NSIDE THE

Text and photos by SERGEI KISELYOV

Translation by VIKTORIA TRIPOLSKAYA-MITLYNG

A s I write this in Kiev in March, I canimagine what life will be like on April26, 1996. The streets of Ukrainiancities will be decorated with flags ofmourning to commemoi'ate the tenth anniver-sary ofthe accident at the Chernobyl NuclearPower Station. On this day, Ukrainians willdrink vodka without clinking their glasses to-gether. They will remember once again theday that split their lives in two: They nowmeasure time "before Chernobyl" and "afterChemobyl," in the same way an older genera-tion measures life "before the war" and "afterthe war."

After the fourth or fifth drink, they willstart to recall the dreadful jokes of that Cher-nobyl summer, ten years past:

Question: How do you take an X-ray of aMoscovite? Answer: Put him between twoKievites.

Question: How can a Ukrainian protect him-self from radioactive food? Answer: By using adosimeter instead of a spoon.

Then there was Ukraine's new slogan: "Apeaceful atom for every house!" And a newstate emblem: a two-headed Ukrainian.

It will all be so hilarious, they will die oflaughter.

But few will bother to recall that the Cher-nobyl Nuclear Power Station, which is des-tined to be linked throughout history with the

Sergei Kiselyov, the Kiev-based Ukrainiancorrespondent for Literaturnaya Gazeta, wasa Bulletin visiting fellow.

names of Pompeii, Hi-roshima, and Nagasaki,bore the name of Lenin,who was the "Leader of

the World Proletariat." And few will remem-ber that the edge of the roof of Unit 4 was dec-orated with the slogan, "The Chernobyl Atom-ic Power Station, Beai'ing the Name of V. I.Lenin, Labors for Communism!"

It is still so much easier to immortalize thenames of those who perished than to providefor the living. There are liquidation workerswho literally saved the world from the Cher-nobyl disaster at the cost of their own lives,inhabitants of the Chernobyl zone, and chil-dren who in the past 10 years have been ex-posed to monstrous levels of radiation. Unfor-tunately, the government remembers themonly on anniversaries.

Most of the men I interviewed have beensilent for 10 years—not because they werescared to talk about what happened at theChernobyl power station at 1:24 a.m. on Apiil26,1986, but because no one wanted to listen.And, to be honest, they have been more con-cerned with how to survive and how to pro-vide for their families in these complicatedtimes.

I interviewed many of them in their apart-ments. I was struck by the fact that theirhomes were all decorated "Chernobyl style,"that is, in a somewhat provincial fashion. Morestriking still was the fact those who sufferedthe most from the explosion at the nuclearpower station were convinced that it should

Sixwho weretheretell theirstories.

May/June 1996 43

Yuri Komeev

not be shut down.I asked them all the same questions: What

happened on the night of April 26? What hasyour life been like since the accident? How isyour state of health today, and that of yourfamily? What have you been doing on thenight of the anniversary for the past nineyears? And so on. The recorded answers ofthese men are unique testaments, and I haveedited them as little as possible.

Sergei Kiselyov

Yuri Komeev was assigned to work at Ch^r-yiobyl immediately after graduating fromtechnical school in 1976. A turbine opeintor atUnit U, he was on duty the night ofthe experi-ment that caused the accident. (The experi-ment was designed to simulate an emergencyin which outside power was cut Could the in-ertial energy from, a running-down turbinecontinue to power th£ water-circulation pumpsuntil the diesel generators took over?) Today,Komeev is 39, married, and has two sons. Hebelieves he was exposed to 710 roentgens.

The responsibilities of a turbine operator in-clude making sure the turbine and auxiliarymechanisms are functioning properly.

On April 26, precisely at midnight, I startedmy shift. I knew that an experiment wasplanned for this night at Unit 4. The seventhturbine was already taken off line, and theeighth turbine, which I operated, was next inline for shutdown and routine maintenancework. The inertial energy experiment wassupposed to be conducted on this turbine.Many turbine engineers, the chief engineer,and the shop superintendent stayed for thenight shift to supervise the experiment.

An hour after I started my shift, the Unit 4dispatcher informed me that the experimentwas starting. I went to the control panel, as Ihad to perfonn all the steps necessary for theshutdown ofthe turbine.

Usually I went through a procedure withoutany problems. But this time something wentwrong. At the moment when the turbinestopped working, there was a sudden explo-sion in the area of the tubing corridor. I saw itwith my own eyes, heard it with my own ears.I saw pieces of the reinforced concrete wallbegin to crumble, and the reinforced concreteroof of our Turbine 7 began to fall.

In a few seconds the diesel apparatus kickedin, and emergency lights went on. I immedi-ately looked at the roof of the turbine room. Itwas crumbling in layers. Falling pieces of con-crete were slowly eoming closer to my turbine.

It was all so unexpeeted. It was difficult tofigure out what was happening. The explosion

and crumbling of the roof took only a minute,maybe even less. Right after that, a shift su-pervisor, Boris Rogozhin, and the [nowl de-ceased deputy chief engineer ran into the tur-bine room from the control center. I was or-dered to take care of Turbine 8 and not to payattention to anything else.

I will not go into technical details. Let mejust say that I got lucky when, as a result ofthe explosion, the ceiling slabs fell from the re-actor on the top ofthe seventh turbine room,which was turned off, and not on my Turbine8.1 was also lucky when, a few minutes afterthe explosion, a multi-ton lead plug that closeda reactor channel fell within a meter of whereI stood.

I was completely in the dark. The senior en-gineer of turbine management knew nothing.The shift supervisor knew nothing. No oneknew anything, and no one knew what hadjust happened. In the turbine room there wasequipment that was supposed to start workingwhen the radiation level increasetl. However,the level of radiation was so high that thisequipment failed immediately.

While I was busy with the turbine, an elec-trician, Baranov—who later died in the hospi-tal in Moscow^ran in and stai-ted i)umping outthe hydrogen that cooled the turbine genera-tor. His actions prevented another explosion.

After everything was done, an eerie silencefell on the turbine I'oom. There was a smallbalcony; Baranov and I went out Ibi- a smoke.Underneath us on the street we saw pieces ofUnit 4 and chunks of gi'aphite thrown there bythe explosion. Only later we realized what theradiation level was like on that balcony andhow many extra roentgens we were exposedto during our smoke.

About two hours after the explosion I start-ed to feel really sick. I had an acute burningsensation in my eyes, and they began to water.I was taken to the emergency room, al()ngwith Yura Vershinin, the inspector on duty,who later died in the Moscow hospital.

On April 27, a bus whose seats and wallswere covered with j)lastic took us to the air-port. A special flight brought us to Moscow,and the same type of bus picked us up at theMoscow aiii>ort.

I was in the hospital until July 14. ! didn'thave to have a bone mai-row transplant, al-though there were willing donors. I was lucky;my body took care of itself. My diagnosis wasradiation illness ofthe third degree. The high-est level of radiation illness is the fourth.

Our locksmith on duty that night, AndrejTarmazin, is the only man alive diagnosedwith the fourth degree of radiation illness. Hisexjxisure was 860 roentgens; mine was only710.

Incidentally, I didn't know this number

44 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

after the accident; it was concealed from us. Ionly found out three or four years ago. TheChernobyl firemen who died in Moscow andwere buried at the Mitinsk cemetery were ex-posed to over 2,000 roentgens.

I don't know how and why I survived. Thedoctors don't know either. In their reportsthey winte that I do not have health com-plaints. They are right; I don't have any. Theonly thing is, I have two artificial lenses in myeyes, and I often suffer from bronchitis. Mysons and my wife, on the other hand, are notfeeling that well. My younger son has stomachproblems, the older one, heart trouble.

I haven't worked anywhere after Cher-nobyl. Those who were at the station on thenight ofthe accident get a lot of help from thecurrent management ofthe Chernobyl powerstation. They have given us the extra moneythe government cheated us out of for the past

"I looked at the roof of the turbineroom. It was crumbling in layers.

Falling concrete was slowly comingcloser to my turbine."

ID years. My pension today is about $250 amonth. It's better than it was before.

1 am totally against shutting down theChernobyl power station. Furthermore, I ama patriot of this station. I have given it somany years of my life. If It weren't for theamount of exposure I received, I would still beworking there today.

Who is to blame for the accident? The oper-ators were blamed for everything, and theystill haven't been exonerated. But blame canbe assigned [elsewhere]. The blame falls onthose who built the station too quickly, andthose who claimed to have finished each unitbefore the deadline, communist-style. Blameprobably also falls on those who organized theexperiment on April 26,1986. We received noinstruction on that day, so cocksure were theythat the atomic power station was as safe andsecure as an electric kettle. Nobody eventhought it could explode. The people who wereon duty that night, what did they do wTong?

A group of us who survived used to go toMoscow on April 26 to visit our comrades atthe Mitinsk cemetery. It was hard to be atthose graves: death took them and spared us.But we could have been lying there too. Ofthenine members of the turbine shop team onduty that night at Unit 4, five have died in thehospital of radiation illness.

Today, since the Soviet Union fell apart,trips to Moscow are too expensive. We don't

have the money. So we get together in Kievand drink to the souls of the departed.

Yuri Komeev

Nikolai Gorhachenko, a radiation monitor atthe Chemobyl station, was at work at the timeofthe accident. He had worked at Chernobylsiuce 1976. Now ^2, he is married and has twochildren and a three-year-old grandson. Hebelieves he was exposed to 300 roentgens.

Radiation monitors at atomic power stationsai"e like scouts during war; they come in firstand leave last. The radiation monitor mea-sures radiation levels in the workplace beforethe workers come in. After the shift is over, hemeasures radiation levels again.

My shift began at midnight on April 26. Ihad to take measurements in the reactorrooms of Units 3 and 4, and check the dataunits. I checked Unit 3; but on my way to Unit4 I remembered it was in the process of beingshut down, so I decided there was nothing forme to do there. I was really lucky that I wasn'tat the reactor when it exploded.

I returned to my duty room to have sometea. Then we heard a fiat and powerful thud.My colleague and I decided the turbine opera-tors had produced a hydraulic hit, which some-times happens during the shutdown of a tur-bine. At that moment we heard another flatthud. The lights went out; the light on the con-trol panel of Unit 4 went out as well. Just as ina horror film, the blast blew out the doubledoors that had been latched. Black-red duststalled coming out ofthe ventilation vent. In afew seconds, the emergency lights went on.We put on our gas masks and tried to make acall, but the phone wasn't working.

We had dosimeters that measured up to 3.6roentgens per hour. They immediately went offscale. My boss sent me to Unit 4 to find outwhat the radiation situation was like there. Iwent to the turbine room and walked ai'ound. Itwas pitch black, but I had a powerful flashlight.There were pieces of concrete everywhere.With my low-power dosimeter, I wasn't able tomeasure the radiation level. I returned to mypost and told my superiors what I'd seen.

Then two guys walked in. They said: "Hey,buddies, help us find a comrade of ours,Vladimir Shoshunok. He's been gone for 30minutes and we haven't heard from him. He'ssupposed to be on the upper landing acrossfrom the turbine room."

So I went with the two men to look for theircomrade. In the darkness we made our waythrough piles of rubble, and went up to thelanding. Everything was in shambles, steamwas coming out in bursts, and we were up to

Nikolai Gorbachenko

May/June 1996 45

Annenia's leftover heroesArmenians who responded to the Chernobyl disaster findthemselves today miserable and abandoned. Since the dissolu-tion ofthe Soviet Union, they have received little in the way ofmedical treatment or financial support. "What can I tell you?They've let us down, just left us to the mercy of fate," explainsAramais Petrossian, a Chernobyl volunteer. "In 1986, wewere told that we were heroes, that we were saving humanity.Now no one wants to speak for or listen to us."

Petrossian, 40, was one of 3,000 Armenians—professionalsfrom the Armenian nuclear power plant and members ofthemilitary called up for three months of service in the Sovietaniiy—who rushed to provide assistance. Many now sufferfrom radiation-related illnesses or illnesses that may have beencaused by Chernobyl-related stress. Petrossian, who receivedan estimated radiation exposure of 180 roentgens, is bedridden.

Before the Soviet Union collapsed, many survivors receivedspecial treatment in Ukraine. But facilities in Russia andUkraine, which are equipped to provide advanced treatment toradiation victims, no longer treat nonresidents. Ukraine as-serts that as a victim of a Soviet-designed nuclear plant, it isnot obliged to compensate victims for the imjaact ofthe catas-trophe. "We don't know who to blame—the Soviet Union thatsent people to Chernobyl no longer exists," Petrossian says.

The burden of caring for these men fell to Armenia, a coun-try unable to afford their treatment. With the country miredin poverty and beset by ethnic war with neighboring Azerbai-jan, the predicament of the Chernobyl survivors is not a highpriority. "Unfortunately, we have extremely limited financesat our disposal to provide basic medical assistance, even forthose patients who were subjected to high radiation doses,"says Nikolai Hovhannesyan, head ofthe Radiation ResearchInstitute of Annenia. All the government provides is a pensionequivalent to $5 a month for those unable to work—comparedto the $65 a month received by Russian liquidators.

In an attempt to compensate for government neglect, the "Vic-tims of Chemobyl Committee" was founded in 1987. Since then,it has tried to draw attention to the plight of its 2,500 members,according to committee chainnan Konstantine Sahakian.

But because ofthe counti-y's dire economic circumstances,the committee's efforts have been largely ineffective. It re-ceives no government support and instead must rely on mem-bership dues paid by the survivors. Many of them, however,are too impoverished to support the cause. "The average salaryin Armenia is $10 to $15 per month. We don't even have an of-fice at our disposal, as evei*ything costs money," says Sahakian.

And things are only getting worse, Hovhannesyan adds. "Itseems that in the course of time the issue of Chernobyl is los-ing urgency, while annual checkups show that the health of ourregistered patients is gi*adually becoming worse."

The noble gesture ofthe Armenian volunteers at Chernobylhas ended in bitterness. "I was a vohmteer, but if I could goback to li)86 I'd never go to Chernobyl." says Petrossian. "Idon't know how much is left for me to live. But I have two kidsand I have to think about how long I can be their father."

—Astghik Vardanian

Astghik Vardatiian, a Bulletin visitiiig fellow, researches andreports on environmental issues in Armenia.

our ankles in water. We made our way to thestructure where the man we were looking forwas supposed to be. We went inside and sawthere was nothing—concrete slabs ofthe out-side wall had been thrown to the street by theforce ofthe explosion. It was night—darknessand dust everywhere. It was impossible to seeanything. Even when you shone a light, theray just vanished somewhere. We began tocall to Volodya.

"At the spot onmy back where Volodya'shand rested, I received

a radiation bum."

Suddenly we saw him lying unconscious onhis side, with bloody foam coming out of hismouth making bubbling sounds. We pickedhim up by the armpits and carried him down.At the spot on my back where his right handrested I received a radiation burn. He died at6:00 a.m. in the Chemobyl hospital, never hav-ing regained consciousness. The two guys wholooked for him with me later died in a Moscowhospital.

When I returned to my post, I put on dryclothes and changed shoes. As a radiationmonitor, I understood what was happeningand the fate that awaited everyone who was atthe station that night. Then we received anorder to look for Valery Khodymchuk. Oursearch was unsuccessful. As we later learned,he died in the explosion.

At 5:00 a.m., I started to feel terribly weakand nauseous. I was taken to the hospitai. Afriend of mine, who worked in the emergencyroom, saw me in the waiting room. He took measide, gave me 500 grams of pure alcohol, andtold me to drink that. I drank it and washed itdown with water. Then I called my wife andtold her I was O.K. Later on, the doctors toldme that the alcohol, which I drank on anempty stomach, helped me a lot.

On April 26 there were already doctors fi'omMoscow in the hospital. Seven or eight ofthemost difficult cases were flown to a Moscowhospital on the same day. They all died in thathospital. The rest went to Moscow on the fol-lowing day. I was in the hospital for sixmonths, from April 27 to October 27. It wasn'ta pleasant sensation. You go to sleep at nightnot knowing whether you will wake up in themoming. Many died—often those who seemedto be getting better.

When I returned to Kiev in the fall of 1986,I received the lowest possible disability rating.I was given an apartment here, although I wasalso offered one in Moscow. I regret 1 didn't

46 The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

stay there. The Chernobyl workers whomoved to Moscow receive a much better pen-sion then we do in Ukraine.

I worked until 1991. Then it became too dif-ficult and I retired. [Although my disabilityrating was increasedl, my pension is small. Mywife also doesn't work; she is sick. My childrenaren't doing well either. Their blood tests arebad and they have constant headaches. I checkinto the hospital twice a year for a battery oftests.

Who is to blame for what happened? Sovietscience and the Soviet system. Everyone wasscared; no one wanted to take responsibility.Everyone tried to hold on to their proverbialchair. Yes, such is our reality.

The firemen who went on the roof to dousethe destroyed reactor with water have beenturned into heroes. But the real heroes werethose employees of the station who, withoutregard for their own lives, tried to save thestation, Uki-aine, and the world. And no one isconcerned with them today. They hang out inhospitals, receive miserly pensions, and don'teven have enough medication.

Nevertheless, I don't believe the Chemobylpower station should be taken off line. Toomuch money has gone into making it safe sothat April 26 will not repeat itself.

For me, April 26 is a strange day, both ofjoy and of sorrow. On April 26, 1975, I gotmarried. On April 26, 1982,1 buried my moth-er. On Api-il 26, 1986, during my shift' Unit 4exploded. And finally, on April 26, 1993, mygrandson was born. So we drink on this day,both to health and for the departed.

Nikolai Gorbaclieyiko

Leonid Shavrej, a fireman at the power station,was on duty the night ofthe accident. Chiginal-ly from. Belarjis, Shavrej was statio7ied inUkraine during his army sendee and stayedon. He worked as a metahvork&r during theconstruction of Chemobyl. He ended up in tfiefire division "by accident"; his two youTigerbrothers were also employed in the same unit.Now JfJf, he is manned, with one son. He be-lieves he was exposed to 600 roentgens.

At 8:00 a.m. on April 25, 1986, our group of 11men began their 24-hour duty. The comman-der of the gi'oup was Vladimir Pravik—one ofthe first i)eople to die of radiation illness. I wasa squad commander.

The day of April 25 passed without any un-usual occurrence. At 11:00 p.m., the comman-der to!d me to rest until 1:00 a.m. We restedwithout undressing, just taking off our boots.

Shortly after I lay dowTi in the guard room,there was a loud thud that made the windows

rattle. I jumped up immediately. The emer-gency signal kicked in almost at the same mo-ment. We jumped out on the street, ran to-ward our trucks, and heard the dispatcher yellthat there was a fire at the atomic station. Welooked up and saw a mushroom cloud; it alsolooked like the chimney above the Unit 4 reac-tor was half-gone.

Our team was at the station in four minutes.The smoke had dissipated and the chimneyseemed intact. We connected the tnicks to thefire hydrants. We didn't have dosimeters and,in any case, we were never instiaicted on howto work in radioactive conditions—despite thefact that the fii'e station was attached to a nu-clear power station.

First we conducted routine scouting. Vladi-mir Pravik and I did the scouting. We enteredthe turbine room of Unit 4. We saw brokenglass and pieces of concrete. There was somuch vibrating that the walls were trembling.Our own portable radios weren't working.When we saw a phone, we tried to contact thedispatcher at the power station to find outwhat the situation was. We didn't succeed andwent on. We ran around for about 15 minutesbut didn't manage to find out anything, exceptfor the fact that the bitumen roof of the tur-bine room of the exploded reactor appeared tobe burning.

I ran outside, turned the trucks around, and,with the four firemen in my squad, climbedthe outside stairs to the roof of the turbineroom. We turned the hoses on and extin-guished small fires. The cover ofthe roof wasso hot that our boots were getting stuck in it.

When I climbed down for another hose, Isaw the commander of our fire division. MajorLeonid Teliatnikov. He was completely drunkand smelled strongly of alcohol. Teliatnikovgave us an order to stand guard on the roof ofthe turbine room. We carried out his orders.Thus we spent a few senseless hours on theroof with pieces of graphite from the reactorlying around us. We learned later how highthe radiation levels were there at the time.

Later, Teliatnikov was awarded the highestorder of recognition in the former SovietUnion for skillful firefighting in the fii'st hoursafter the explosion of Unit 4. He was given theGolden Star ofthe Hero ofthe Soviet Union.After a while he was also promoted to majorgeneral.

We descended from the roof at 6:00 a.m.That's when we first felt an incredible weak-ness. We lit up cigarettes. The smoke tastedcandy-sweet. A number of firemen had beentaken to the emergency room earlier, includ-ing my two brothers.

My colleagues gave me a ride home. I toldmy wife to take our three-year-old son and goto the village where her relatives lived. I

Leonid Shavrej

May/June 1996 47

Yuri Andreev

couldn't eat, and I was afraid to drink vodka.Later, the doctors told me I should have hadthe vodka, since alcohol protects against radi-ation. When ŵe were still at the power station,the senior engineer promised to give us purealcohol. Unfortunately, he forgot.

Later, I visited my colleagues who ended upin the hospital with two other firemen. Wedrank 500 grams of vodka each. We washed itdown with beer. On the following day, the fire-men in the hospital were flown to Moscow. Ifelt very sick, but didn't check in. Only onApril 2i), after my first blood test, did I checkinto the Chernobyl hospital. After Chernobylwas evacuated, I was moved to the Ivanovskyhospital, 50 kilometers outside of Chernobyl.Then I was taken to Kiev, to the Uki-ainian In-stitute of Oncology. I received a bone maiTowtransplant. It saved my life. I was released onJune 11.

Nobody told me at the time about the radia-tion exposure I received; this data was secretthen. I only learned about it in 1990, when Iwent to Israel with a group of Chernobyl fire-fighters and childi'en from the Chernobyl/.one. We were examined there and given cer-tificates with our radiation doses. Mine says(500 roentgens.

Finally I was diagnosed with the "thirdlevel" of radiation sickness; the highest is thefourth. My brother Ivan has the second level,and my brother Peter the first. My brothersare still working. Ivan is a master sergeant ata fire station in Belarus. My older son Leonidis also a fireman. He is a master sergeant atChernobyl, at the same station where I servedin my own time.

I continued to serve as a fireman until 1994,but in Vyzhgorod near Kiev, not in Chernobyl.Now I am retired; my pension amounts toabout $60. My son Dima, who is 13 now, is notwell; he has problems with his heart. The doc-tors told me that they had to operate on him,put in a pacemaker. Otherwise the child woulddie.

The Chernobyl accident created a rift in mylife. Every April 2(i, I light a candle and drink100 grams of vodka to the souls who departedbecause of Chernobyl. I hate Chernobyl, but Istill feel that the station should not be closed.Otherwise, what was it all for? Why lose somany lives for it? Who is to blame for the acci-dent? To this day I do not know.

Leonid Shavrej

* * * *

In April 1986, Yuri Andreev was a senior en-gineer at Unit 2 at Chernobyl. He had workedat the Krasnoyarsk and Sm,olensk poiver sta-tions before moving to Pripyat in 1982. Since

1991, he has served as president ofthe Cher-nobyl Union of Ukraine, an advocacy organi-zation for the thonsarids of Ukrainians whopaiiicipated in the clean-up after the accident.Andreev is ma^'ried, with two daughters. Hebelieves he was exposed to 150 roentgens.

At midnight on April 25,1996, my shift ended.I left before Unit 4 exploded. I spent the nightof the 25th-2(ith at home, and didn't heai- theexplosion. At 9;00 in the morning, my wife re-turned from the market and said there wererumors in town that there had been an explo-sion at the station. I told her I didn't believe it,and I took my daughter out for a walk. I sawthe streets of our town of Pripyat—with55,000 inhabitants—being washed with asudsy solution. There were also many policeon the streets, and they were armed with au-tomatic weapons. Although there were nosigns of panic, everywhei'e beer and kvas lafermented low-alcohol drink] were being soldfrom the tap.

After I saw all of this, I decided to walk tothe edge of town, where I could see the powerstation, which is located two kilometers out-side of Pripyat. I saw that there was only awall left of the central building of the station,the one around the reactor. There was no roof,and a sliver of gray smoke was rising abovethe nains. I understood immediately that reac-tor fuel was exposed to the atmosphere.

On the way home I noticed that there werea number of armored vehicles from armychemical intelligence, and soldiers withdosimeters. I asked one of the officers whatthe radiation level was. In response, he hasti-ly blocked the scale from view and told me tomind my own business. One emergency vehi-cle after another headed from the power sta-tion to the city hospital.

On my return home, I didn't want to fright-en my family, but I told them not to go out forany reason, and to wrap the shoes they hadwalked In today in wet rags and put them out-side, and to conduct a thorough wet cleaningof the apartment.

My shift at the power station began at 4:011p.m. [On the way to the station], the bus tooka different route; it went on a detour past thecooling pond and the ruins of Unit 4.

I realized that what I had seen from townwas nothing. I couldn't have imagined thatsomething like this would ever happen. I sawparts of the reactor a person should see onlyonce in his life—before the reactor goes online. On the ground were pieces of the roof,thrown there by the force ofthe explosion, aswell as dnams from the separators, pieces oftanks from the emergency cooling system, andmany other parts. It was obvious that the re-actor was exposed to the atmosphere and

48 The Bulletin of the Atomie Spientists

"breathing." Toward evening you could see aneven, dark purple glow above the active zone.

Our shift began with an order to shut downUnit 2. Everything started well, but thenthere was a glitch. During shutdown, thefourth turbine suddenly went off. Lights wentout on the reactor's control panel. The alarmsounded. In a second the emergency lightkicked in. But in this fraction of a second, I feltfully my helplessness before the nuclear ma-

"I told my familynot to go out for any reason

and to put the shoes they hadwalked in outside."

chine. I felt with sudden intensity what mycolleagues had gone through the night before,when they eouldn't control Unit 4.

However the shutdown of Unit 2 was suc-cessful, as well as the shutdown of Unit 1.[Unit 8 had been shut down early in the day.]

The next day, April 27, the evacuation ofPripyat residents began. My wife and chil-dren went to the Zhitomir region, where mywife's parents lived. I remained at the powerstation, as did all the station personnel. Atfirst we were taken to our shifts by bus, as be-fore. Thus, during one round trip to work, wewere exposed to 5 roentgens, the maximumconsidered safe as an annual dose. Later wewere taken to work in armored vehicles. Fora while after the accident, the station cafete-ria was closed: all the stores in Pripyat werealso closed. The town looked abandoned andfrightening.

We were left to survive with an order tohold the station together. I didn't see any out-side help. We had no dosimetrie devices; theones at oiu" disposal didn't work. The most pop-ular books for us at this time were whatevertextbooks on hematology and civil defense wecould find in the libraries. At least they provid-ed some information on radiation and its doses.

And no matter what anyone says, the sta-tion personnel cannot be blamed for the acci-dent. The blame lies with the person who or-dered the experiment on Unit 4. This personordered a working protocol for the reactorthat wasn't identified in our instructions as po-tentially explosive or even dangerous.

I continued working at the Chernobylpower station until 1988. Then I began havingproblems with my health. I fainted at mywork station several times. Incidentally, tomaintain secrecy all the medical historiesfi'om 19.S(i were destroyed in 1989. Stationpersonnel received new medical histories thatno longer contained the results of their 1986

blood tests or their diagnoses.In 1988 1 had to look for lighter work due to

my health. I am not feeling particularly wellthese days, but I try not to succumb tothoughts about health. My daughters are notvery healthy either, especially the youngerone. She has frequent headaches: three yearsago she had a number of fainting spells.

In 19911 was elected president ofthe Cher-nobyl Union of Ukraine. My monthly salary isabout $105.

Our organization protects the rights ofthose who suffered in the aftermath of theChernobyl aeeident and who took pai't in itscleanup. There are thousands and thousandsof such people. We verify the execution ofthegovernment's Chernobyl programs. Everyyear the amount of government money forthese progi-ams decreases. Last year a smallchapel was erected in memory of those whoperished as a result of Chernobyl. Toward thetenth anniversary we will be issuing 700,000anniversaiy medals: one to each former Sovieteitizen who took part in the cleanup of theChernobyl aeeident.

It would be good to shut down the Cher-nobyl power station. But we ean't do it; wedon't have the technical, intellectual, or finan-cial resources. The station has to continueworking until it produces enough money forits shutdown.

How do I spend April 2(i? I can say only onething: I spend it grieving.

Yuri Andreev

Col. Anatoli Kushnin, chief of the chemicaldefense air force division, Kiev military dis-trict, served in the Chemobyl zone from. Apnl26 to May 22, 19Sf>. A member of the armysince 1!}(>S, Kushnin graduated from^ the Mili-tary Academy of Chemical Defense in Mos-cow in 1977. At the time ofthe Chemobyl acci-dent, he was chief of the air force's chemicaldefense unit stationed in the Kiev region; he iscwrrenthj in charge of Ukraine's Radiochemi-cal and Biological Defense Force. Now Jt6, heis married and has two daughters. He believeshe was exposed to 130 roentgens.

I found out about the Chernobyl accident onthe moming of April 26.1986. when I came onduty. The duty officer told me about the acci-dent and fire at the Chernobyl power station.

First I tried to find out what the situationwas like at the station. I called the headquar-ters ofthe army's ehemieal defense forees forthe Kiev military region. The senior officerthere infonned me that the radiation situationwas bad as a result of an accident, but thatthere was no precise data available.

Anatoli Kushnin

May/June 19W) 49

In the meantime, the headquarters of theKiev military region ordered an immediatetransfer of pilots from the Kirovogi-adsky re-gion to the airfield closest to Chernobyl. At11:30 p.m. the regional air force commander,Major-Gen. Nikolai Antoshkin, and I drove toChernobyl. We approached the power stationby 2:30 a.m. A red glow was over it. Wepassed the station and went to the town ofPripyat. The liquidation [cleanupl headquar-ters were located at city hall.

We immediately got to work. In order to putout the reactor fire, the decision was made to

"The helicopter crews wereexposed to enormous radiation

doses. Pilots had to bereplaced all the time."

dump sand over it from above. It was neces-sary to form teams to fill sacks with sand,which we later dropped into the reactor core.Then we dropped lead into the reactor. Therewas a supply of boric acid at the station. Wealso drojiped boric acid. Since the rods used instopping a nuclear chain reaction are made ofpure boron, boric acid could help to retard thereaction as well.

Today we can talk a lot about whetherthings could have been done differently. How-ever, to this day, no scientist has concludedthat our actions were wrong during the liqui-dation of the accident at the power station.

All this work fell on military pilots. At thetime, there were SO helicopters and airplanesof vaiious types deployed in Chemobyl. Everyofficer in our on-the-ground provision groupwas responsible for various aspects of this job.As the head ofthe chemical service, I was re-sponsible for the radiation safety ofthe staff,for preventing military personnel from beingoverexposed, and for recommending appropri-ate safety measures. For example, I told thehelicopter pilots to cover the floors of theirmachines with sheets of lead.

I was in Pripyat. The helicopter strip waslocated 11 kilometers from the reactor. I useda deserted military airstrip midway betweenthese two points as a decontamination stationfor helicopters and pilots. Special technologywas sent there. After flying above the reactor,helicoptei-s were washed with special solutionsand their crews showered and received newuniforms and shoes. The helicopters were re-turned to their base practically clean. Thosemachines that couldn't be cleaned remainedwithin the 30-kilometer zone. We left heli-copter engines, which couldn't be treatedchemically, there as well.

Oui' militaiy pilots worked zealously. I don't

remember a single case when someone showedfear, a lack of discipline, or disobeyed orders.By May 4 the pilots had buried the reactorcore in sand despite conditions that were diffi-cult and dangerous. The dosimetric devices onthese helicopters measured radiation levels ofup to 500 roentgens an hour. In the first daysafter the accident these dosimeters went offscale. The crews were exposed to enormousradiation doses during their flights over thereactor. Pilots had to be substituted all thetime; afterward, crews were sent to a militaryhospital in Moscow. Not all of them survived.Recently, military test pilot Anatoly Grish-chenko died in the United States. He was theone who tried to lift a huge dome over the ex-ploded reactor with the biggest helicopter inthe world, the Mi-26. He didn't succeed, but hewas exposed many times to huge doses of ra-diation. He wasn't even told about that for awhile.

Everything to do with radiation levels wastop secret. In early June 198fi I signed for acoded government telegram received fromMoscow listing 13 points about the conse-quences ofthe Chernobyl accident. It includedradiation levels, among other things. Thiscoded telegram was signed by General Secre-tary Mikhail Gorbachev.

I was also exposed to a significant dose. Iwas hospitalized with symptoms of radiationillness. My situation would have been worsehad I not taken certain i>recautions while inChernobyl. I believe that cloth masks onlyprotect respiratory organs from large radioac-tive particles of dust, not from radioactive iso-topes, which permeate the air.

I saved myself with cigarette smoke, asstrange as that may sound. Along with the in-haled smoke, isotopes of radioactive iodine en-tered the lungs; then they got absorbed in thesmoke particles and were exhaled along withthem. In short, I always had a cigarette in mymouth, believing that nicotine would be lessdangerous than radioactive isotopes. My firstblood tests confinned that they didn't get intomy body in the first days of work at Cher-nobyl. Doctors couldn't believe that my testsrevealed no abnormalities.

Nevertheless, I can't call myself a healthyman today. My leg hurts, and I limp when Iwalk. Often I have headaches. I head theChernobyl Union at the central office of theUkrainian Ministry of Defense, which consistsof military men who worked in the aftermathof CheiTiobyl. Among other things, our organi-zation procured the right for the officers whowere at Chernobyl to retire five years beforethe legal retirement age, with a full retire-ment package.

I spend April 2() in a traditional fashion: Itake a bottle of vodka and drink for those who

50 The Bulletin ofthe Atomic Scientists

perished at Chernobyl. However I believe atthis point the Chernobyl station should not beshut down. Its safety level right now is practi-cally 100 percent. If so much has been invest-ed in its safety, why take it off line?

Anatoli Kushnin

* * * *

Valei-y Starodumov, a senior engineer work-ing in radiation safety, arri:ved at Chernobyl071 June 6,1986. His group of cleanup workersor "liquidators" were known as the "rooftopcats," because tliey cleared the roof—and otherareas—of the most dangerous materials be-fore other workers came in. Today Starodu-mov serves as chief of Ukraine's Departmentof Radioactive Waste Management anddeputy director of tfie Ukrainian Govem,mentCommittee on Nuclear Energy Uses. Now 52,he is married and has two children and agranddaughter. He believes he was exposed to•}()() roentgens.

The day of my arrival at Chernobyl was myfirst day of work. When I arrived in the earlyevening of June 6, I found that there was noone to translate the operating manual for thetwo German robots, the F'-l and F-2, that weneeded to work on the remnants ofthe roof ofUnit 4. It took me all night to translate themanual.

Until June 19, I worked on finding a placefor a special laundry for washing and treatingthe clothes of the liquidators. I also tried to an-alyze the use of various protective substancesand working clothes.

Then I was assigned to a gi'oup jokinglydubbed the "rooftop cats" by the other liqui-dation workers. This gi'oup consisted of 32 nu-clear experts, drawn primarily from militaryranks; it was given assignments in the mostdangerous and responsible areas. The head ofthe group, Yuri Samoilenko, later received theHero of Socialist Labor medal.

The gi'oup's primary responsibilities wereverifying the structural integrity of buildingsat the power station, evaluating radiationdoses, identifying radioactive hot spots in cer-tain areas around the power station, evaluat-ing the possibility of removing fuel from thereactors taken off line, and other such tasks.

Later we evaluated the feasibility of doingcertain kinds of work on the roof of Unit 4. OnAugust ?,0, 1986, we removed the most ra-dioactive objects on the roof with our ownhands. We made it possible for the deactiva-tion workers to enter the breach that wecleared. On this day each member of our gi-oupreceived a "hit" of radiation of 30-35 roent-gens. But we were able to lower the overallradiation field at the entrance to this area

fi'om 1600 roentgens an hour to 800 roentgens.We did it by tossing the remnants of fuel as-sembly units thrown there by the explosionback into the reactor.

Army chemical defense units followed us onthe roof and into other areas ofthe destroyedreactor. Many of them were exposed to highlevels of radiation; I doubt that all of them arealive today.

All the mistakes that led to high radiationexposure of liquidation workers had to do withthe fact that the people doing the workweren't professionals. If we had preparedthose who worked on the reactor roof morethoroughly, if we had given them a year—bet-ter yet, thi-ee years—of preparation; if for thisperiod we had conserved the station underdust-suppi'essing agents to avoid the releaseof radioactive elements into the atmosphere;we would have avoided the high number of ca-sualties and saved our genetic heritage.

In 1987 I was in the hospital from July toOctober. My hair fell out; three hot particleswere found in my esophagus and intestine.Since then I have not had particular healthproblems. The pension I receive as a liquidatorat the Chernobyl power station is laughable. Itamounts to a little over $20 a month.

As far as the urgent need to shut down theChernobyl power station, I think it's a made-up problem, more political in nature than eco-nomic. The world says the station is dangerousbecause it is located so close to Ukraine's Eu-ropean borders. However, if you compare thelocation of other power stations^Smolensk,Kursk, and Ignalina—that have the same kindof reactors as Chernobyl, they will be found tobe even more dangerous to the West. I thinkthe main issue here is the fight for a piece ofthe energy market. Recently a map from Ger-many and Austria came to my attention. Youcan clearly see lines going to Europe from theformer Soviet energy system. The high-volt-age line from Chernobyl stops in Austria—Chernobyl still exports energy and someone isinterested in getting rid of competition in thismarket.

Furthermore, the Chernobyl power stationsupplies the high-energy consuming northernregion of Ukraine. It would be impossible todo without this energy.

I believe the cause of the accident was thepoor training of those who operated Unit 4and those who planned the experiment. Thepersonnel of the power station are to blame,not nuclear technology, which has been said tohave a dark side after the Chernobyl accident.

On April 26, we get together vidth those whoworked on the roof of Unit 4, those who arestill alive. The first toast we raise is to thosewho are no longer with us. •

Valery Starodumov

Valery Starodumov

May/June 19JHi 51