical documentation as when it produced electricity.” — Natalya Likhobabina, Chernobyl administrator Vladim Lyubivyi works in the Public Relations office of the Chernobyl plant. He has decorated his office with photos of Chernobyl’s ground zero—the Fourth Block where the 1986 meltdown occurred. The reactor exploded during a late-night safety test, sending radioactive particles into the atmosphere and eventually around the world. He has another photo of Chernobyl colleagues at the summit of Mt. Hoverla, the highest peak in Ukraine. Vlad grew up in the town beside the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in central Ukraine. He came to Chernobyl in 2008 because he felt it was a good career opportunity.
This view of the sprawling Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is from the far (northern) bank of the plant's cooling pond during winter. The station which once generated power now consumes it; the new heating plant has the only active smokestack on the horizon. At left are the unfinished, abandoned cooling towers. Beyond the smokestack at far right is the Sarcophagus which covers the Fourth Block of the plant, where the Chernobyl accident occurred on April 26, 1986 during late-night test.
“The question came out, was this an effect of Chernobyl? And I said, well, the Ukrainians coined the phrase ‘Chernobyl Heart’ for this defect, and they think it’s directly related to long-term exposure to radiation.” — Dr. William Novick, cardiac surgeon Olya Podoprigora, age 13, and 18-month-old Parvana Sulemanova recover in the ICU one day after open-heart surgeries. Both girls had congenital heart defects. The free surgery was provided during a medical mission sponsored by Chernobyl Children International. Every year, 6,000 children in Ukraine are born with genetic heart disease. At least half will not get the surgery they need to survive and will die, reports CCI. However, one thing CCI won’t tell you: these aortic defects may not be caused by Chernobyl. We don’t really know what causes these heart defects, explains surgeon Chris Gilbert. Most believe the reasons are both genetic and environmental. Hazards such as radiation produce anomalies in the heart because they affect how genes instruct the cells to form. For the doctors, the causes are less important than the cures—the fact that they are saving individual lives.
“For many veterans of Chernobyl, serving as a liquidator was the most important moment of our lives.” — Oleg Veklenko, liquidator and graphic designer The Energiya Plus gas station is at the edge of Ivankiv, the last city before the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Ivankiv is a quiet city. Population 11,900, it has schools, bars, a busy market. Two banks, two churches, one decent restaurant. Two blocks of tall Soviet apartment buildings, surrounded by small houses. It has local government offices, a small clinic, a park. There’s even a library, filled with retired women, and an Internet center, filled with teenage boys playing video games. There’s not much work in Ivankiv. Most industry shut down after the accident. People grow their own food and get by. Beyond Ivankiv is very little save for small farming villages, forests and marshes stretching to the border and beyond.
“If the accident happened today, I simply would not leave. I’d try to stay, to the extent possible, and use my strength to help.” — Sasha Sirota, evacuee and co-founder of Pripyat.com The central square of Pripyat is overgrown with trees but devoid of residents. The city was built to house Chernobyl workers. Until the accident one mile away, it had nearly 50,000 inhabitants. The entire city was evacuated one day later, while firemen tried fruitlessly to douse the fire in the reactor. Now, historic preservationist Sasha Sirota wants to save Pripyat from crumbling and turn it into a museum, before looters and weather destroy the buildings that remain. Pripyat gets two kinds of visitors. Chernobyl has become, surprisingly, one of Ukraine's hottest tourist destinations. Sightseers visit here every week on guided excursions into the Exclusion Zone, curious to explore the ruins, their shouts ringing across the plaza. When former Pripyat residents visit, they search quietly, struggling to match old memories with the scene before them. Other evacuees refuse to return, preferring to recall their old hometown as they knew it: a paradise lost, a community of intelligentsia nestled in a pristine land of rivers and forests. Sasha’s mother, poet Lyuba Sirota, writes that “the town Pripyat… after the explosion at the station, has simply ceased to exist, and together with it we—former inhabitants of Pripyat, also have ceased to exist.”
Petro Konovalenko is head of the village council in Sukachi. This afternoon, he shed his suit to help neighbors load hay into their barn. Half the people of Sukachi are Chernobyl evacuees, relocated here from the village of Ladizhichi. The original Ladizhichi stood beside the Pripyat River, 17 miles southeast of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. In the eleven days after the accident, everyone within 19 miles of the plant was evacuated. People in Sukachi remember bus convoys speeding by all night long, the first sign that something was amiss. The Soviet government did not admit to the accident until a week later, after reports appeared in international media. Initially, 91,000 Ukrainians and 24,000 Belarusians were displaced. Some stayed with relatives. Others lived with strangers for up to six months. The government erected the new settlement of Novo Ladizhichi in 1987. Houses were built without indoor plumbing; many of them still lack water today. Later, the Exclusion Zone was expanded to include other highly contaminated areas. By 2000, 163,000 Ukrainians had been permanently relocated, plus another 187,000 in Russia and Belarus. For many, the displacement and loss of community stability was as traumatic as the accident itself. It’s a problem Petro Konovalenko has spent his career working to address.
An old Chernobyl joke: the Americans send over a robot to help with cleanup. Put it on the roof of Reactor 3 to pick up radioactive debris. It breaks down in five minutes from the radiation. The Japanese send a robot—it lasts ten minutes. A Russian robot goes up, radiation everywhere, and it just works and works. One hour, two hours. Finally, a commander comes out of his lead-lined hut and yells up, “Ivanov! Time for lunch!” An estimated 95% of the radioactive materials released in the accident fell on the power plant grounds and adjacent forest. The Soviet government mobilized a massive army for decontamination. 850,000 liquidators, mostly soldiers and other conscripts, were sent to Chernobyl over a period of four years. The most dangerous jobs involved tunneling under the melted reactor and cleaning the adjacent rooftop. With nothing but shovels and wheelbarrows, thousands of men removed chunks of nuclear fuel and graphite exploded from the reactor core. Radiation was so extreme that shifts were limited to one to two minutes. Even so, many received dangerous doses and spent the rest of their lives disabled.
You never know where you’ll find love. Chernobyl engineer Sergii Bokov works in the liquid radioactive waste treatment facility. He met and first worked with his wife Tanya here. She was born in Pripyat and is the third generation in her family to work at the Chernobyl plant. In total, about 3,800 personnel still work at Chernobyl. All water used in the contaminated sections of the plant drains through a separate system of pipes for elaborate treatment and disposal. Whenever it is finally operational, wastewater in the new liquid waste facility will be purified and the remaining radioactive sediment will be safely stored in barrels. The building has been sitting incomplete since 2007, waiting for additional funding.
“Ivan inherited his grandmother’s house in a village about 5 or 6 miles from Korosten, and it’s his dream to live there when he retires. He is an avid gardener, and he rides his bicycle to the village house every weekend, year-round, to tend the huge garden and work on the house and barn. He dreams of living there so he can tend his garden all day long and eat all the fresh fruits and vegetables he wants.” — Ann Merrill, former UN program officer Ivan Pashinsky's son-in-law Vova eats currant berries from Ivan’s garden in Korosten. The United Nations Chornobyl Recovery and Development Programme warns residents not to eat wild berries, mushrooms or game from contaminated areas. Most people ignore these warnings. As subsistence farmers and gatherers, many say they have no choice.
“There were fourteen oblasts (regions) hit by radiation, where two million children live. Here we help 120 kids, but the government doesn’t have money to help so many affected children. We can’t forget Chernobyl, for this generation, and the next, and the next.” — Dr. Eugenia Stepanova, director of the Department of Radiation Pediatrics Sixteen year-old Nazar Melnyk gets his blood drawn during his annual stay at the Scientific Center for Radiological Medicine in Kyiv. He is from Ovruch, a town in the radiation-affected zone west of Chernobyl. Although he is healthy and was born five years after the 1986 accident, Nazar is considered at higher risk for certain diseases. Every year, he and other children from Ovruch all spend a week here or at other similar hospitals. Most health problems are found in people who were children in 1986, and in the children of Chernobyl liquidators, according to Doctor Stepanova.
“The main product of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is the experience of decommissioning such plants.” — Alexander Kupny, Chernobyl Training Center instructor. All workers pass through the Semikhody changing facility upon arrival at Chernobyl each morning. They leave their personal clothes, then cross into a second “dirty” locker room to put on work clothes. Those personnel who work inside the “area of strict control”—in the buildings that house the reactors—later change uniforms a second time, into protective white suits. Alexander Kupny jokes about Chernobyl being a family business. His father worked at the plant before him, and his son has now started working there.
Vladimir Shves came to Slavutych in 1986 to help with construction and never left. After the evacuation, thousands of Chernobyl workers needed new homes. A spot for a new city was chosen 30 miles east of the Chernobyl plant, across the Dnipro River at a quiet railway stop in the forest. It was far enough from the plant to be fairly clean, but close enough to be accessible. Construction workers poured in from eight Soviet republics. Starting just 6 months after the accident, over ten thousand workers erected the new city in two years. Slavutych was the last city ever built by the Soviet Union. The political effects of the Chernobyl accident contributed to the end of the Soviet era.
Chernobyl personnel check their contamination levels at the Semikhody radiation checkpoint as they exit the nuclear power plant. Although the plant stopped generating electricity in December 2000, some 3,800 employees continue to work here. They commute by train into the Exclusion Zone from the new city of Slavutych, population 24,300. As long as nuclear fuel remains on site their jobs will continue—so they have very little incentive to complete their work. Behind the radiation checkpoint, items on a bulletin board include two recent obituaries, details about a volleyball tournament, an ad for a taxi company and a lost hat.
Fekla Tomchenko’s family photos still hang in her former house within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Her home in Ilintsy village remains mostly furnished. This is unusual—most abandoned buildings in the Zone have long-since been pillaged for anything of value. Fekla was born in 1920 and lived here until she died a couple years ago. Her descendents return to visit the house about once a year. Ilintsy is mainly uninhabited but is still home to more than a dozen elderly villagers. They are samosels, illegal resettlers, who chose to return to their native village. For years, the Ukrainian government tried to keep them out, but now provides a few basic services. The number of surviving resettlers has dwindled from over 2,000 after the accident to less than 400 today. They ignore the potential dangers of radiation, preferring to live out their final years in their own homes.
In Sukachi, a small food and liquor store in a converted trailer doubles as the village bar. Nina Dubrovskaya worked for over 20 years as a librarian in the village, but her salary was only 485 hryvnia per month, less than $100. It wasn’t enough. She quit and started working a series of jobs in convenience stores and bars in order to earn more income. Now she works up to twelve hours per day here and earns $200 per month.
“The director told me that norms of radiation safety were inoperative. In a place of tremendous economic desperation, people competed for work in the Zone of Exclusion, where salaries were relatively high and steadily paid. Prospective workers engaged in a troubling cost-benefit assessment that went something like this: if I work in the Zone, I lose my health. But I can send my son to law school.” — Adriana Petryna, anthropologist, in Biological Citizenship Sergii Yudin and his wife Irina return home from work at the Chernobyl plant. Sergii is a superintendent in the Heat and Underground Communications shop, Irina is a communications engineer. Their older son Stas also works at Chernobyl. Daily life in Slavutych revolves around the power plant’s schedule. In winter, Chernobyl personnel walk to the Slavutych train station each morning before dawn and get back after dark. In the evenings, the stores and streets are full again as the workers arrive home. None of them know how long their jobs will continue or what the city will do once they are laid off.
“The difference is people here have a grief and sadness—that they had to leave their homes or someone died. But they should not forget all is God’s will and those who died gave their lives for others and will be saved.” — Father Momotyuk Nazarii, priest, Sukachi When the Soviet government constructed Novo Ladizhichi in 1987 for Chernobyl evacuees, they built a public sauna but no church. The sauna was later taken over by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and converted. The new church has been under construction for a full decade, as villagers have had trouble raising enough money to continue. Since the church is unfinished, it is decorated with temporary posters rather than paintings. Ukraine has seen a resurgence of interest in religion since independence in 1991, following decades of official atheism during Soviet times. Some historians argue that the Chernobyl accident and the rare public protests that followed it were factors that helped trigger the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Dance and music teacher Lesya Kostenko leads a dance rehearsal at the Chernobyl Community Center in Borodyanka. Her students are all 14-year-old girls from Novoe Zalesye, a resettlement village four miles outside of town. The girls come in for lessons once a week. Thousands of Chernobyl evacuees were resettled in Borodyanka. It is a small town, population 18,000, 30 miles west of Kyiv and 48 miles south of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Unlike those in towns closer to Chernobyl, Borodyanka residents report that they now look at the accident and aftermath as a historical event rather than an ongoing problem. Nonetheless, many continue to get small monthly stipends for their status as Chernobyl evacuees.
“Those who want work can get it, but pay is very low. People live on potatoes and cheese. My salary is 800 hryvnia [$105] per month. When you have kids it goes very quickly.” — Viktoria Ignatyuk, dosimetrist, Ivankiv sanitation department Tania Ignatyuk, age 8, likes to draw and play with her dolls and stuffed animals. Her mom Viktoria is a radiation dosimetrist and father, Vlodya, is an auto mechanic. The family lives more comfortably than many neighbors, largely because they’ve bought their major home purchases on credit. In the past two years, they’ve borrowed for a new refrigerator, a home computer and a car. Inflation has made it hard to keep up with payments. With 10% interest, they are now paying $220 per month for just the car and wonder if they’ll be able to keep it. “If we sold the car now after two years, we’d get less than what we owe the bank,” Viktoria says. Every summer, Tania and her sister Anya go on a respite summer program to Spain. Such programs were designed to give children from the Chernobyl region a reprieve from ingesting radiation, to detoxify their bodies. Today, there is debate about whether these programs have significant medical value, but the value as a cultural exchange is clear. Both girls now speak Spanish.
Ornithologist Igor Chizhebskiy holds a nestful of newly hatched chicks on a wooded hilltop above the Chernobyl cooling pond. Igor works for EcoCenter in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. His research compares birth and survival rates of birds born in highly radioactive sites to those in less contaminated areas within the Zone. In spring and summer, he tours hundreds of nesting boxes each week, logging the chicks’ progress. Surveys of birds, insects, and spiders by Igor and his colleagues indicate that many species are either absent or exist in very low numbers in the Chernobyl region. The diminished bird populations could be caused by radiation directly or may be a secondary effect, due to a decrease in food sources such as insects. How much radiation does it take to be contaminated? The Soviets set the threshold at one curie per square kilometer, and other countries have adopted this. When we discuss contaminated areas, it means places where the dose is above this threshold. But this is an administrative number, chosen for convenience. At lower exposure levels, some small risk still accrues.
“One question: you can eat apple from Chernobyl? Yes, of course. Eat, you can. But your shit, need bury in ground three meter.” — Igor Chizhebskiy, ornithologist, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Maria and Mikhalo Urupa offer visitors apples from the tree behind their house. The Urupas are among fourteen residents remaining in Parishev village, ten miles downstream from the Chernobyl plant. They are samosels, resettlers who returned illegally to the Exclusion Zone just months after the accident and have lived here since. Maria was born in Parishev in 1935 and can’t imagine living anywhere else. They survive on subsistence farming and small government pensions. “If I was to leave this place I’d die already,” Maria says. “Here, we’re all Chernobylites. We don’t scare one another,” says Nadezhda Burakova, another samosel in an interview by Svetlana Alexeivich. “If someone gives you an apple or a cucumber from their garden, you take it and eat it, you don’t hide it shamefully in your purse, and then throw it out… Anywhere else, we’re foreign, we’re lepers.” “I am like an apple that is beautiful on the outside,” comments radiobiologist Natalya Manzurova, “but you find inside is all rotten and full of worms.” (Source: "Journey to Chernobyl," Spring 2005 On Wisconsin Magazine.)
“When I was sick with cancer, we sold our car to pay for the surgery. We sold our TV, we sold our refrigerator, jewelry, everything we could. Now my wife Lydia has cancer and there's nothing left to sell.” — Viktor Gaidak, retired Chernobyl engineer Viktor Gaidak worked for 24 years as an engineer at the Chernobyl plant, including nine years after the 1986 accident. In 2004 he had surgery for colon cancer. Viktor lives with his wife Lydia, two grown children, Kolya and Alla, plus Alla’s husband and children. Nearly half the fifty thousand evacuees from Pripyat live in Troeshchina, a new neighborhood at the outskirts of Kyiv. They face health problems, unemployment, crowded apartments and little government support. One day Viktor enumerates a list of the Chernobyl evacuees who lived in his apartment building and what killed them: cancer, leukemia, heart attack, suicide.
“We are doomed to be left behind by the flock in the harshest of winters. You, fly away! But when you fly off don't forget us, grounded in the field! And no matter to what joyful faraway lands your happy wings bear you, may our charred wings protect you from carelessness.” — Lyuba Sirota, poet and activist, excerpt from her poem To Pripyat At age sixteen, Olya Kulik became Ivankiv’s youngest widow. A year earlier, she had been a typical happy-go-lucky teen, riding bikes and flirting with her boyfriend Vanya. An orphan living with her grandparents, she was nevertheless outgoing and irrepressible. She got pregnant and married Vanya. When their baby was 2 months old, Vanya died in a car crash. Olya’s grandfather also died that summer. Now Olya is seventeen. She lives with her new husband. She spends most of her time with her son Vova, but is committed to finishing her last year of high school. Many adolescents in Ivankiv can’t wait to get out. Despite her troubles, Olya has no desire to leave.
Mikhalo and Evdekia Feshenko are two of the last remaining residents of Lubyanka village, inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. They are samosels, illegal resettlers. They evacuated with their neighbors after the accident, but returned home after one month. Lubyanka once had over 1,000 residents and now has five. Before the accident, Mikhalo was a tractor operator at the local collective farm. Now, the couple raises bees. They sell some honey to Chernobyl zone workers, and use it to barter with other settlers, but primarily they live on their own subsistence farming. The Feshenkos say they sometimes go days without seeing any other people. Instead, they see wolves walking on the empty roads of the village. At night, they keep their horse inside a former neighbor’s house. The Exclusion Zone with highest contamination covers 819 square miles. In the popular imagination, the Chernobyl accident created a wasteland—forsaken, perilous and inaccessible. And yet, a generation later, life continues in these radiation-affected areas.
“Honey bees are like nature’s dust mops. They pick up bits of everything while foraging and bring it all back to the hive, making them excellent, cheap and fast environmental sentinels… Radioactive cesium will be detectable in their hives even when its levels in the environment are negligible. The flip side, of course, is that their honey concentrates radionuclides.” — Mary Mycio, author of Wormwood Forest A bee pollinates cherry blossoms in Ivankiv. However, inside the Exclusion Zone the quantity of invertebrates present has been shown to fall as radiation increases. Researchers discovered that abandoned orchards in some locations nearly stopped bearing fruit because too few insects remained. Those species that are present may live shorter lives and reproduce less well. The effects of low-level radiation on the abundance of animals remain unknown. Chernobyl populations exhibit a wide variety of deformities not found in any normal population. This new research upends earlier reports claiming that the Exclusion Zone had become a wildlife sanctuary due to the sudden absence of people. “Chernobyl will do just fine as a radioactive wilderness. We, however, probably won’t.” writes Mycio.
“Mostly, people do not get sick because of radiation. They get sick because they believe they are victims.” — Sergii Mirnyi, liquidator and author Sergii Mirnyi rolls in the snow after a sauna in Chernigiv. In 1986, during decontamination efforts, Sergii served as commander of a radiation reconnaissance platoon working directly around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. An eternal optimist, he now hopes to produce a comedy feature film about the lives of soldiers cleaning up after Chernobyl. Six million people still live in the entire contaminated region, an area of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia covering 56,700 square miles, about 1.2 times the size of New York state.
“Our first priority was to save the people. As for the land and the animals, we contented ourselves with simple, drastic solutions. The gun for the dogs and cats, the shovel and the bulldozer for the land. These were our only weapons to fight radioactivity.” — Igor Kostin, photographer In Ukrainian villages, high fences surround most houses. Behind each fence is often chained a dog, trained to be submissive to its masters and vicious to everyone else. When villages were evacuated after the accident, people were ordered to leave behind their pets and livestock. One of the early jobs of liquidators was to come from town to town and shoot these dogs, cats and cattle. Their fur was radioactive.
The 12-hour shift at the new radiation checkpoint begins with three terse, identical phone calls: “Good morning. H.I.R.C., Rozmaritsa reporting. The shift was adopted without comment. On duty with Babkina.” Dosimetrist Oksana Rozmaritsa spends her days running three Human Internal Radiation Counters. Workers arrive by the busload, change into clean gowns, then Oksana and her team take three minutes to monitor radionuclide levels in each employee. Workers inhale radioactive particles from soil, dust, or vapor while working on construction. Once lodged inside, such particles continue to radiate the body from within. Those who work beside the Sarcophagus, the protective shield for the destroyed reactor 4, get measured twice a day. Temporary laborers are building the New Safe Confinement, an enormous superstructure that will eventually replace the leaking Sarcophagus. All personnel wear dosimeters to measure their external dose. When the temp workers reach their legal limit, they need to leave. Every year, there are reports of temporary workers caught hiding their dosimeters in lead boxes in order to extend their time at Chernobyl—as pay is much higher here than in any other construction work.
Teenage boys jump off a plank into a small oxbow pond between the Teterev river and Kolentsovskoe village. The Chernobyl fire burnt for more than ten days, spreading radioactive particles into the atmosphere. These particles fell to earth when it rained. Today the radionuclides are in the soil and the groundwater. They accumulate in the sediment of small ponds such as this one, but that doesn’t stop anyone from swimming. For 25 years, elements like strontium, cesium and plutonium have moved through the ecosystem in a process called bioaccumulation. Plants—from reeds to wild berries to food crops—absorb the radioactive particles, which are eaten by herbivores, and then passed up the food chain. The amount of contamination varies widely, depending on the radioelements, the soil type, the plant species and the terrain.
“Chernobyl remains a black hole of information, as the data concerning the spread and consequences of the catastrophe were initially falsified by the Soviet government. Neither the anti-nuclear association… or the nuclear lobby were ever able to establish the complete truth of what happened, or the number of victims, or the health, sanitary and ecological consequences. Nevertheless, you just need to visit any cemetery in the contaminated zone and to read on the graves the ages and dates of death to realize the scope of the catastrophe. These numbers were not manipulated.” — Galia Ackerman, journalist, in Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter On April 26th, the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, Vasily Fedirko stands in the Pirogovichi village graveyard as he pays tribute to his wife’s parents. Every year at Easter time, Ukrainians return to their native villages to eat a ceremonial meal in the cemetery and remember those who have died. Especially in Chernobyl-affected areas, this tradition has become a reunion as former neighbors come together once more to feast and reminisce. Evacuees from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are allowed back in for one day to visit their abandoned homes and graves. Vasily and his wife Valentina moved back to Pirogovichi in 2003 when her parents died. This year their daughter Oksana came all the way from the Russian Far East for the holiday.
18-month-old Parvana Sulemanova gets laid out on the operating table. Just 17 pounds, she looks fragile, alone under the hot lights. Nurses cover her with white sheets, leaving only a rectangle of chest visible. Parvana has a congenital heart defect called tetralogy of Fallot, resulting in too little oxygen in her blood. Volunteer cardiac surgeon Chris Gilbert will insert a Gore-Tex tube—an emergency BT shunt—to improve circulation. A saw groans as it cuts through Parvana’s sternum. The heart-lung machine pumps a steady beat, the anesthetic machine a beeping counterpoint. Using a clamp shaped like a car jack, Dr. Gilbert cranks open the chest. Parvana’s parents wait anxiously downstairs. 35 minutes in, something goes awry. The beeps get faster, shriller. Sweat trickles down Dr. Gilbert’s forehead. Parvana’s heart slows to 30 beats per minute. Her blood oxygen level falls so low that her heart could stop. Three to five percent of children do not survive this surgery without life-threatening complications. However, without surgery “virtually all of them would die,” says Dr. Gilbert later. One shot of adrenaline and Parvana stabilizes. After two hours, the shunt is in place and the OR is scrubbed for the next operation.
“In the year 2000—the year the Chernobyl nuclear power plant’s last energy-producing unit was prematurely shutdown—Slavutych lived through a tragedy. A social tragedy.” — Volodymyr Udovychenko, mayor of Slavutych The city of Slavutych celebrates its annual Day of the City with a parade and a concert on the central square. Slavutych has always been a company town, rising from the ashes of its predecessor, Pripyat, and dependent on the power plant for jobs. To hear Mayor Udovychenko tell it, the low point in his new city’s history came when international political pressure forced the Chernobyl plant to stop producing electricity. Until then the plant, though crippled, continued to generate revenue. The Chernobyl plant used to fund much of the city’s basic operating expenses, and donated generously for special events. Slavutych officials have responded to potential further job cuts at Chernobyl by proactively seeking to diversify the city's economic base beyond the plant.
In Slavutych, members of the Ne Zdavaites! pensioners’ group gather to observe Red Army Day, a holiday originally dedicated to veterans of the Russian and Soviet Armed Forces and now simply referred to as Men’s Day. Ne Zdavaites! means Don't Give Up! Most members are retirees from the Chernobyl power plant. Both men here are World War II veterans, but when local residents speak of “our war,” they mean Chernobyl. The club is a program of the community center in Slavutych—the Center for Psychological and Social Rehabilitation from the Consequences of the Chernobyl Disaster. This center, one of five created by the United Nations, runs support programs ranging from Alcoholics Anonymous to trainings for new mothers. The U.N. no longer supports these centers, so they collect funding from government agencies and international donors.
“Many uncertainties surround risk estimates from radiation exposures. The most fundamental is that the effects of very low doses are uncertain. The current theory is that the relationship between dose and detrimental effect is linear without threshold down to zero dose. In other words, there is no safe level of radiation exposure.” — Ian Fairlie and David Sumner, TORCH Report As night falls in Ivankiv, teenager Anya Ignatyuk helps her parents water their massive vegetable garden, inside and outside their homemade greenhouse. Anya’s mom Viktoria is a radiation dosimetrist for the local government. She travels the district measuring gamma radiation emitted from food and agricultural products as well as soils. The department gets fewer requests for measurements than it did a decade ago. “Many people deliberately don’t check their food because they don’t want to know,” Viktoria says. “They don’t understand that they create an atom bomb around themselves… They don’t see it, so assume it doesn’t exist.” She prefers to grow as much of the family’s food as possible because she does not trust the cleanliness of crops sold in the market. Clearly not everyone worries about radiation. Recently, suburban sprawl from Kyiv has spread toward Ivankiv as newly affluent urbanites buy up former communal farms to build new mansions and vacation homes in the Zone of Enhanced Radiological Control.
In the pre-dawn fog, commuters wait to cross the street outside the Pechersk Metro station in Kyiv, 65 miles from Chernobyl. Radiation from Chernobyl dispersed erratically, based on winds and rainfall. Officially, the radiation leapfrogged over Kyiv and did not affect the capital. However, many Kyiv residents question whether this is really true.
“I was born here and I'll die here. I already want to die. Forgive me, I'm drunk. I drink a lot now. We only have what God gives us, our health, our place, our friends.” — Vasily Kozachenko, farmer After his wife Natasha died in January 2007, Vasily Kozachenko tattooed her face on his shoulder as a personal memorial. She died from liver cancer after a long illness, a few days after her 46th birthday. He then lived alone, farming a small plot of land on the outskirts of Ivankiv, the closest inhabited city to Chernobyl. Prior to the accident, Vasily and his family lived in one of the villages now inside the Exclusion Zone. Vasily died of stomach cancer last year. He was 57.
“Is there an effect of radioactive contamination on these organisms? [That] is the true question. The question isn’t ‘Are there some [birds] here?’ The question is, ‘Is there a response? Is there a relationship?’ And to answer that question, you have to be quantitative; you have to do the measurements. You can’t just rely on anecdotal observations. You have to repeat it. You have to show that it’s not just a fluke.” — Tim Mousseau, biologist Although the Chernobyl accident created a unique opportunity for studying radiation, there has unfortunately been little systematic scientific research. Funding has been limited. Dr. Tim Mousseau and his team are among the few researchers who return to the Exclusion Zone every year. In one study, the researchers catch and examine barn swallows in abandoned collective farms. Such surveys of bird populations indicate that mutation loads are much higher in contaminated areas. The effects of acute radiation have been studied, but little is yet known about the ecological and health consequences of long-term, low-level exposure.
“Bringing the mushrooms home, I would put them all on the table and check each with a dosimeter. And in two years, I threw out only one mushroom. After this I stopped checking them. I was not interested anymore.” — Sergii Bezmenov, retired deputy director, Chernobyl plant radiation safety department A yield sign in the woods is all that remains of an intersection in Vesnyanoe, 35 miles west of the Chernobyl plant. The abandoned village is crumbling back into the forest. Buildings typically remain sturdy until a roof starts to leak, then quickly fall apart. Anything saleable has been stolen from these buildings. Beside the main road are piles of scrap metal, apparently scavenged recently and awaiting pick up. Someone has bulldozed driveways to many houses through the dense vegetation to collect old bricks. This contaminated building material will likely be sold in Kyiv. Radiation levels here range from 0.6 to 2.0 mSv/hr (milliSieverts per hour). Acute radiation sickness starts at 500 times this dose, but 50 times this dosage per year increases cancer risk.
“The Bible gives us fortitude.” — Eduard Evteev, manager at the Chernobyl Training Center Just one year ago, Eduard Evteev fell ill. He was diagnosed with a tumor on his kidney. Nine days later, he underwent surgery. Eduard is a man of faith. “My belief was a support,” he says. “God gives us life and has the right to take it away.” Fortunately, he recovered well. Afterwards, his job was transferred from the Chernobyl zone to the city of Slavutych, in order to decrease risk of recurrence. Now he walks to work at the training center, which orients and tests over 3,000 new temporary Chernobyl employees every year. Eduard’s wife Tanya still works at Chernobyl. Her official job title is decontaminator: she is a janitor at the Semikhody radiation checkpoint. She and her co-workers sweep, mop and scrub the entire building twice per shift. The Evteevs have five children. Their oldest son works at another nuclear plant, in Rivne.
“Social tension, dissatisfaction with [salaries]… untimely wage payment, declining professional prestige, decline of trust between personnel and administration, uncertainty of social status, the threat of unemployment, stressful impact of uncomfortable and dangerous labor conditions—this list of factors influencing one's professional reliability is far from full.” — Slava Danilov, Chernobyl medical researcher Today, a portion of Chernobyl personnel are involved in decommissioning the plant—slowly planning the permanent storage of nuclear waste and deconstructing contaminated buildings. Many more continue the day-to-day operation of the facility: security officers, bus drivers, file clerks, dishwashers, even gardeners. The plant administration has worked to cut jobs through such efforts as privatizing the cafeterias where employees get free lunches. Radiation levels are generally much lower than in 1986, but remain hazardous in spots. Nonetheless, many plant workers are, on the surface, quite cavalier about their exposure. The closer you are to Chernobyl, the less dangerous it seems.
“Summer is boring here. Next I want to go to university, but it depends on where the money will come from.” — Yulya, high school senior In Sukachi, cousins Yulya and Alina, both 18, graduate this week from high school. Tonight, the entire class celebrates at their prom. Unlike an American prom, here the students’ families and teachers are all invited to a grand banquet, followed by dancing into the night. In rural villages across the Chernobyl region, the younger generation is now as eager to leave as their parents were to stay. Unemployment is high, and young adults tend to leave in search of work. Senior citizens make up 43% of Ivankiv district’s population; in some nearby villages, this figure exceeds 80%. The girls stop at the liquor store where Nina Dubrovskaya is working late tonight. Then they continue up the road to use the outhouse behind their school. After tonight, only time can tell where they end up. Will they stay? Would you?
