—Do you have problems with the hospital?
—In winter, it’s very difficult. We telephone another district, like Krasnopolie, if someone’s ill. They either say they don’t have any petrol,—sometimes they use that as an excuse—or they say “You’re not from our district”. That’s what they say149.
149 Krasnopolie is about forty kilometres from Staraya Kamenka, where the territory of Belarus widens a little towards Russia. The roads there are quite inaccessible in winter.
—They refuse to help you?
—It’s difficult living here. Of course it’s difficult, but we’ve got used to it. When I think about going somewhere else, I say to myself “Stay here, where you belong. Do everything slowly, it will be alright”.
—How do you manage in winter?
—How? We’re cold. We freeze in our houses. I live in a flat, in one of the collective farm houses that has heating. We have to find our own fuel. It’s very expensive. With three children and a very low salary, it’s difficult. I have to choose whether to spend money on food or fuel for winter.
—You have to buy it? You can’t provide it for yourselves?
—No, we’re not allowed. You have to buy it. You have to buy the wood. One cartload of wood costs 9,500 roubles. That’s how it is.
—How many days does a cartload last in winter?
—If I economise…I don’t know. We use three cartloads of wood each winter and if it isn’t enough…in secret in the forest, we pick up a branch, keeping hidden, put it on the horse or on the cart and get back to the house quickly so that no-one sees us. Otherwise they tell you off. You get fined. You have to give them money. In fact, no-one goes and gets wood here, because the fine is exorbitant. If you’ve got your pay, it’s better not to cause trouble. People with parents who are retired are in the best position. It’s something to fall back on.
—Are your parents retired?
—Yes, they are. My mother, not my father. She’s retired. If I need money, she’ll always help me out.
—For how long has your family lived here in the village?
—I was born here and I live here. I knew my grandmother. Not my grandfather. He never came back from the war. My grandmother lived with us for some time before she died.
—Did they talk about their grandparents?
—I don’t remember. They may have talked to me about them, I don’t remember.
—What is your name?
—Maia Savchenko.
—And your children’s health?
—Tatiana, my eldest daughter, is invited to go abroad, to Luxembourg. This is the third year that she has gone. She is losing her sight. Probably because of the…The doctor, the hospital said. “What are you doing on your island? You need to leave”. She said that as soon as she heard the name Staraya Kamenka. But where can we move to?
—What is the problem with her eyes? Did her sight deteriorate suddenly?
—I don’t know. I can’t tell you. She became shortsighted at school. The children complain about headaches, they’re often feverish, probably because of the cold, the children are often ill. My eldest has started complaining about her back. It often hurts. I don’t know, is it because of adolescence? I don’t know. I took her to the doctor. She told me it was radiculitis. 150 They prescribed some pills. At the moment she is not saying anything. But at other times she complains of pain constantly. Her bones hurt…All that is due to the radiation. It’s probably true that the radioactivity is having an effect on us. We live here. We were here when it happened and we stayed.
150 Inflammation of the nerve root.
—And what about you, do you feel anything?
—I’ve got heart problems.
—What sort of problems? What do you feel?
—Pain, fatigue, my heart feels constricted. I have that from time to time. It will suddenly come on. The pain goes right through me. Sometimes I wake up in the night, I sit down and it feels like needles. Pain in my heart, here. I sit for a while then I lie down again. I don’t take any pills. The pain goes away by itself.
—When did that start?
—About two years ago, maybe three.
—Since Chernobyl, have the authorities come here to find out how you are, to help you? Do you feel the government is helping you?
—I don’t know if I feel that, but I feel as if we’re talking to a brick wall. They listen to us and then they go off. That’s it…And we stay here and nothing changes. Unless we find a place to move to ourselves, I think we’ll end up staying here, and no-one will care.
—You live off your vegetable gardens?
—We plant our own gardens and that’s what we live off. Our pay is minimal, 60,000 roubles. It’s not enough for a month. A loaf of bread costs 416 or 460 roubles. I have five mouths to feed. We manage but only because my daughter started to make these visits abroad, and she sends us parcels. We do alright for clothes.
—Does your husband work?
—Yes, he works.
—What does he do?
—He’s in charge of the heating at the clinic.
—Where’s that?
—Here, near the shop, the whole building is the clinic. He’s in charge of the heating. It’s seasonal work, there’s nothing else.
—And your salary, what do you do?
—I’m a nurse at the clinic at Kamenka
—What sort of nursing exactly?
—Cleaning, putting things back in order after the doctor has been. The doctor does his work, goes home; I come and put everything back where it should be, like in a hospital.
—Does the doctor live in the village?
—No, she lives in the next village, at Dubno. It’s three kilometres away.
—The people of this village can come to this clinic, and get help? There are medicines here?
—Yes, we have medicines, only you have to pay for them. Everything has to be paid for. You need to pay.
—Who supplies the medicines?
—The doctor herself. She buys them and brings them here, only you have to pay. It’s probably since March that you have to pay. Before March it was all free. You just needed a prescription. Then they introduced the paying system and now it’s very difficult. Medicine is very expensive. Life is hard.
—It’s the government that is forcing you into this misery?
—When it was free, more people came to get treatment. Whereas now that you have to pay, they don’t come any more.
—Do you know what the levels of contamination are here, in this area? In the food?
—The food and health services came here the day before yesterday from Slavgorod. They took samples of food: beetroot, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes—depending on what people were growing on their gardens—they took them to measure the radioactivity. We haven’t yet received the…results…They’ll probably send them to the village soviet. We’ll know later…
—Have you ever been told the level of contamination?
—Yes. For example, with the milk, they said: “The milk is very contaminated. You can’t drink it”. What can you do?...What about the children! They have to drink something.
—Is the milk from your cows contaminated?
—Yes. But this is our daily life. We only have one field for pasture. There are no clean areas here. The cows are contaminated. The cows were monitored recently. Nearly half of the herd has leukaemia. Nearly all of them. You can’t drink the milk. I have a cow with leukaemia myself. I replaced her last year, and now it appears she has leukaemia. We exchanged them at the collective farm, one animal for another.
—And you give this milk to the children?
—Yes. Where am I going to get milk? If I buy it at the shop, a litre of milk, you know yourself, costs 400 roubles. Where am I going to get that? I boil it, or drink it as it is. We drink it and the
children drink it, what else can we do?
—Has anyone told you how many becquerels there are in each litre of milk?
—This time, I didn’t get the milk measured. I don’t know. Because the cow is pregnant, there is nothing to measure. I took potatoes, beetroot, carrots along to be measured. I haven’t had the results yet.
—Does anyone know the average level of contamination here in the milk, how many becquerels?
—I don’t know. I haven’t heard. They measure, the results arrive, someone telephones to see if we can drink the milk: “The radiation is very high, above admissible levels, you mustn’t drink it”. But how has it happened, whether it’s the becquerels or whatever, I don’t know. We live here on a kind of island. At the moment, there is the road, but when they lift the bridge off, you can’t go anywhere. It’s only if you have your own horse, and it’s a cold winter and the river is frozen, then you can cross it to get to the other side. Then, some people can get to Slavgorod on horseback, if necessary. Otherwise, we’re cut off.
—Are people still getting married in your village, having children?
—Yes, people are having children. This year, we’ve already had two new babies, and another two are expected. One at New Year, one after New Year. So people are gradually starting to have children here. I say that either you should leave or you should get married and have children. Especially as they’re not going to evacuate us in spite of the radioactivity. What else can we do? In any case people say that the world is coming to an end.
—Today you are looking after the cows.
—Yes.
—Is that every day, or does everyone take their turn?
—Everyone takes their turn. We have thirty-two cows in the village: every thirty-second day, it’s my turn.
5. MARUSIA AND HER SON
Solitude has had the effect of making this elderly mother and her son a little strange. We begin our conversation next to the fence in front of their khata. Over the fence, in the yard we can see an apparently motley collection of wooden and metal objects, but all presumably useful in their own way. Marusia is very likeable. She talks very loudly, almost shouting abrupt phrases, with a roguish smile, that masks a gruff tenderness, and shyness towards these visitors who honour her with their presence in front of her house. She interrupts her son often and he looks on affectionately while she finishes her tirade.
Q.—You’ve been cut off from the world?
Marusia.—We’ve been completely forgotten, yes! We are no longer human beings. They have made the village uninhabitable.
Q.—Forgotten?
Kolia.—We’ve been forgotten—oh yes!
Q.—Has your son got a family? Is he married?
Marusia.—He was married, to Kalita. But it didn’t work out. Life didn’t bring them together…
Q.—Don’t you want to leave the village?
Marusia.—Leave the countryside for the town? The food is here.
Q.—You haven’t got a pension?
Kolia.—Nothing, not a penny. We’ve only got one income: berries and mushrooms.
Marusia.—From the forest.
Q.—Are they clean?
Kolia.—For us, now…How can I put it…they won’t do us any more harm now.
Marusia.—We’ve already eaten so many, we’ve filled our bellies.
Q.—But, don’t you have headaches?
Kolia.—No-one takes any notice of that any more.
Q.—Yes alright, but don’t you feel anything?
Kolia.—Yes, we feel it… We feel in pain when it is very bad. That’s it. In any case, no-one goes to the hospital here. You won’t get anyone here to go to the hospital. Anyway the forest is very radioactive.
Q.—Yes, the mushrooms and the berries…
Kolia.—Whatever happens, now that it’s rained, everyone will be going into the forest to get mushrooms.
Marusia.—We live off the forest. My son collects the berries and the mushrooms, and that’s what we live off. And we have pumpkins too.
Kolia.—The pumpkins…they’re not worth much… If there was some work here, as they promised… Those with young children were evacuated. The others were told: “We’re leaving an annexe with the machines for the workers.” But you’ve seen for yourself the state of the cattle farm, they demolished everything.
Marusia.—They destroyed everything, demolished everything.
Kolia.—They want to make it all disappear, get rid of it, completely.
Marusia.—Take this pumpkin.
Q.—No! No!
Marusia.—Don’t you want it?
Q.—No. How do you prepare it, this pumpkin? Do you make pumpkin soup?
Kolia.—With millet, milk, sugar and this pumpkin, steamed in the oven. What a feast!
Q.—Good?
Kolia.—Very good.—You will never have eaten anything so delicious. Millet, milk, sugar.
Q.—In pieces…
Kolia.—Yes, yes, little pieces. And salt, for taste. That’s all you do. It’s a feast! Or you can boil the pieces, roll them in flour and fry them. We like them like that too.
Q.—Do you measure the pumpkins? Are they radioactive?
Kolia.—No-one measures them here. Three or four years ago, they came and measured the potatoes and the milk… They measured and they told us “There’s a little radioactvity but you can eat it”. Alright. We’re used to it. But not the children. The children, of course, they should be evacuated from here as quickly as possible. The sooner the better.
Marusia.—(She calls to Emanuela in the yard) Miss! Miss! Come in…See how I live.
Kolia.—Show her the apples. There’s a whole lot over there.
Q.—Can we have a quick look in your house?
Kolia.—Yes, you can. (We enter the yard. He opens a door into an outhouse where they keep all their preserves.) Half is a workshop and half…there!
Marusia.—Look at the pumpkins!
Kolia.—This variety only grows in Russia.
Marusia.—And if we have to cook some chachliks (kebabs)
Kolia.—I can make them in half an hour.
Q.—You can feed yourselves in winter with that?
Marusia and Kolia together.—No!
Kolia.—That’s for two months.
Q.—For two months, all that?
Kolia.—Yes! Yes!
Q.—It’s for you two.
Kolia.—It’s not for us. It’s for the animals. It’s for the cow and for the pigs. We don’t eat them.
Q.—I thought it was for you.
Kolia.—No! We pick a pumpkin every month or two just to taste…No, it’s for the business. Because at the moment there’s no other animal feed.
Q.—What’s that?
Kolia.—Cranberries.
Q.—The cranberries are contaminated too. It’s dangerous to eat them.
Marusia.—So what?
Kolia.—And the kvas (a beer made in Russia and Ukraine)? ... Look how big the cranberries are here. Have you ever seen them like that? You’ve never seen them? Mum…bring them here. I came here four days a go and took some. A little. To taste. But anyway in the winter, I ferment the kvas using cowberries and cranberries.
Q.—You collect them from the forest?
Kolia.—Yes, I’m not lazy. I collect them. Mum…give her some so she can make a compote. No, no, with the bag. You can make yourself a compote. Look at those berries! That’s for you.
Q.—Can I take them?
Marusia.—Of course you can take them.
Kolia.—The cabbages, when we salt the cabbages…Pour them in, Mum. Here you are. When we ferment cabbage we always put cranberries in. We’ve always done that, from the dawn of time.
Q.—Thank you.
Kolia.—Eat them, they’re good for your health.
Ma
rusia.—For your health.
6. TWO FRIENDS IN THEIR SEVENTIES
The widow.—The milk is taken away every day. It’s been taken before the Sozh has got out of bed. After the bridge is taken up, it stops. The Sozh freezes so sometimes you can get across on the ice. People have even drowned trying to cross it.
Q.—Your river, it’s your destiny. The river brings you good and evil.
The widow.—It gives us fish, and it’s good for washing in and it’s a good trough for the cows in the pastures. But in winter…
The retired woman.—Fortunately we are retired and we receive a little money at least. Every month we get just enough for our needs. But the young people who are working, if they can’t go to Gaishin or if the tractor doesn’t come to fetch them? Go all the way round through Krasnopolie, it’s very far, so they have no work. It’s hard. Now in summer, I live here with my son-in-law and my daughter, but I’m from Msteslavl’. But if I wasn’t here they wouldn’t have any money to buy bread. It’s only me that feeds them. I buy them food to eat. But in winter? They have no work, and they have three children: “Live, if you can”. The winter is long, and how will they buy shoes for the children? There is no money for shoes. That’s how we live (She tries not to cry).
The widow.—There were lots of young people here before. The village rang with people’s voices, in the evening, the young girls would came out, sit on the benches and sing. The singing filled the village. Singing, music, balalaikas, we were all so happy! Now in the evening it’s silent. Nothing any more… Chernobyl did us a lot of harm. The young people have gone, they didn’t have any more children, only one or two for each couple… Whereas before, there were seven children in every household, three or four at least, girls and boys. There was the war, seventy men from this village alone, who didn’t come back, young men…Today, there’s nothing left, everything is sad, and desolate.
The retired woman.—But if you look at this place, everything is blossoming. The forests are magnificent, they are so beautiful! And the mushrooms and berries, they’re everywhere. And then…everything ruined, and the power station is to blame.
The Crime of Chernobyl- The Nuclear Gulag Page 51