All about Chernobyl 30 years later. What to read in print media

Thirty years have passed since the destruction of the fourth power unit at Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is considered the most severe man-made disaster in human history. It gave rise to a whole layer of myths and speculations related to radiation effects on humans and nature, which in turn laid the foundation for radiophobia, unreasonable fear before radiation. Rafael Varnazovich Harutyunyan, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Professor, First Deputy Director of the Institute for Problems of the Safe Development of Nuclear Energy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told RIA Novosti about the myths that have developed around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

How can we be so sure that the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant had a catastrophic impact on the health of millions of people?

- The notion of the catastrophic nature of the accident is not just an invention of individual journalists or environmentalists. Unfortunately, this idea originated in public consciousness after the so-called " Chernobyl Law "of May 12, 1991, in the preamble of which it is written that the country was beset by an ecological catastrophe, a nationwide disaster. The law determined the zone of radiation damage, indicated the number of 8 million victims and hundreds of thousands of liquidators of the accident. And all the people covered by this law , at the same time found themselves in the zone of mortal risk, in anticipation of oncological diseases, hereditary genetic defects.

And now, 30 years later, what picture do we see? In total, more than 638 thousand people are registered in the Russian National Radiation and Epidemiological Register. In fact, this Register is the largest in the world, its data are absolutely clear, they cannot be refuted. Of the registered people, 187,000 are in the status of liquidators, and 389,000 are residents of territories that have been most contaminated with radionuclides (Bryansk, Kaluga, Tula and Oryol regions). Over the past decades, radiation sickness was detected in 134 people who were at the emergency unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on the first day. Of these, 28 died within a few months after the accident (27 in Russia), 20 died different reasons for 20 years.

Among the liquidators of the accident, 122 cases of leukemia were detected, out of the mentioned 187 thousand people, and it is possible that 37 of them could have been induced by Chernobyl radiation.

According to the Register, by the beginning of 2016, out of 993 cases of thyroid cancer in children and adolescents (at the time of the accident), 99 could be related to radiation exposure. There is no increase in the number of diseases with other types of oncology among liquidators compared to other groups.

That is, the Register data tell us that 30 years after the accident, numerous assumptions and forecasts regarding the superscale consequences of the radiation impact of the accident were not confirmed. It should be noted that the only radiological consequence among the population Chernobyl accident- thyroid cancer in children could have been prevented with the timely introduction of a ban on the consumption of milk and fresh vegetables from private farms.

Here is a quote from the report of the World Health Organization: "A significant increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer occurred in people who were children and adolescents at the time of the accident and lived in the most polluted areas of Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This was caused by high levels of radioactive iodine, which escaped from the reactor of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the first days after the accident.Radioactive iodine settled in the pastures where cows grazed, and then concentrated in their milk, subsequently consumed by children.In addition, the situation was aggravated by a general deficiency of iodine in the local diet, which led to further accumulation of radioactive iodine in the thyroid.Because the lifespan of radioactive iodine is short, if people had stopped giving locally contaminated milk to children within a few months of the accident, there would probably not have been an increase in rad-induced thyroid cancer in most cases. ation".

I repeat once again that no other negative impacts on people have been recorded, which completely refutes all the prevailing myths and stereotypes about the consequences of the accident for public health.

If today we analyze the radiation doses of the inhabitants of the Chernobyl zones over the past 20 years, then out of 2.8 million Russians who found themselves in the area affected by the accident, 2.5 million received an additional dose of less than 10 millisieverts over 20 years, which is five times less than the global average background exposure . Less than 2,000 people received doses of more than 100 millisieverts, which is 1.5 times less than the dose naturally accumulated annually by residents of Finland or the Russian Republic of Altai. It is for this reason that no radiological consequences are observed among the population, except for the thyroid cancers already noted above. At the same time, it should be understood that among 2.8 million people, regardless of their place of residence, the annual death rate from cancer, not related to the radiation factor, is from 4 thousand to 6 thousand people.

Another quote from the WHO report: "For comparison, the high dose of radiation that a patient usually receives as a result of computed tomography of the whole body is approximately equivalent to the total dose accumulated over 20 years by residents of lightly contaminated areas after the Chernobyl accident."

- But what about the genetic consequences for humanity from the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant? Horrors tell us on this topic the media.

Ten myths around the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plantAll world science over 60 years of detailed scientific research never observed any genetic consequences in humans due to radiation exposure. Moreover, after 20 years, the International Commission for Radiological Protection, realizing that there is no reason to talk about genetic risks, has reduced their risks by almost 10 times.

- I will answer briefly, but succinctly. All world science in 60 years of detailed scientific research has never observed any genetic consequences of radiation exposure on a person. Moreover, the International Commission for Radiological Protection, two decades after Chernobyl, realizing that there is no reason to talk about genetic risks, lowered them by almost 10 times. Therefore, talk about genetic implications The Chernobyl disaster can be called a fantasy with full confidence, or a lie, which will be more accurate.

I remember well how in the late 1980s. information began to emerge that great amount people were resettled after the accident, including tens of thousands evacuated from Pripyat and adjacent territories. It was a shock for the USSR. Today you can often hear that the evacuation was very poorly organized.

- In the conditions of uncertainty that arose immediately after the explosion, and its cause lay in the almost complete unpreparedness of the authorities and specialists for such an accident and the impossibility at that time to predict it further development, the decision to evacuate was made quickly and correctly. The dose radiation criteria then in force in the USSR assumed the mandatory removal of the population. As a result, the evacuation of almost 120 thousand people was carried out, of course, not without errors, but quickly and professionally. The information that people received serious doses of radiation exposure during the evacuation is a lie.
By the way, at that time, another myth arose that decisions were made without taking into account the interests of the people, with the export being dragged to the last, and many received high doses of radiation because of this. So, this is also not true. The decision to evacuate was made before the moment when the situation approached, in terms of radiation doses, to the very lower threshold. That is, people were taken out before at least something dangerous could arise. And therefore, no overexposure, even by modern standards, was allowed.

- From the beginning of the 1990s, information began to spread that the authorities were hiding the situation from the population and the public from the first minutes of the Chernobyl accident, although they themselves knew everything very well.

- Everything is much more complicated than some "experts" would like to present. Of course, the authorities concealed full information, but I repeat, primarily due to the fact that the system itself was unable to quickly and adequately assess the situation. At that moment in the USSR there was no reliable and independent system for monitoring the radiation situation. It was almost impossible to get real-time information about the level of background radiation near and far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Now this is a common thing, thanks to the emergence of ARMS - an automatic system for monitoring the radiation situation, spread around the nuclear power plant and allowing local authorities and anyone who wants to access the Internet and on a special website to find out the real radiation situation. At that time, such a system simply did not exist, and in order to make decisions, it was necessary to analyze the situation, and this took up precious time. If similar system was at that time, people would have been able to avoid eating food from the affected areas in the early days of the disaster.

Information about the accident was really limited until 1988, due to the secrecy regime. By the way, during the accident at Fukushima-1, there was no objective and up-to-date information in the first days, since neither the operator of the nuclear power plant, nor the special services of Japan, nor the authorities of the country were ready for a dramatic unfolding of events.

There are a lot of people walking on the Internet and the media scary pictures and even photographs depicting nature allegedly disfigured by the accident in the Chernobyl zone. Has the environment suffered from the accident at a nuclear power plant even more than a person?

- According to the paradigm of radioecology, if a person is protected from the effects of radiation, then the environment, nature, is protected with a huge margin. That is, if the impact on human health of a radiation incident is minimal, then its impact on nature will be even less. Speaking about Chernobyl, the impact on nature was observed only near the destroyed power unit, where the irradiation of trees reached 2 thousand roentgens. Then these trees turned into the so-called "red forest". But at the moment all natural environment even in this place fully recovered, which would not have happened, for example, in a chemical accident. Now nature is in Chernobyl zone, in the so-called polluted area, feels great. Literally blooming and fragrant. And for animals there is practically a reserve.

- Is it true that Russia spent a lot of money on the elimination of the consequences of the accident?

- Let's look at real numbers. Since 1992, Russia has spent more than $4 billion to clean up the aftermath of the accident. As you know, the bulk of the funds were directed to social benefits. The money is really miserable - about 1 thousand dollars for each person. That is, about any colossal sums in this case there is no speech.

After Chernobyl, Russia tightened the standards for radiation exposure. They say that now we have the most stringent standards among all countries developing nuclear energy.

- Unfortunately it's true. The fact is that he made the Chernobyl accident a disaster whole line political decisions, which were not based on real criteria, had nothing to do with the real level of risks for the population.

Today, our exposure standards are among the most stringent in the world. I'll give you an example. The measure of radioactivity is activity, which is measured in Becquerels (Bq). For example, in Russia there is a norm according to which the content of the cesium-137 isotope in milk should not exceed 100 Bq per liter. In Norway, for baby food, the norm is 370 Bq per kg. That is, if we have milk with 110 Bq is already considered radioactive waste, then in Norway it is more than 3 times lower than the norm.

- Did the countries developing the nuclear industry, including us, learn the lessons of Chernobyl well?

- First major accident The nuclear power plant was an accident at the nuclear power plant "Three Mile Island" (Pennsylvania, USA) in 1979. As a result of technical failures and human errors at the plant, the reactor core melted. It's good that there were no catastrophic consequences. It must be said that the key mistake of the USSR was ignoring the events at Three Mile Island as the first harbinger of a severe accident at a nuclear power plant. We didn't learn this lesson, that's why Chernobyl happened.

Unfortunately, the lessons of Chernobyl were not learned in Japan. And now our Japanese partners are running into the same trap that we stepped on during the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. In Japan, they carried out a mass evacuation of people, they introduce the same tough, unreasonable standards for radiation safety. These are all repetitions of our mistakes. The refusal of the Japanese government to use nuclear energy is also absolutely unjustified. After Chernobyl, the scientific community and designers in our country seriously engaged in the study of severe accidents, in parallel, research programs on severe accidents at nuclear power plants were launched in the world, and when Rosatom, within the framework of the nuclear renaissance, determined the appearance of future nuclear power plants, then security was put at the forefront. safe operation of nuclear power plants.I am sure that Japan will return to nuclear power anyway, because abandoning it will cost too much.

- To what extent can we control the "peaceful atom"?

- Let's look at the main causes of the Chernobyl accident. Firstly, the decision to transfer nuclear power plants to the USSR Ministry of Energy was erroneous. Virtually every commandment of safety culture in the nuclear industry was violated when it was transferred from special industry, as it was in the Ministry of Medium Machinery of the USSR, into the field of general energy and, as a result, they overestimated the safety level of nuclear power plants. The staff of the Ministry of Energy consisted of people unprepared for the operation of nuclear power plants. The personnel of the nuclear power plant itself violated all instructions and rules during the testing program. Such a situation is now categorically impossible. In addition, at present, the actions of personnel are strictly regulated in accordance with internationally recognized approaches and documents.

Hundreds of safety parameters are transmitted in real time from each unit of all NPPs in Russia to the crisis center of the Rosenergoatom concern. This provides complete control independent of the personnel.

Secondly, the design of the nuclear power plant reactor allowed for the unfolding or stopping of the accident in case of erroneous behavior of the personnel. After 1986, the safety systems of nuclear power plants in our country and abroad were improved to the maximum in order to almost completely eliminate the human factor.

After Chernobyl, the development of nuclear energy around the world stopped. The nuclear renaissance in the mid-2000s was slowed down due to the accident at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant. Is the world phasing out nuclear energy today?

- The world has not just returned to the widespread use of nuclear power. As we are now seeing, many new countries have announced their plans to develop their own nuclear industry. Rosatom's portfolio of orders for 10 years is a record - more than 110 billion dollars. We build NPPs both in our traditional countries - Finland, Hungary, India, China, Iran, and in completely new countries, for example, in Turkey and Egypt. This suggests that we have learned all the lessons of accidents at nuclear power plants well enough to win the long-term trust of our partners.

The only thing that I consider important to note is that we need to deal in detail with the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster. Why did we manage to scare ourselves so much with Chernobyl, without any good reason?

Andrey Reznichenko

The ill-fated explosion at the fourth power unit of the nuclear power plant. At 01:23 a.m., the life of the “exclusion zone” today called today changed forever: cities and villages were empty, the number of residents who were forced to leave their homes exceeded the 115,000 mark.

In total, radioactive fallout hit an area of ​​almost 60 thousand square meters. km in the territory of the post-Soviet space, in total, about 3 million people lived in these territories at that time.

Also today it is known for certain that the Chernobyl disaster is:

• The release of radioactive materials into the atmosphere, the total amount of which reached 50 million curies (comparable to the explosion of 500 atomic bombs in 1945 in Hiroshima);
• Mobilization of about 600 thousand people to eliminate the consequences of a man-made disaster;
• At least 8.3 million citizens of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus exposed to radiation;
• Pollution of the territory in 60 sq. km located outside the post-Soviet space;
• Approximately 4 thousand died from exposure at the time of the accident (data from WHO and IAEA), while the number of deaths as a result of the Chernobyl disaster in subsequent years is estimated at tens of thousands;
• More than 2 billion euros spent on the Shelter-2 project (by 2018, the structure will cover the current damaged "sarcophagus").

In addition, at present, the territories “coastal” to the site of the Chernobyl disaster (about 150 thousand square kilometers) remain unsuitable for life.

Life in the "exclusion zone"

What does the “exclusion zone” look like 30 years later? Eyewitnesses claim that in the depths of Chernobyl, vegetation has practically destroyed the road surface, and many streets resemble scenes from horror films: buildings with collapsed roofs, shutters creaking in the wind.

However, people live there. The journalists of the German Deutsche Welle managed to communicate with some people who now live in the “exclusion zone”.

Photo: Evgeny Fedorovich and Maria Prokopyevna

One of the few residents, 78-year-old self-settlement Evgeny Fedorovich, said that he had been living in the “exclusion zone” for 30 years: together with everyone else, he was evacuated during the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster, but then he wanted to return home. From his words, it became clear that a few local residents are saved by growing food.

“We are practically outside the law. We are called "self-settlers" - these are people who should not be here. We were also teased as “self-settlers” and “temporary residents”, but what kind of “temporary” is it if it lasts 30 years. We are not self-settlers, we are local residents,” Yevgeny Fedorovich tells reporters.

The interlocutor said that on the day of the Chernobyl accident, he worked at a school and even saw smoke over a nuclear power plant. Then he did not attach any importance to this. Several days passed before the start of the mass evacuation, but three months later Yevgeny Fedorovich returned to the “exclusion zone”.

“I was ready to work with anyone, as long as in Chernobyl,” he continues.

Now, according to him, people in the “exclusion zone” have to survive: the man himself is fond of fishing, he and his wife grow vegetables and fruits.

Information about other residents of the “exclusion zone” is very vague: in total, about 180 people live there, of which about 80 people live in Chernobyl, while the rest live in neighboring villages. The journalists talked to other residents of the "exclusion zone", one of the interlocutors - Maria Prokopievna - also said that she and her husband are saved by growing crops.

“Of course, I heard that nothing can be grown on this land, but dosimetrists used to say that everything was within the permissible norm,” said Maria Prokopyevna.

Each of the villages living in Chernobyl and located nearby, with whom the journalists managed to talk, notes that postmen bring their pension once a month, and occasionally (2 times a month) a truck shop comes where you can buy groceries and bread.

A photo:REUTERS , Vasily Fedosenko

Nevertheless, local residents cope with difficulties and demonstrate to the whole world around them by their own example: there is still life in the “exclusion zone”. Experts believe that it is extremely unsafe to live in Chernobyl and the 30-kilometer "exclusion zone", although it is possible: this is confirmed by cases when local residents lived to the age of 90. However, the State Agency for the Management of the "Exclusion Zone" is confident that it is impossible to live in Chernobyl itself for at least another 1000 years - this is due to the fact that the level of pollution is still high.

Specialists working in Chernobyl receive exposure in the form of 1.2 millisibers, while the norm is 1 millisibert per year. Ukrainian authorities do not pester local residents in view of the "gentlemen's agreement", despite the legislative ban, but are also actively working to ensure that the number of "self-settlers" does not grow - they promise to evict everyone who plans to cross the border with the "exclusion zone" for the purpose of living.

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was not only the largest man-made disaster in the history of Ukraine, but also a powerful social, political and economic factor that influenced the life of the country.

It is known that directly during the explosion and fire at the station, one of its employees died, one - as a result of numerous injuries from the collapse of the ceiling. Another 29 liquidators, including nuclear power plant workers, firefighters and military personnel, died in hospitals from burns and acute radiation sickness within two weeks after the accident.

It is likely that the number of direct victims among those directly involved in the liquidation of the consequences of the accident is greater, but it is not possible to accurately restore these data due to the secrecy of the relevant information in the USSR.

Semerak assures that the construction of "Shelter-2" over the 4th block of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be completed in accordance with the approved plans Said April 18, 2016Promise Status: Fulfilled

The total number of liquidators involved in work at the nuclear power plant and the exclusion zone during and after the disaster is at least 600,000 people. The health of most of them was seriously undermined by exposure to radiation. Oncological pathologies became the main cause of diseases and deaths: according to studies by Belarusian scientists, the incidence of cancer among this category of the population was four times higher than the average among the population of the affected countries. Information on the number of dead liquidators also differs significantly depending on the source: since official statistics do not exist, different authors studies give figures from 25 thousand to 100 thousand people, and these are data as of the mid-90s, however, it is known that it is possible to fully assess the consequences of the impact of radiation on public health only after several decades.

In general, 3.4 million people are considered victims of the accident - mostly residents of the regions of Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv regions of Ukraine and Mogilev and Gomel regions of Belarus close to the affected area. 350 thousand people were forced to leave their homes, about 600 more still live in contaminated areas. 150 of them continue to live directly in the exclusion zone.

The force of the explosion that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is compared with 500 atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese Hiroshima. The half-life of radioactive substances in environment, reaches more than 24 thousand years.

At the moment, the total economic losses of the country from the disaster amount to 179 billion US dollars. 6 billion dollars (in terms of the 1986 exchange rate) was spent on the construction of the first sarcophagus - the Shelter object, built in record time - until November 1986. According to some reports, in the construction of the facility Soviet Union involved more than 240 thousand employees. The construction of a new confinement, the need for which is due to the fact that the old structure began to gradually collapse, will cost 2.15 billion euros. These funds were allocated to Ukraine by donor countries through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The construction of a new sarcophagus began in 2007, but due to bureaucratic nuances and lack of funding, the work was constantly postponed. The date of completion of construction was also delayed: first it was about 2012-2013, then about 2017. The service life of the old shelter is 30-40 years and has already partially expired, so the performers of the work must hurry ... Now the design of the new shelter is partially ready, the engineers must connect the parts of the sarcophagus arch and place it directly above the damaged reactor. According to the forecasts of the Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ostap Semerak, this should happen at the end of 2017, and the launch of Shelter-2 in 2018. The new confinement should secure Europe from radioactive emissions from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for the next 100 years.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, Slovo i Delo prepared a selection of the most important unfulfilled environmental promises of Ukrainian politicians in recent years. April 26, 2016, 07:54

On the question of what to do with the exclusion zone and the territories close to it, Ukrainian officials still do not have unity: someone proposes to leave everything as it is, someone - to reopen the 30-kilometer zone for scientific research, organization biosphere reserve and even for the organization of agriculture. However, the present exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant raises concerns about the unsatisfactory condition of the Shelter object, constant forest fires, looting, unauthorized picking of berries and mushrooms, and the unresolved issue of spent nuclear fuel storage. And these are the priority problems that Ukraine must solve in order to turn from a state that is engaged in "extinguishing fires" and eliminating the consequences of natural disasters, into a state that permanently cares about the environment and the health of its own citizens.

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A mourning meeting was held at the Mitinsky cemetery in Moscow, anniversary accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, which occurred 30 years ago. According to TASS, about one and a half thousand people took part in the action on the Walk of Fame, where 28 firefighters from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, who died during the liquidation of the accident at the nuclear power plant, were buried. In addition to Moscow, commemorative events were held in several other cities of Russia, in particular, in Rostov-on-Don, Tomsk, Cherkessk, Naberezhnye Chelny, Vladimir, Kaliningrad, Bryansk and Kursk.

In Kostroma, Krasnoyarsk, Ulan-Ude, and also in Leningrad region mourning actions were held by Yabloko activists. At the same time, the party stressed that 30 years after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Russia "is quickly and decisively returning to the worst totalitarian standards of the relationship between the state and the individual." In the political council of Yabloko, he recalled the secrecy introduced in 1986, because of which thousands of people were endangered.

The victims of the Chernobyl disaster are also remembered in Ukraine, Belarus, Europe and the United States. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Tuesday signed a decree on the establishment of the Chernobyl radiation-ecological biosphere reserve. It is located on the territory of Ivankovsky and Polessky districts Kyiv region within the exclusion zone and the mandatory resettlement zone. The press service of Poroshenko states that the creation of the reserve has become important step on the way to the restoration of territories that were exposed to radiation contamination due to the accident.

As a result of the explosion at the Chernobyl station, the fourth power unit was completely destroyed. The accident, according to experts, was the largest in the history of nuclear energy.

What white spots remain in the history of the Chernobyl tragedy? This topic is discussed by the cinematographer Vladimir Sinelnikov, ecologist Alexei Yablokov.

Leader - Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr..

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: April 26, 1986 - this date is forever associated with the tragedy at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It happened exactly 30 years ago. Today, mourning events dedicated to this mournful date are held in many cities of Russia and neighboring countries.

The guest of our studio is Vladimir Sinelnikov, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, screenwriter, author of the film "The Bell of Chernobyl" - the first film that was shot on this topic.

Vladimir Lvovich, how did you end up in Chernobyl? What were your first impressions?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: I realized that I have to make a picture about Chernobyl, as a journalist, as a documentary filmmaker. I have such a restless character. But we were not allowed to go there by First Deputy Prime Minister Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina, who was in charge of nuclear energy. I wrote an article in Pravda (and at the beginning of 1986 Pravda still had authority), called it "Boomerang", where I fiercely criticized the Minister of Cinema Yermash, although he had no power to release or not to release this film. Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev read it and gave the command to let us into the zone. And when we finished filming a few months later, the picture was not released - the same Shcherbina, who, by the way, traveled to the zone many times, and died there, in the zone. He had a commission of 33 departments that did not let anyone in. There was nothing to be missed in the newspapers or in the books.

And he looked at our picture five times and demanded amendments. The information picture about Chernobyl lay on the shelf for a year. It was the last Soviet "shelf" picture. He came to the minister, we were called again. Kamshalov was already a minister. And he said: "You are filming for the people's money. Who gave you the right to behave like this ?!" I told him: "You washed away the Minsk picture," - then there was a film. Gubarev's play "Sarcophagus" was banned. She walked in London and Paris, but did not go either in Moscow, or in Minsk, or in Kyiv. They said: "We will not make an operetta out of a tragedy."

And bow to Elem Klimov. Then the Union of Cinematographers was different. I told him: "What to do? The KGB took away all the copies, even from the Cabinet of Ministers." He replied: "Tomorrow there will be a plenum of the Union of Cinematographers. Do you have something to show?" - "Yes. A working positive, which the installer took out." She is no longer alive, unfortunately. We showed this copy. Everyone knew about the painting. And Shcherbina rushed in again. The deputy head of the department of culture of the Central Committee of the CPSU (and then it meant something) told him: "Boris Evdokimovich, yesterday the picture was shown at the plenum of the Union of Cinematographers." He asked: "How many people were there?" He replies: "Three hundred!" And he, turning on his heel, said: "It's a good picture! What, we didn't release it?!" And the organizing secretary of this commission was an old man who was well over 70. He said to him: "What, we didn't release the picture?" He replies: "No." And then he says: "You're fired!" The old man came home and died. And the picture came out.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: You were one of the first to visit this zone. And now we will listen to Academician Yablokov, who believes that even 30 years after the disaster, it is dangerous to live there.

Alexey Yablokov: Until now, there are territories in Ukraine, in Belarus, in Russia, where it is dangerous to live. This is zoning. It is considered officially that it is dangerous to live in territories starting with a pollution density of 1 curie per square kilometer. And all the people who live in territories from 1 to 15 receive state subsidies. And if from 5 to 15, then you can leave, get some preferences for building a house. But people live there.

Of course, living in these territories is doubly dangerous, because these are the consequences of the first terrible radiation strike. No one knows for sure, but theoretically we can say that it was a thousand times more significant than subsequent ones. And now, 30 years later, we can definitely say that low-level chronic, daily, annual exposure is no less dangerous than a one-time powerful, acute exposure.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: When was this interview filmed?

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Yesterday.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: What he said is very important.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Vladimir Lvovich, you are the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the public organization "Union "Chernobyl" of Moscow." Is it possible to protect the rights of the liquidators? And are their rights respected?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: me a little more than a year was elected chairman of the Chernobyl Union of Russia. People believed that my reputation after my paintings would help us protect our rights. I agreed, I thought it would help. We assembled a wonderful board of trustees who also tried to help us. Unfortunately, we were unable to do anything. We have been in continuous correspondence with the Moscow City Hall for a whole year.

I wanted, among other things, to do two things. One of them has nothing to do with money. There is such a proud concept that war veterans wear - defenders of the Fatherland. There are almost none left. And I believed that the "Chernobyl" who saved millions human lives, and not only in Russia, in Peaceful time deserve the title of defenders of the Fatherland. This is a federal issue. I wrote to the president. Wherever they sent my letter! .. And they did not answer me. I asked: "Why are those who shot in Angola defenders of the Fatherland? Why are the Afghans defenders, and we are not?" Pilots who flew over Syria have just become defenders of the Fatherland. Couldn't we get this title by the 30th anniversary?! This would be important for the "Chernobyl victims" who are dying by the thousands... When I turn 35, I don't know how many of them will be left alive. We didn't even get a response from the President! Nobody told us why we don't deserve it. It was the biggest blow for me.

And the second. We get a 50% discount on utility bills. And now also for the mythical overhaul of houses. War veterans receive a 100 percent discount. We asked to extend this benefit to disabled people of groups I and II. "Chernobyl survivors" live very poorly, this would be a very significant help for them today. These are the two things I wanted to do. In the same way that the president did not answer, neither Sobyanin nor numerous clerks answered this question. No matter what they wrote to us! .. I wrote to Biryukov, vice-mayor for housing and communal services: "Why do you allow clerks to give us humiliating answers ?!" He answered me: "Contact the government." The budget of Moscow is equal to the budget of New York, by and large. And to pay disabled people of groups I and II - you won’t see this money through a magnifying glass!

During the year that I constantly corresponded with the Moscow government, the result was the same: on the eve of the 30th anniversary, we received an order to vacate the premises, because the soul of the mayor's office ached for us - the ceiling in the house that we occupy would suddenly collapse. "We are afraid for you," they wrote to me. And at the same time, the organization that owned this house made repairs, attached its sign and moved in there. Hanging a huge poster "Rent". They are already changing the currency there, they are selling fur coats... But they are afraid for us! Don't be afraid for them, don't be afraid for yourself.

And this is one of the reasons why I resigned. I am not tired of fighting with the authorities, which turned away from the "Chernobyl victims". I just felt that I didn't do what I should have done. But I don't feel guilty. We raised the issue of meeting with Sobyanin four times. He said at the signing of the agreement with us: "I will meet with the Chernobyl victims of Moscow every year." Three years have passed and there have been no meetings. I wrote two or three articles. And they have a very comfortable position: they pretend that nothing happened. And I can assume that Sergei Semenovich was not informed about this problem.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Let's hear about what security measures the liquidators were forced to take 30 years ago.

Alexey Yablokov: What have the European, civilized countries done, shall we say? I know what we've done. We have classified. And the May Day demonstration in Kyiv is clearest example how completely insane secrecy led to the fact that hundreds of thousands of people were additionally irradiated, who could not have been irradiated. But what did most of Europe do? After all, no one knew anything, there were no messages in our official propaganda. Only after the discovery in Sweden and Finland the highest levels radioactivity, and realized that it was coming from the Soviet Union, they began to say: "Yes, there is a small accident." What have they done in all other countries, except for some? They immediately announced a ban on the use of leafy vegetables, milk from cows that graze on pastures, and a ban on drinking water from open reservoirs. And it saved tens of thousands of people! This was not done in France and Romania. And here we see more cases, especially in Romania, because it was closer and received more radionuclides compared to nearby other countries.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Vladimir Lvovich, you told us last year that those who fell ill with radiation sickness took some desperate measures before passing away. One man collected firearms with the last of his money.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Academician Yablokov says very important words. When the cloud reached Sweden at night 30 years ago, they called the duty officer at Minsredmash: "What do you have in Chernobyl?" The sleepy duty officer called the director of the station, Bryukhanov. And Bryukhanov uttered a phrase that should go down in the history of nuclear energy. He said: "What are you worried about, we can handle it on our own." And he had 10-15 firefighters. They died the next day. Because they grabbed graphite with their hands and threw it off the roof, and in each piece there were 5 thousand roentgens. But it was, in fact, the first time in the history of mankind. There were 300 accidents before in Russia. But he really didn't understand what had happened. He sincerely said: "We'll manage on our own."

In answer to your question, I would like to say that not only in Moscow, but throughout Russia, "Chernobyl victims" are offended. In general, the Chernobyl electorate - I remind you before the elections to the State Duma, the president - is potentially protest. Sore. But in Moscow, during this time we managed to make it neutral. This time is over. Because all the latest steps taken by the authorities are offensive to the "Chernobyl victims". We remember how a few years ago Tula "Chernobyl victims" arrived here on buses and threw orders on Red Square. We remember how in Chelyabinsk a "Chernobyl man" who was not given medicine made a homemade gun and shot himself in front of everyone. It seems to me that if everything does not change in these weeks and months, it is very dangerous for the authorities.

Just the other day, the government sent a draft law to the State Duma, according to which local, regional and municipal authorities have the right to interpret the positions of the law on the protection of "Chernobyl victims" in different ways.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Let's listen to Academician Yablokov. He recalled the consequences of Chernobyl for the Soviet Union.

Alexey Yablokov: We, the people who deal with this catastrophe, have long been saying that disasters like Chernobyl have not only medical, biological, but also political significance. Gorbachev repeatedly admitted this: "Yes, Chernobyl is the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union." And I spoke about this for a long time, because the Soviet Union could not be saved after the referendum in Ukraine. And at the referendum in Ukraine - "Do you want to be in the USSR or not?" - was one of the slogans why they do not want: "We do not want to be with the Muscovites who made us Chernobyl." That is, already 20 years ago it was concluded: nuclear disasters carry the potential for political catastrophes. The same thing happened at Fukushima. The happiness of the Japanese people is that the wind blew towards the ocean. If 30 million people had to be saved, the economy would collapse, Japan, as a developed country, would end. It would be a different country.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: I remember you said that you determined with a trained eye that something could happen to Fukushima at any moment when you visited the island.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: It was not a "trained eye". When we were making a picture about Chernobyl 30 years ago, we went to Japan to meet a Japanese physicist. And we were shown this station as exemplary. I saw that she was on the shore, and thought: God forbid - it will explode! And rushed.

And today there are big disputes between nuclear experts about the causes of Chernobyl, about the causes of Fukushima. But my mission today is the life of "Chernobyl victims". It was decided to erect a monument. Today we were at the foundation stone. Do you know what the decision says? “Let the “Chernobyl victims” themselves raise money for a monument about the exploits of the “Chernobyl victims.” Can this be assumed? How can we collect 100 million rubles?! This is very bitter.

Today we wanted to present awards to those "Chernobyl victims" who did not receive them. Russia's first president, Yeltsin, told the administration: "Every "Chernobyl victim" should be rewarded. Under President Medvedev, a document appeared that said: "Enough, we will no longer reward the" Chernobyl victims. Why? And today this issue is also not resolved. Many do well. For example, the Orthodox Church, which has its own orders, is considering some kind of encouragement. Under what conditions - I will not say, let it remain without comment. For example, the Russian Jewish Congress does not have orders, but they send a delegation of "Chernobyl victims" to Israel to receive medical treatment, to see holy places where almost none of the "Chernobyl victims" has been. Today my morning began at 10 o'clock in the memorial synagogue on Poklonnaya Hill. Representatives were invited Orthodox Church, Muslim religion. They organized an exhibition there. Candles were laid. And after some time, a delegation of Russian "Chernobyl survivors" will leave for Israel. By the way, a considerable number of "Chernobyl victims" moved to live in Israel and organized their society there.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: They have benefits - like for war veterans.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Yes, they do. But they also have their own problems. And they talk about them, discuss them in the Knesset. They are offended by the state. But they are waiting for us to hug.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Let's watch episodes from your films. Now we will see how the power plant appeared to your film crew and what was the situation shortly after the accident.

Speaker: The situation required constant and accurate information about what was happening in the former reactor. A helicopter headed for the fourth block. He was supposed to hover over the rift and plunge a probe equipped with sensors into it. The cable, wrapped in a bundle of measuring cables, on which the probe was lowered, had to be dropped to a safe place and from there the readings of the instruments should be monitored.

Academician Velikhov and Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Pismenny went there, to the fourth block. They had to make a final decision on which way the work on the burial of the block should unfold.

Physicists explain these light exposures of the film, which has been near the fourth block, in different ways.

What happened a few minutes later, no one could have imagined. Dropped from a helicopter, the second end of the cable fell into the zone high radiation. Scientists quite unexpectedly saw him behind the glass of the gallery. This is Pismenny, wearing a helmet - Velikhov.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Remind me how this scene was filmed.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Everything was secret there. But we found mutual language with Velikhov. I say: "Evgeny Pavlovich, what is needed in order to shoot this episode?" He said, "One thing is personal courage." And we agreed with our two operators that one would get into the helicopter, and the second would be near Velikhov and Pismenny, near the second end of the cable. The guys cast lots, who will fly in a helicopter ... One is no longer alive, after filming in Chernobyl, he died. His widow works with us in public organization. The pilot of the helicopter accurately hit the break in the block with his pike. But earlier he dropped the second piece for a few seconds - he was afraid that otherwise the pike would pull out. And she hung there. And in the Chernobyl zone, every morning you are given a set: shorts, socks, boots, shirt, jacket, cap and "petal". And they are all the same - that the academician, that the operator, that the soldier, that the minister. The operator rushed to where she hung, Pismenny and Velikhov run after him, but they are heavier, older. The operator came running, albeit with a camera, first. And there is a guard. And when the academicians ran up, he asked my operator: "Are these guys with you?" He says: "With me." And they began to kick out the thick glass with their feet, both Velikhov and Pismenny. We filmed it, it entered the picture.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Let's watch the next episode - the monologue of Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov.

Speaker: This is a necessity. There is a layer of radioactive dust on the glass. It's safer to watch the reactor that way.

Evgeny Velikhov, Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR: You just walked with us, you saw that our main task, on the one hand, is to provide grounds for the project - to securely bury the fourth block. Reliable - because we are talking that it would be possible for people to work around it, and that later all this radioactive waste, dust, and dirt would not go beyond this burial. On the other hand, we are trying to minimize the volume of this burial, which is very important both from the point of view of labor, because it is very difficult to work there, and from the point of view of the fact that this is a complex engineering structure. So we try to find exactly where the fuel is, to make sure we have good control over it. This is for today the main task those who work in and around the fourth block. Today we put a gamma radiation sensor inside the reactor shaft, put thermocouples. You saw how we dragged them through. And then the measurement will be carried out from above and below. Now we have sensors installed above and below.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: In my opinion, Evgeny Pavlovich is still dealing with this issue.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Yes, he has loyal assistants. And all these years he analyzes what happened. There is no consensus in this environment. But Evgeny Pavlovich continues to work.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: In recent years, he has been doing a lot of work within the framework of the Public Chamber.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: He became honorary president of the Public Chamber and honorary president of the Kurchatov Center. He is in his 80s, has had a couple of major joint surgeries, but is active and continues to work.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: With you then there was another great man - Armand Hammer. Let's give him the floor.

Armand Hammer: I saw a whole city with a population of 40 thousand, but now there is not a single person there, the city is empty. All large buildings are empty. There is even laundry hanging there - they didn't have time to pick it up. I would like everyone to see what I have seen. Then no one would talk about nuclear weapons. Then everyone would know that this is suicide, that we must destroy everything nuclear weapon. And I hope that when Mikhail Gorbachev meets with Reagan, he will tell Reagan and show the film. And on next year When Reagan arrives in Russia, he must also go to Kyiv. Let him see what I saw. Then I think he will never talk about nuclear weapons.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Yes, he was against nuclear weapons.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Hammer brought with him Dr. Gale, a very famous immunologist. The fact is that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan was in shock, and she did not collect a data bank of the blood of the victims. And Hammer offered to fund the work Gale would do. Soviet Ministry health care refused, it did not create a data bank. It was a very sad page. They dreamed of doing it. And when we flew to Kyiv ... and all the children had already been taken out of Kyiv, Hammer offered to fly on his plane. I walked up to the plane and gasped - along with Hammer was his very elderly wife. And when I saw that Gale got on the plane with his wife and two small children, I realized what a bet they were making for this to happen. They took risks own life and the lives of their children.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: There is a very difficult scene in your film, as the liquidators are instructed behind the scenes: to count to 90 and quickly run back. Vladimir Lvovich, how many of the heroes of your film are still alive?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: It is a crime! It happened before our eyes. Every morning we were all given drives...

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Geiger counters, as they used to be called.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: This drive was removed in the morning. And in the laboratory everyone counted how much each received. They didn't have storage. They considered. Then I tried to find out in the Ministry of Defense how many "Chernobyl victims", on what account they are, where they are observed. It all vanished when they returned. Therefore, these shots are a crime that was committed against the soldiers.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: I know that your film has broken all the Guinness records, in my opinion, it has been translated into all the languages ​​of the world.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Thanks to Shcherbina, who did not release it for a year, and Elem Klimov helped the film come out. And she, a year later, was released in all countries of the world that have television, and for this she was inscribed in the Guinness Book of Records.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Let's watch another rather difficult episode, as a former resident of the infected zone talks about how they return there and go for potatoes.

- Trouble is trouble. No, nobody says anything. Well, our village was rinsed with some kind of water. But still in your native home pulls. And they came here to their homeland. So they don't let you! Well, illegally... Of course, military service there is a service, and the lads stand their ground. Nobody will shoot, but they warn: "Do not go, we ask you." But after that people went. Who has left chickens, geese ... Yes, and now they go.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: What a naive people we had! .. There was no concept of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, this was done by civil defense. Sheer dilettantism!

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Well, for the first time in my life. The old lady we filmed is making jam.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: People did not understand the value of their lives. They thought it was more important to save six acres of potatoes...

Vladimir Sinelnikov: He speaks correctly. And who will spud potatoes? If the head of the station guaranteed that he would manage on his own, then what to take from them? .. They resettled everyone from this zone, from Pripyat, they received apartments in other areas, but left the children and returned back. These people are not in the census. And they live there. They bring milk and bread. Much more time will pass... And I continue to work on this topic. Ex-president Yushchenko allowed me and gave me two helicopters, we filmed this area several years ago. And how long it will be deleted from life - maybe 500 years or a thousand. But now it is the "nuclear trash heap of Europe". A storage facility for liquid and solid fuel waste is being built there. This is a concern for future generations.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: We know that you have made several films about Academician Sakharov. And in this film of yours, he has the final words about his foresight of progress.

Andrey Sakharov: There is a general and undoubted limit to the existence of civilization on Earth - this is the existence solar system, Sun. It's 7 billion years. Of these, we lived about half. I think that humanity should live long, not ruin itself in the next few centuries, or a few decades, or a few years. It must live for a very long time.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Has humanity learned the necessary lessons from this tragedy?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: For everyone who went to the zone then, "the roof went." And we said that it should be banned.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Andrei Dmitrievich was still in exile.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: He just returned, and literally a few days later we filmed him. Although it was impossible to shoot it, we filmed it at my house. He said: for 40 years we will not be able to live without nuclear energy, but we, physicists, will come up with something. 30 years have passed - until they came up with it.

And I just couldn't understand why a blank wall, like the Kremlin's, is solid, and we bump into this wall in order to help "Chernobyl survivors". This is our mission. They live very hard. But saving on "Chernobyl" is a crime. Don't skimp on heroes! But I thought: what a powerful resource we have for the construction of nuclear power plants. Someone called the number 56. Then the income is equal to oil. It is unprofitable to remember Chernobyl today. There are "Chernobyl" thoughts when it comes to nuclear power plants.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: And many of them work on the Chernobyl project.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: 11 of the active ones. And that's the whole point, it seems to me, except for the economy. React differently different countries. There are some that don't. There are those where a lot - in France. We build in Iran, and not only in Iran. It seems to me that humanity is still listening only to nuclear energy lobbyists. But humanity must live.

We were in Japan, agreed to meet with an incredibly famous, intelligent physicist. We flew to him in Tokyo - but he is not. Turns out he lives in Kyoto former capital. We arrived and found him. I ask: "Why did you leave?" He says, "My grandchildren are starting to grow up. I want them to see the stars. And there are no stars in Tokyo, it's all electric advertising. Let's do without it." He says: "I am ready to live with a torch, just so that my grandchildren grow up." I told this to Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. He says: "Humanity should not look for its future in asceticism. You don't have to live with a torch, you have to do something."

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Do you think that today, 30 years later, is enough attention paid to this topic? Today there were some routine reports on federal TV channels, but, in my opinion, something important was not heard. What did young TV journalists ignore?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: I think this is an indication. I heard in the official agency - this is a taboo topic.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: That is, do not stir, right?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Make people forget about Chernobyl. There was such a thing, well, what to do ... There is no need to talk about it today.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: But maybe there is economic sense? The most cynical thing is that it is believed that nuclear energy is the most environmentally friendly. She poisoned half the country, and yet they repeat this nonsense anyway.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: I will not take the responsibility to discuss technical problems - pure or not. Yablokov spoke about this, and he understands more than you and I. But the atomic lobby, physicists very energetically and convincingly prove the advantages of atomic energy for civilization. 30 years out of 40 have passed, Andrei Dmitrievich promised that they would come up with something. Until they figured it out.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: On the contrary, so far they have adopted a law that Russia can be turned into a repository for spent nuclear fuel. In my opinion, this is also cynicism - in our country, which has suffered so much.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: And where to put him? We are talking at the American station "Freedom". I've heard a lot these days. In particular, that allegedly American cargo planes received permission from Ukraine to transport waste over European countries. Like it or not, I don't know. But the duty of scientists is not to leave the solution of this issue to posterity. Now we have to think. 30 years have passed! And while nuclear energy is developing with might and main.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Have conclusions been drawn to create a special agency within the framework of the Ministry of Emergency Situations? When in Krymsk they tried to eliminate the consequences of the flood by the forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, our comrade Mitya Aleshkovsky bought boots, mittens and shovels for these unfortunate fighters.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Firstly, the Ministry of Emergency Situations grew out of the Chernobyl Service. Secondly, something else upsets me. Every round date - 5 years, 10 years, 15, 20, 25 years of Chernobyl - a government commission headed by the Deputy Prime Minister was created. She dealt with the issues of what is done, what is not done. The organizing committee for the 30th anniversary of Chernobyl was canceled for the first time. It was to be headed by Golodets, Deputy Prime Minister. And we all went in, but it was cancelled. These functions of the "holiday" were transferred to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which is supposed to put out fires and eliminate the consequences of floods. And it turns out that in the 30 years since the Chernobyl disaster in Russia, instead of a state action, the action has become departmental.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: In addition, over the years, relations have deteriorated, for example, with Ukraine. Over the past five years, no cooperation.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: I was the only one from the Russian Chernobyl community who went to the meeting of the "Chernobyl victims" of Ukraine, and heard there what I said to them myself. No interstate difficulties should destroy the Chernobyl brotherhood. These are their words. I brought them here. But, unfortunately, there is an attempt to introduce a split here as well.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: I was acquainted with Valentin Ivanovich Varennikov, who led the army part of this operation. He said terrible things. They rescued young soldiers who were thrown into this vent. As shown in your film: the guys are sent to collect graphite.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: Pieces of graphite - take them on a shovel and dump them down.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: And how much is one piece of phonite?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: The first firemen who were there died the next day. 5 thousand x-rays on such pieces. And the disease is 100 x-rays. They were brought to the 6th Moscow hospital - doctors, nurses became infected, such radiation came from them. They were buried at the Mitinsky cemetery, where today there was a solemn rally, as always, on April 26th. A furious background began from under the ground.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Did you deactivate?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: No, already buried coffins were poured with concrete.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: So you remained the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Chernobyl Union of Moscow. What can be done by the 35th anniversary?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: A volitional decision can only be made by the first persons. In Moscow, the mayor did nothing. He was not allowed to resolve this issue. We hope that we will meet with him and express our views. I think he will hear. Both the prime minister and the president...

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: And what is the average age of liquidators? And how many survived?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: It took 30 thousand to eliminate the consequences of the accident in Moscow, now there are 13 left. Half are soldiers and officers, half are civilians.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: Is your film in demand? Watching his new generation?

Vladimir Sinelnikov: This is one of our tasks. Yesterday I got a call from a Moscow orphanage, asking me to send people who will tell about it. But many schoolchildren no longer know this word - Chernobyl. This is the task of the public - to convey to the next generations. And it's very important task. It does not require government investments, this is our mission, and it is being fulfilled. After all, this is being done in the name of the future of human civilization.

Vladimir Kara-Murza Sr.: And of course, you need to restore the international cooperation in this domain. In many countries, there are already developments, but ours is again lagging behind, lagging behind due to lack of funding.

Vladimir Sinelnikov: We are pensioners and disabled people. Our mission is to take care of those state benefits and preferences that should be available everywhere.

In Belarus, this day is remembered as one of the most tragic dates in history - the accident became the largest man-made disaster of the 20th century.

The reactor burned for 10 days. Thousands of heroes rose to overcome the consequences of the disaster. One of the first to be involved were servicemen of the internal troops and civil defense (GO). Military units were engaged in decontamination in the territories affected by radiation, helped to evacuate the inhabitants of Pripyat and Chernobyl, and military outfits ensured public order - patrolled settlements to avoid looting. The correspondent of the Minsk-Novosti agency spoke with veterans of military unit 3310 (at that time military unit 11905) - direct participants in those events. Each of them has its own history, its own Chernobyl…

Days for fees

Directive of the General Staff of the USSR Armed Forces No. 314/8/231 was received on May 1, 1986. The 259th separate mechanized regiment of the USSR Civil Defense was supposed to arrive from the point of permanent deployment in the village of Okolitsa, Minsk region, to the Bragin region to carry out work to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident. Only a day was allotted for the collection.

- Prepared quickly. In fact, he took an alarming suitcase and left. They returned not after three days, as they thought, but only after 13 months, - recalls retired lieutenant colonel Alexander Smolsky. - Wheeled vehicles left on their own, and heavy tracked vehicles recovered along railway. Upon arrival, we, the officers, were urgently gathered to familiarize ourselves with the situation, explained the situation, and we began to equip ourselves and carry out the assigned tasks.

Alexander Mikhailovich Smolsky during the events at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was assistant chief of staff of military unit 3310 - he stayed in the accident zone from May 3, 1986 to June 10, 1987.

- We realized the seriousness of the disaster much later, and the first days passed in a blur. The picture remained forever in my memory - there is not a single person on the streets, only empty windows of abandoned houses. Imagine, laundry is hanging on the ropes in the courtyards, cats, dogs, chickens are running around, tables with food are set, but there are no residents and eaters. creepy, the veteran continues.

- The first time I had to live and work in tent city. They worked around the clock. The situation was tense, no one knew anything about radiation - before that, an accident of this magnitude was considered purely theoretically in the classroom. We were missing practical knowledge- this knowledge was already acquired on the spot, being at the epicenter. The amount of exposure received was recorded and monitored daily. The maximum allowable dose for the liquidators was considered to be 25 rem (BER - the biological equivalent of X-rays), it is at this radiation dose that the first signs of radiation sickness occur. On duty, I was engaged in measuring and fixing the level of radiation among personnel. It is no secret that at that time they tried to hide the truth about the accident from the public. For example, understated data were entered. During the shift, our servicemen could receive the maximum dose. I tried to put in account card maximum. I was repeatedly accused of pointing out high doses, they even threatened to remove me from work. Nevertheless, I affirm that many of those who came to Chernobyl in the first stream chose their maximum with a vengeance, but stood at their post to the end.

The taste and smell of radiation

Quantity radioactive substance atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima was about 740 g - this is a generally recognized fact. And the release from the 4th power unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant of such a substance was about 78 kg ...

Thus, experts compare the damage from an accident at a nuclear power plant with the damage that could be caused by 100 bombs like the one dropped on a Japanese city.

- Yellowed trees, deserted streets - as if he was on another planet. The needle of the dosimeter jumped like crazy. It went off scale in some places. Feet refused to set foot on this earth. Even the air seemed to be poisoned here. But since we were here, it was necessary to behave with dignity and do what we must., - describes his first impressions a veteran of the internal troops, retired lieutenant colonel Viktor Fedoseev. - Later, we learned to identify radiation by smell. It smelled of ozone - this radiation ionized the air. I also constantly had a sore throat - radioactive particles burned the mucous membranes, and there was a taste of metal in my mouth. We tried to protect ourselves. Someone found sheets of lead and lined the chair with them. However, we calculated: in order to protect ourselves from external influence radiation, you must sit in a tank or in a suit of 120 kg of lead.

- Yes, and the technique after a while terribly phoned and did not lend itself to processing. It seems that we deactivate all visible places, but no, it is phonite. As it turned out, the whole thing in the engine compartment. Air filter, oil - everything was clogged with radioactive dust. They were forced to build a site, where they left all the equipment.

Viktor Vasilievich Fedoseev - during the events at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the head of the chemical service of military unit 3310 - stayed in the accident zone from May 3, 1986 to June 10, 1987.

A huge territory in the north of Ukraine and Belarus has undergone radioactive contamination. One of the tasks of the military personnel of the internal troops was the decontamination of contaminated territories.

- The essence of our actions was simple - we were engaged in dust suppression from the so-called ARSs (auto-filling stations), filled with water with latex, which bound radioactive dust, and washed buildings, highways, asphalt with a special washing powder SF-2U. A few days later, the wind picked up a new cloud of dust, which again infected the streets. Everything had to be redone. And so from day to day says the veteran. - In general, at first it was really creepy: abandoned cattle were dying of hunger everywhere. Moreover, one day we were driving in a restricted area and, going around the houses, we stumbled upon an old man. He secretly made his way to his house and lived quietly, followed the household. I felt sorry for the "partisan" from the bottom of my heart. And instead of sending him out of the 30-kilometer zone by force, we took out what was from the food and left it for him. Quite differently, we treated the marauders. To be honest, there were also those who specially came to profit. They dragged everything that, in their opinion, was at least some value: carpets, household appliances, dismantled cars and motorcycles for spare parts. However, the militia was engaged in marauders. There was no such evil among us. Although there was a case: our soldiers in the village stole a turkey. Young people want to eat, but they can get sued. So we, so that they had a lesson, made them dig a hole with shovels and arranged a magnificent funeral for the turkey.

Of course, it is a pity for the young soldiers who were thrown "into the embrasure." They had no idea what radiation was and what danger they were exposing themselves to.

We created the desert

The exclusion zone on the Belarusian territory along the perimeter was more than 130 km. The radiation background there ranged from 1 mR/h and more. In order to somehow reduce the level of radiation, they removed the top layer of the earth, which was then taken to special burial grounds ...

- They worked in different areas. Basically, they traveled around the villages and took readings, marked places with severe contamination, examined wells, stocks of firewood and coal, and measured water for radioactivity. The foci were different: in one area there were heavily infected places nearby and weaker ones - some spots emitted up to 15 x-rays. It was possible to stay near such zones for a limited time, therefore they worked in turn, quickly changing, - recalls retired lieutenant colonel Sergei Karbovnichy. - One of our tasks was to build a burial ground - a quarry, at the bottom of which red clay was laid with a layer of 50 cm, on top a layer of thick polyethylene film glued with tar. All this so that water does not seep through. Cut turf and destroyed structures saturated with radiation, things from apartments that were no longer subject to use, but only disposal, were brought to the burial ground for burial. The cleared areas were sprinkled with clean sand brought from the Dnieper. They did as they should, but, in fact, they created a desert around. I, like many, remember the "red" forest - the trees in it took over a large number of radioactive dust, because of which they became completely red and yellow. I remember how they razed to the ground two villages in the Mogilev region - Malinovka and Chudyany. Here the radiation density was 140 curies per square meter. m at a rate of 5.

- I also visited the nuclear power plant itself - I was the only one allowed from the battalion. I saw the reactor, however, already closed by the "sarcophagus". You know, among ourselves, we called the people who worked on the roof of the 3rd power unit biorobots, since they worked where the machines failed.

Sergei Ivanovich Karbovnichiy during the events at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was the deputy commander of the 1st mechanized battalion for the political part of military unit 11905 (now military unit 3310), stayed in the accident zone from June 29, 1986 to June 10, 1987 and from May 17 to October 2, 1989

- That summer there was an unbearable heat - it was exhausting, but you can’t take off your clothes: the wind carries clouds of poisonous dust. Yes, and you look like an hour in a respirator, take it off, and it is all wet and saturated with dust, says the veteran. - Nature is beautiful: ripe cherries, apples, vegetables in the beds - there are many temptations. And what a fishing! But all this is unattainable and dangerous. Saved in different ways. I remember a professor of medicine came and confirmed that alcohol also protects against radiation by binding free radicals that destroy the body. Moreover, in order for this method to be effective, it is necessary to drink not Cabernet or other dry wine, but only vodka. They drank pills containing iodine, put on special suits. Nobody complained. In general, I am still struck by the general spirit of the liquidators - the composure, seriousness and exclusive responsibility of all personnel. Everyone was minding their own business. They worked in harmony. I have never seen such an attitude to work as there. As if everyone was saying to themselves: “If not me, then who?”.

30 years ago, a fire was extinguished at a nuclear power plant, the destroyed reactor was buried, radioactive emissions. The scale of the Chernobyl accident could have been much greater if not for the courage and dedication of the liquidators.

In Okolitsa, on the territory of military unit 3310, in April 2011, the first monument in Belarus to law enforcement officers - liquidators of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was opened. Every year, servicemen and veterans lay wreaths and flowers at the obelisk. With a moment of silence, they commemorate the heroes who, at the cost of their health, and sometimes their lives, did everything possible to localize the catastrophe and eliminate its consequences.

Photo from personal archive heroes