Women and children were the first to be evacuated. There was a shortage of buses in this corner of the former Soviet Union. To take 50 thousand people out of the city, buses from other regions of the country came here. The length of the bus column was 20 kilometers, which meant that when the first bus left Pripyat, the last one could no longer see the pipes of the power plant. In less than three hours, the city was completely empty. He will remain this way forever. At the beginning of May, the evacuation of people living in the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl was organized. Disinfection work was carried out in 1,840 settlements. However, the Chernobyl exclusion zone was not developed until 1994, when the last residents of the villages in its western part were moved to new apartments in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions.
Today Pripyat is a city of ghosts. Despite the fact that no one lives there, the city has its own grace and atmosphere. It did not cease to exist, unlike neighboring villages, which were buried in the ground by excavators. They are only indicated on road signs and village maps. Pripyat, as well as the entire 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, is guarded by police and patrol services. Despite their constant vigil, the city was repeatedly subjected to robbery and looting. The entire city was plundered. There is not a single apartment left where the thieves have not visited and taken all the jewelry. In 1987, residents had the opportunity to return to collect a small portion of their belongings. The Jupiter military plant operated until 1997; The famous Lazurny swimming pool operated until 1998. At the moment, they have been looted and destroyed even more than apartments and schools in the city combined. There are three other parts of the city that are still in use: a laundry (for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), garages for trucks, and a deep well with a pumping station that supplies water to the power plant.
The city is full of 1980s graffiti, signs, books and images, mostly related to Lenin. His slogans and portraits are everywhere - in the palace of culture, hotel, hospital, police station, as well as in schools and kindergartens. Walking around the city is like going back in time, the only difference is that there is no one here, not even birds in the sky. You can only imagine the picture of the era when the city flourished; during the tour we will show you historical photos. To give you a vivid impression of the times of the Soviet Union, we offer a Soviet uniform, retro walk in our RETRO TOUR. Everything was built from concrete. All buildings are of the same type, as in other cities built under the Soviet Union. Some houses were overgrown with trees, so that they were barely visible from the road, and some buildings were so worn out that they collapsed from the large amount of snow that had fallen. Chernobyl is a living example of how Mother Nature takes its toll on the efforts of many people. In a few decades, only ruins will remain of the city. There is no corner like this in the world.
Women and children were the first to be evacuated. There was a shortage of buses in this corner of the former Soviet Union. To take 50 thousand people out of the city, buses from other regions of the country came here. The length of the bus column was 20 kilometers, which meant that when the first bus left Pripyat, the last one could no longer see the pipes of the power plant. In less than three hours, the city was completely empty. He will remain this way forever. At the beginning of May, the evacuation of people living in the 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl was organized. Disinfection work was carried out in 1,840 settlements. However, the Chernobyl exclusion zone was not developed until 1994, when the last residents of the villages in its western part were moved to new apartments in the Kyiv and Zhytomyr regions.
Today Pripyat is a city of ghosts. Despite the fact that no one lives there, the city has its own grace and atmosphere. It did not cease to exist, unlike neighboring villages, which were buried in the ground by excavators. They are only indicated on road signs and village maps. Pripyat, as well as the entire 30-kilometer Exclusion Zone, is guarded by police and patrol services. Despite their constant vigil, the city was repeatedly subjected to robbery and looting. The entire city was plundered. There is not a single apartment left where the thieves have not visited and taken all the jewelry. In 1987, residents had the opportunity to return to collect a small portion of their belongings. The Jupiter military plant operated until 1997; The famous Lazurny swimming pool operated until 1998. At the moment, they have been looted and destroyed even more than apartments and schools in the city combined. There are three other parts of the city that are still in use: a laundry (for the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), garages for trucks, and a deep well with a pumping station that supplies water to the power plant.
The city is full of 1980s graffiti, signs, books and images, mostly related to Lenin. His slogans and portraits are everywhere - in the palace of culture, hotel, hospital, police station, as well as in schools and kindergartens. Walking around the city is like going back in time, the only difference is that there is no one here, not even birds in the sky. You can only imagine the picture of the era when the city flourished; during the tour we will show you historical photos. To give you a vivid impression of the times of the Soviet Union, we offer a Soviet uniform, retro walk in our RETRO TOUR. Everything was built from concrete. All buildings are of the same type, as in other cities built under the Soviet Union. Some houses were overgrown with trees, so that they were barely visible from the road, and some buildings were so worn out that they collapsed from the large amount of snow that had fallen. Chernobyl is a living example of how Mother Nature takes its toll on the efforts of many people. In a few decades, only ruins will remain of the city. There is no corner like this in the world.
The seventh, eighth are in touch, I see a woman with a child, running away from someone.
- Eighth, I understand you, how old does the child look?
- About three years, no more, yes, the poor fellows got caught, the seventh, maybe it’s worth intervening?
-Are you crazy, or what? Do you want to go to court?
- But...
- Leave it aside, it’s better to report the situation.
- Holy shit, some creatures are running after them, they look like zombies, but they move too fast!
- Bloodsuckers, probably.
- Maybe so... (Long pause) Sir, they drove them into a corner... They tore it apart, tore it apart, oh, damn... - The sounds of vomiting were heard on the other line.
- Eighth, are you okay there?
- Not really, they tore the mother apart, and then... (short pause) the child.
- Okay, number eight, go back to base...
I was awakened by Sergei’s voice, telling me that it was time to get up.
Pulling myself up, I, muttering something, looked out the window of our UAZ.
From the checkpoint that stood ahead, I realized that we were approaching the entrance to Chernobyl.
We were traveling on a special mission, namely: we needed to find the “Brave Link” team, so they let us through without any problems, later we passed by some kind of kindergarten, abandoned old houses appeared ahead, overgrown with moss and the like. Then we drove past the very center of Chernobyl, I saw a picture of the morning Pripyat: Houses that were ready to collapse at any moment, the old Energetik building and many others.
But now we were approaching the second temporary post, where a detachment was supposed to be waiting for us, which was supposed to follow us to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
But when we arrived, my entire squad and I noticed that there was no sentry ahead or anyone at all.
“It’s strange...” I said quietly.
Having stopped, Andrei, our guide, came out first, then the rest (including me).
Going inside, where the detachment itself was waiting for us, we saw a terrible picture: There were traces of blood on the walls, body parts were scattered throughout the room, the head of one of the soldiers was hung on some kind of hook.
Because of this whole picture, my partner Sergei immediately vomited, and I could barely restrain myself from throwing out yesterday’s leftover food.
All this made us run out into the street in panic and fear.
But as soon as I ran out into the street (I was the last one to run out) something fell on me, it made me pass out for a while, the last thing I saw was how my friend and partner was lifted up by some creature, and the other cut off one of his limbs with one swipe of his paw. After that I lost consciousness.
Soldiers, it's time to move out! - shouted the commander of the "Brave Link" detachment.
The entire detachment slowly got up and they all moved towards the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, because there was very little left to it...
- Stop. - The commander said quietly.
The detachment stopped, and some kind of flashing appeared ahead on the approach to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
It turned out to be a blue ball. He was quickly approaching the squad.
Before the commander had time to give the command to run, he instantly increased in size and “ate” the entire squad.
Sir, this is AN-15, the Bravoe Zveno detachment never reached the indicated point.
- This is an infection, no matter what squad we send, they all disappear, not even a trace remains!
- Sir, wait, the radar noticed that they are at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, only underground!
- What?! Are you joking?
- No way Sir!
- Here... Okay, if the radar sees them, it means that they can still be returned. Send a detachment and let them follow the route.
Pavlov, there’s a wounded man here, a doctor urgently!
I woke up in some ward, lying on a hospital bed.
Lying nearby on the next bed was a man, about thirty-five years old.
Suddenly a girl, about twenty-three years old, pretty with black hair and a snow-white smile, looked into the room.
- I woke up! - The girl shouted.
Afterwards, a man in a white coat entered the room (as I already understood, I was in the hospital).
- Well, finally, and we thought he was dead. - The doctor smiled.
- Where I am? - I asked in a hoarse voice.
- And you, if you can call it that, are at my base.
I looked at the doctor in bewilderment.
- Why are you looking like that? My guys found you near the checkpoint and took you away... But you were lucky, your other friends were torn to pieces. - Mikhail, as it was written on his decrepit sign near his chest, patted me on the shoulder and gave me brand new military clothes and told me to get dressed.
After getting dressed, I went out into the corridor, following Mikhail, we headed to his “office”.
There he gave me some fresh stew, and after giving me some vodka he said:
“The base is mine, it’s been standing here since the year two thousand, and during these twelve years there have been so many raids on it that the world has never seen it.” Mutants, military men, looters, bandits, many others. - Mikhail, lighting a cigarette, continued:
- But for now we’ll hold on, I’ve dreamed of visiting here since childhood, so I grew up, collected a lot of money and went here. Hired fighters, nurses, etc. Then he began to help people like you, this zone is full of secrets... - He was interrupted by a guy who burst in with the words:
- Mikhail, there they are, mutants!
Mikhail's face showed concern, but it was calmer.
- Yours to the left! Not a day without rest! - After these words, Mikhail took the machine gun and went somewhere with the guy, I followed them.
We were approaching a door, near it stood a man with a machine gun and several more with machine guns like Mikhail.
- Well, as always, Mikhail!
- And don’t tell me, the pigs sensed the smell of flesh and came running!
And at this time various sounds were heard outside the door: stamping hooves, roaring, grunting.
- Take positions, now they will trample! - The one with whom Mikhail was communicating gave the command.
Everyone who was present took up positions, Mikhail gave me an AK-47 and I, hiding together with one of the soldiers behind a barricade of bags, began to wait, deathly silence hung over.
The silence was interrupted by blows from either hooves or massive paws. A look of excitement appeared on Mikhail’s face: indicating that such raids had already become a habit for him.
Further, the knocking became muffled, but not for long. After a moment of silence, the door was knocked down with one blow.
A huge massive body appeared in the opening, bending down to get inside, it stood up to its full height, a terrible creature looked at us with its empty eyes. I froze in horror.
- Bloodsuckers? - Someone asked quietly.
The answer to his question was:
- No, it's something else.
Afterwards, the creature rushed at one of ours, fortunately we managed to shoot it with one hit to the head.
But the horror did not end, after her several more monsters ran inside, three tore two soldiers to pieces, and the rest, gutting their intestines and tearing their limbs, tore another one to pieces.
Mikhail gave the command to retreat. I ran after him, there he led me through the emergency exit and out into the street, ordered me to get into the car and leave, and he ran back with the words:
- Leave here as quickly as possible, I have to stay here.
Afterwards, I got into the car and gave the gas, rushing away, behind me I heard heartbreaking screams...
On April 26, 1986, I turned seven years old. It was Saturday. Friends came to visit us and they gave me a yellow umbrella with a letter pattern. I’ve never had anything like this before, so I was happy and really looking forward to the rain.
The rain happened the next day, April 27. But my mother did not allow me to go under it. And she generally looked scared. That was the first time I heard the heavy word “Chernobyl”.
In those years we lived in a military town in the small village of Sarata, Odessa region. Chernobyl is far away. But still scary. Then cars with liquidators pulled out from our unit in that direction. Another difficult word, the meaning of which I learned much later.
Of our neighbors, who shielded the world from the deadly atom with their bare hands, only a few remain alive today.
There were more of these people in 2006. A week before my birthday, I received an assignment - to talk with the remaining liquidators and collect the most interesting episodes. By that time, I was already working as a journalist and living in Rostov-on-Don.
And so I found my heroes - the head of the anti-shock department of the North Caucasus Civil Defense Regiment Oleg Popov, Hero of Russia Captain II Rank Anatoly Bessonov and sanitary doctor Viktor Zubov. These were completely different people, united by only one thing - Chernobyl.
I'm not sure if they are all alive today. After all, eleven years have passed. But I still have recordings of our conversations. And, from which the blood still runs cold.
Story one. An abnormal summer.
On May 13, 1986, Oleg Viktorovich Popov, head of the anti-shock department of the North Caucasus Civil Defense Regiment, had a birthday. Relatives congratulated us, friends called, even a messenger came. True, instead of a gift he brought a summons - tomorrow morning he had to come to the military registration and enlistment office.
We celebrated quietly, and the next day I went according to the agenda. I didn’t even know where I was being called, so I put on a light shirt and took money to buy milk home. But my milk never arrived. “I returned only at the end of summer,” Oleg Popov told me.
He remembered Chernobyl for its abnormal temperature. During the day, already in May, it was below forty, at night it was so cold that it was impossible to touch a tooth. The liquidators were given canvas suits as protection. Heavy and not breathable. Many could not stand it and fell from heatstroke. But it was necessary to “remove the radiation,” so the suits were removed and disposed of as best they could - with their bare hands.
People started getting sick. The main diagnosis is pneumonia.
Then I had another shock. We were delivered boxes with red crosses - medicines. We opened them, and there, beyond words, was something that had been lying in warehouses for decades. Over time, the bandages disintegrated into threads, the tablets were yellow, and the expiration date on the packaging was barely visible. The same boxes contained gynecological instruments and instruments for measuring growth. And this is all for the liquidators. What to do? How to treat people? The only salvation is the hospital,” recalled Oleg Viktorovich.
The fight went on day and night. And not only with the reactor, but also with the system, and with ourselves.
On the website “Chernobylets of the Don” there is the following information about Popov:
“In a 30-kilometer zone, I worked in my specialty; I had to treat and put back on their feet mostly soldiers and officers of my regiment. There was a lot of work, and Oleg Viktorovich was actually the main person responsible for the health of the regiment’s personnel. After all, soldiers and officers were called up in a hurry, often without medical examination. Popov O.V. recalls that there were cases of being called up for training camps with peptic ulcers and other diseases. Some even had to be sent to a hospital or hospital. And, of course, it was possible to provide psychological assistance to soldiers and officers, because it is clear that there was no full-time psychologist in the unit. His work in the regiment was appreciated, and from then on he retained the warmest memories of his comrades, of the regiment commander N.I. Kleimenov. and unit officers.
After completing the special training and returning home, Oleg Viktorovich, by profession and work, treated the liquidators of the Chernobyl accident and was always ready to help them in word and deed.
He has government awards: the Order of the Badge of Honor and the Order of Courage.”
Only in May 1986, and only from the Rostov region, about thirty thousand liquidators came to Chernobyl. Many returned with a load of 200. Many carried a poisonous charge in their blood.
Oleg Popov brought leukemia to the Don. He arrived with tests that would not have accepted him even at the oncology center - 2,800 antibodies in his blood.
But I didn't plan to give up. I decided to live. And he lived - he studied chess, English, I became interested in photography, began to travel, wrote poetry, designed websites. And, of course, he helped his own guys, guys like me, who were sent into this hell,” he said.
I typed the name of Oleg Viktorovich Popov on the Internet. And I was happy to discover that he also lives in Rostov, runs his own website, his photography is recognized with high awards, and his literary work has many admirers. This year, according to the regional government website, the liquidator was given another award. And in 2006, the head of the anti-shock department of the North Caucasus Civil Defense Regiment, Oleg Popov, was awarded the Order of Courage.
Then he told me that he didn’t think he was worth this high award.
The real heroes are those guys who were at the reactor, erected the sarcophagus with their bare hands, and did the decontamination, so to speak. It was criminal stupidity that claimed thousands of lives. But who thought about it then? Who knew that it was impossible to bury, neutralize, bury radioactive substances by digging up stadiums, washing the roofs and windows of houses?! At that moment there was nothing else...
The second story. Sweet roads of death.
Memories sanitary doctor Viktor Zubov a little different. When they first announced the gathering to eliminate the accident, he joked that they would go to war against tanks with sabers. It turned out that I was not mistaken. In fact, that’s what happened.
On the morning of June 21, sanitary doctors from the Rostov region left for Pripyat.
At first, to be honest, we did not understand the full scale of the tragedy. We drove up to Pripyat, and there was beauty! Greenery, birds singing, mushrooms in the forests, apparently - not visible. The huts are so neat and clean! And if you didn’t think about the fact that every plant is imbued with death, then – heaven! – Viktor Zubov recalled. “But in the camp where we arrived, I felt fear for the first time - I was told that the doctor, in whose place I was sent, had committed suicide. My nerves went away. Couldn't stand the tension.
Zubov's most vivid memories include sweet roads. Ordinary roads, which were watered with sugar syrup in order to bind the deadly dust under the sweet crust. But it was all in vain. After the first car, the sugar ice burst and poison flew into the faces of the liquidators who were driving behind.
We still didn’t fully understand what we were going to do. And on the spot it turned out that we had few patients. And all seventy doctors came for decontamination,” he explained. – The protective equipment included an apron and a respirator. They worked with shovels. In the evening there is a bathhouse. What they were doing? We washed house windows and helped at nuclear power plants. We slept in rubber tents and ate local food. By that time we already understood everything. But there was no choice, we hoped for the best.
Viktor Zubov stayed in Chernobyl for six months. At home, the doctor realized that now he, a young man, had become a regular client of the clinic and the owner of a bunch of diseases. You’ll get tired of listing the diagnoses.
At the time of our interview (let me remind you, this was 11 years ago) Victor was living on medication. But he carried on well - he played the Beatles on the button accordion, walked with his grandchildren, and made something around the house. I tried to live in such a way that it would not be excruciatingly painful.
To be continued
Almost 25 years have passed since the terrible event that shocked the whole world. The echoes of this catastrophe of the century will stir the souls of people for a long time, and its consequences will affect people more than once. The disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant - why did it happen and what are its consequences for us?
Why did the Chernobyl disaster happen?
There is still no clear opinion about what caused the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Some argue that the reason is faulty equipment and gross mistakes during the construction of the nuclear power plant. Others see the cause of the explosion as a malfunction of the circulating water supply system, which provided cooling to the reactor. Still others are convinced that the permissible load experiments carried out at the station that ominous night were to blame, during which a gross violation of operating rules occurred. Still others are confident that if there had been a protective concrete cap over the reactor, the construction of which was neglected, such a spread of radiation that occurred as a result of the explosion would not have occurred.
Most likely, this terrible event occurred due to the combination of the listed factors - after all, each of them took place. Human irresponsibility, acting at random in matters relating to life and death, and the deliberate concealment of information about what happened on the part of the Soviet authorities led to consequences, the results of which will echo for a long time to more than one generation of people around the world.
Chernobyl disaster. Chronicle of events
The explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant occurred in the dead of night on April 26, 1986. A fire brigade was called to the scene. Brave and courageous people, they were shocked by what they saw and, judging by the off-scale radiation meters, they immediately guessed what had happened. However, there was no time to think - and a team of 30 people rushed to fight the disaster. For protective clothing, they wore ordinary helmets and boots - of course, they in no way could protect the firefighters from huge doses of radiation. These people have been dead for a long time; they all died a painful death at different times from the cancer that struck them..
By morning the fire was extinguished. However, pieces of uranium and graphite emitting radiation were scattered throughout the territory of the nuclear power plant. The worst thing is that the Soviet people did not immediately learn about the disaster that occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. This made it possible to maintain calm and prevent panic - this is exactly what the authorities sought, turning a blind eye to the cost of their ignorance for people. The unaware population spent two whole days after the explosion calmly resting in the territory, which had become deadly dangerous, going out into nature, to the river; on a warm spring day, children spent a long time on the street. And everyone absorbed huge doses of radiation.
And on April 28, complete evacuation was announced. 1,100 buses in a convoy transported the population of Chernobyl, Pripyat and other nearby settlements. People abandoned their homes and everything in them - they were only allowed to take with them identity cards and food for a couple of days.
A zone with a radius of 30 km was recognized as an exclusion zone unsuitable for human life. The water, livestock and vegetation in this area were considered unfit for consumption and hazardous to health.
The temperature in the reactor in the first days reached 5000 degrees - it was impossible to approach it. A radioactive cloud hung over the nuclear power plant and circled the Earth three times. To nail it to the ground, the reactor was bombed from helicopters with sand and watered, but the effect of these actions was negligible. There was 77 kg of radiation in the air - as if a hundred atomic bombs had been dropped on Chernobyl at the same time.
A huge ditch was dug near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was filled with the remains of the reactor, pieces of concrete walls, and the clothes of disaster relief workers. For a month and a half, the reactor was completely sealed with concrete (the so-called sarcophagus) to prevent radiation leakage.
In 2000, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was closed. Work is still underway on the Shelter project. However, Ukraine, for which Chernobyl became a sad “inheritance” from the USSR, does not have the required money for it.
The tragedy of the century that they wanted to hide
Who knows how long the Soviet government would have hidden the “incident” if not for the weather. Strong winds and rains, which inappropriately passed through Europe, carried radiation throughout the world. Ukraine, Belarus and the southwestern regions of Russia, as well as Finland, Sweden, Germany, and Great Britain suffered the most.
For the first time, unprecedented numbers on radiation level meters were seen by employees of the nuclear power plant in Forsmark (Sweden). Unlike the Soviet government, they rushed to immediately evacuate all the people living in the surrounding area before determining that the problem was not their reactor, but the supposed source of the emanating threat was the USSR.
And exactly two days after Forsmark scientists declared a radioactive alert, US President Ronald Reagan held in his hands photographs of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster site taken by a CIA artificial satellite. What was depicted on them would have horrified even a person with a very stable psyche.
While periodicals around the world trumpeted the dangers arising from the Chernobyl disaster, the Soviet press escaped with a modest statement that there had been an “accident” at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Chernobyl disaster and its consequences
The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster made themselves felt in the very first months after the explosion. People living in the areas adjacent to the site of the tragedy died from hemorrhages and apoplexy.
The liquidators of the consequences of the accident suffered: out of a total number of liquidators of 600,000, about 100,000 people are no longer alive - they died from malignant tumors and destruction of the hematopoietic system. The existence of other liquidators cannot be called cloudless - they suffer from numerous diseases, including cancer, disorders of the nervous and endocrine systems. Many evacuees and affected populations in the surrounding areas have these same health problems.
The consequences of the Chernobyl disaster for children are terrible. Developmental delays, thyroid cancer, mental disorders and a decrease in the body's resistance to all types of diseases - this is what awaited children exposed to radiation.
However, the worst thing is that the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster affected not only people living at that time. Problems with pregnancy, frequent miscarriages, stillborn children, frequent births of children with genetic disorders (Down syndrome, etc.), weakened immunity, an astounding number of children with leukemia, an increase in the number of cancer patients - all these are echoes of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the end of which will come yet not soon. If it comes...
Not only people suffered from the Chernobyl disaster - all life on Earth felt the deadly force of radiation. As a result of the Chernobyl disaster, mutants appeared - descendants of humans and animals born with various deformations. A foal with five legs, a calf with two heads, fish and birds of unnaturally huge sizes, giant mushrooms, newborns with deformities of the head and limbs - photos of the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are terrifying evidence of human negligence.
The lesson taught to humanity by the Chernobyl disaster was not appreciated by people. We still treat our own lives with the same carelessness, we still strive to squeeze the maximum out of the riches given to us by nature, everything we need “here and now.” Who knows, maybe the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant became the beginning to which humanity is moving slowly but surely...
Film about the Chernobyl disaster
We advise everyone who is interested to watch the full-length documentary film “The Battle of Chernobyl”. This video can be watched right here online and for free. Enjoy watching!
Find another video on youtube.com
