Two new nuclear plants: The Minsk station was hastily converted to a natural-gas-powered plant. The other construction project, near Krasnodar, was abandoned. Quentin Peel, “Work Abandoned on Soviet Reactor,” Financial Post (Toronto), September 9, 1988; Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 165.
In spite of glasnost: Grigori Medvedev, interview transcript, June 1990, 2RR. The full story, published in June 1989, was preceded by extracts published in March by the Kommunist magazine.
A letter he personally addressed: Sakharov’s message (dated November 1988) is enclosed in the Central Committee memorandum “On Academician A. D. Sakharov’s letter” [О письме академика А. Д. Сахарова], signed by the head of the committee’s ideology department, January 23, 1989, in RGANI, opis 53, reel 1.1007, file 81.
“Everything that pertains”: Grigori Medvedev, “Chernobyl Notebook,” trans. JPRS, 1.
Even larger than that within: See maps of contamination disclosed in March 1989 in Zhores Medvedev, Legacy of Chernobyl, 86–88.
“ ‘Glasnost wins after all’ ”: Charles Mitchell, “New Chernobyl Contamination Charges,” UPI, February 2, 1989.
The land was so poisoned: Francis X. Clines, “Soviet Villages Voice Fears on Chernobyl,” New York Times, July 31, 1989.
Traveled to the scene: Gerald Nadler, “Gorbachev Visits Chernobyl,” UPI, February 24, 1989; Bill Keller, “Gorbachev, at Chernobyl, Urges Environment Plan,” New York Times, February 24, 1989.
Zelenyi Svit: “Ukrainian Ecological Association ‘Green World’: About UEA” [Українська екологічна асоціація «Зелений світ»: Про УЕА], www.zelenysvit.org.ua/?page=about.
The crowd veered off script: John F. Burns, “A Rude Dose of Reality for Gorbachev,” New York Times, February 21, 1989.
As the third anniversary: Nadler, “Gorbachev Visits Chernobyl”; Remnick, Lenin’s Tomb, 245; Zhores Medvedev, Legacy of Chernobyl, 87.
One member of a team: BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “ ‘Sanctuary’ Designated Around Chernobyl Plant and Animal Mutations Appearing,” summary of TASS news reports on May 19, 1989 (in English) and July 31, 1989 (in Russian), translated August 26, 1989.
Secretly mixed into sausages: David Remnick, “Chernobyl’s Coffin Bonus,” Washington Post, November 24, 1989; Josephson, Red Atom, 165–66. The Politburo report cited a controversy in Yaroslavl, a city whose meat processing plant was revealed to be supplied with contaminated meat. Local officials insisted they had been acting with the approval of the Soviet Sanitation Service despite their own earlier denials that any Chernobyl meat was shipped to the area. “On the Radio Report from Yaroslavl Region” [О радиосообщении из Ярославской области], memo by the head of the agrarian department of the CPSU Central Committee, December 29, 1989, in RGANI, opis 53, reel 1.1007, file 87.
Strange new phenomena: BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “ ‘Sanctuary’ Designated Around Chernobyl Plant” and “An international research centre is to be set up at the Chernobyl AES,” summary of a TASS news report on September 15, 1989 (translated September 16, 1989).
The price for the construction: V. Kholosha and V. Poyarkov, “Economy: Chernobyl Accident Losses,” in Vargo, ed., Chornobyl Accident, 215.
One estimate put the eventual bill: Kholosha and Poyarkov estimate that $128 billion was the sum of all direct and indirect costs borne by Ukraine alone between 1986 and 1997, noting that Ukraine has assumed most of the ongoing expenses in the post-Soviet period. The official report of the USSR Finance Ministry in 1990 put the direct cost attributed to the accident at $12.6 billion for the USSR as a whole, and Ukraine’s share was about 30 percent (Kholosha and Poyarkov, “Economy: Chernobyl Accident Losses,” 220). The Soviet defense budget was disclosed by Gorbachev in 1989, revising the lower official figure of about $32 billion per year (“Soviet Military Budget: $128 Billion Bombshell,” New York Times, May 31, 1989).
In Lithuania, six thousand: Bill Keller, “Public Mistrust Curbs Soviet Nuclear Efforts,” New York Times, October 13, 1988.
In Minsk, a reported: Reports by AFP (October 1, 1989) and Sovetskaya Kultura (October 6, 1989), summarized in BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, “The Chernobyl Situation: Other reports, Nuclear Power and Test Sites,” October 30, 1989.
The disaster unleashed: Ben A. Franklin, “Report Calls Mistrust a Threat to Atom Power,” New York Times, March 8, 1987.
The United States faced: Serge Schmemann, “Chernobyl and the Europeans: Radiation and Doubts Linger,” New York Times, June 12, 1988.
A focal point of regional opposition: Dodd, Industrial Decision Making and High-Risk Technology, 129–30.
Eight hundred waste disposal sites: V. Kukhar’, V. Poyarkov, and V. Kholosha, “Radioactive Waste: Storage and Disposal Sites,” in Vargo, ed., Chornobyl Accident, 85.
Even offered twice the average: Yuri Risovanny, interview by David R. Maples, “Revelations of a Chernobyl Insider,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 46, no. 10 (1990): 18; Antoshkin, The Role of Aviation, 1.
As many as six hundred thousand: Burton Bennett, Michael Repacholi, and Zhanat Carr, eds., “Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident and Special Care Programmes,” Report of the UN Chernobyl Forum Expert Group “Health,” World Health Organization, 2006, 2.
A dedicated clinic: Chernousenko, Chernobyl: Insight from the Inside, 160.
Reluctant to connect their symptoms: Ibid., 163. According to an instruction sent by the Soviet Ministry of Defense to recruiting centers throughout the USSR, military doctors were forbidden from mentioning Chernobyl work on medical certificates they issued to liquidators. Radiation doses below the level that caused Acute Radiation Syndrome were also to be omitted (“Explanation by the Central Military Medical Commission of the USSR Ministry of Defense,” no. 205 [July 8, 1987], cited in Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl: Crime Without Punishment, 47).
Captain Sergei Volodin: Volodin, author interview, 2006.
Some died of heart disease: Gusev, Guskova, and Mettler, eds., Medical Management of Radiation Accidents, 204–5t12.4.
Major Telyatnikov: “Late Chernobyl Fireman’s Blood Tests to Be Disclosed,” Japan Times, April 19, 2006; Anna Korolevska, author interview, 2015.
For others, the psychological burden: Guskova, The Country’s Nuclear Industry Through the Eyes of a Doctor, 156; Barabanova, author interview, 2016.
In a desolate cafe: Prianichnikov, author interview, 2006.
“The invisible enemy”: Antoshkin, interview in Battle of Chernobyl, 2006.
When I visited: Alexander Yuvchenko, author interview, 2006; Natalia Yuvchenko, author interview, 2015.
Yet when he began: Natalia Yuvchenko, author interview, 2016.
19. THE ELEPHANT’S FOOT
The afternoon of Monday, April 25: Author visit to Pripyat, April 25, 2016; Mycio, Wormwood Forest, 5.
Open to the elements: Mycio, Wormwood Forest, 5–6 and 239.
One arm outstretched in alarm: The handprints of the figure in bronze were cast from those of Khodemchuk’s widow, Natalia (Natalia Khodemchuk, author interview, 2017).
When I first visited the Chernobyl station: Author visit, February 10, 2016.
From the very start: Borovoi, “My Chernobyl,” 45–48.
Although fully aware: Borovoi, author interview, 2015.
In the autumn of 1986: Ibid.; Borovoi, “My Chernobyl,” 86–87.
Unable to find: Borovoi, “My Chernobyl,” 90–92.
Sixteen thousand tonnes: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 241.
The sample revealed: Borovoi and Velikhov, Chernobyl Experience: Part 1, 118–19.
But it contained no trace: Borovoi, author interview, 2015; Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 326n.
By measuring: Borovoi, “My Chernobyl,” 52 and 99–100.
At the beginning of 1988: Borovoi and Velikhov, Chernobyl Experience: Part 1, 66–71.
By the late spring: Borovoi, “
My Chernobyl,” 104–9; Borovoi, author interview, 2015. See also documentary footage in Inside Chernobyl’s Sarcophagus, directed by Edward Briffa (United Kingdom: BBC Horizon, 1991) (subsequently rereleased in 1996).
The smallest trace: Only 0.01 percent of the lead dropped from the helicopters was found in the corium (Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 331).
Mounds up to fifteen meters high: Spartak T. Belyayev, Alexandr A. Borovoy, and I. P. Bouzouloukov, “Technical Management on the Chernobyl Site: Status and Future of the ‘Sarcophagus,’ ” in European Nuclear Society (ENS), Nuclear Accidents and the Future of Energy: Lessons Learned from Chernobyl, Proceedings of the ENS International Conference in Paris, France, April 15–17, 1991, 27, cited in Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 248n34.
Some lead ingots: Checherov, “Unpeaceful Atom of Chernobyl.”
Simply burned itself out: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 331.
Almost entirely pointless: This issue is explored in detail in ibid., 243–50.
But the Complex Expedition also revealed: Borovoi and Velikhov, Chernobyl Experience: Part 1, 118; Borovoi, author interview, 2015; Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 332.
The zirconium cladding: Alexander Sich estimates that 71 percent of the 190.3 tonnes of uranium fuel flowed downward from the reactor shaft (“Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 288). The weight of the lower biological shield is noted on 195 and 409.
It burned clean through: Ibid., 293n; Borovoi and Velikhov, Chernobyl Experience, Part 1, 30–31.
Spreading out to the south and east: Sich provides a map of the four flow routes: “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 322.
It had burned and seethed: Borovoi, author interview, 2015; Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 322.
Puddles fifteen centimeters deep: Sich, “Chornobyl Accident Revisited,” 308.
When the lava dropped: Ibid., 323. Elsewhere, according to Sich, the heat of radioactive decay ensured that the solidified corium remained hot even in 1991, five years after the accident had taken place. Also see p. 245, which diagrams a cross section of the damaged Unit Four.
“For the time being”: Conclusions of the expert group: S. T. Belyaev, A. A. Borovoi, V. G. Volkov et al., “Technical Validation of the Nuclear Safety of the Shelter” [Техническое обоснование ядерной безопасности объекта Укрытие], report on the scientific research work conducted by the Complex Expedition, 1990, cited in Borovoi and Velikhov, Chernobyl Experience: Part 1, 147–48. The monitoring system (named “Finish”): Ibid., 148–49.
Increasingly forgotten: Borovoi, author interview, 2015.
Eventually the men ran short: Documentary footage in Inside Chernobyl’s Sarcophagus, 1991; Borovoi, “My Chernobyl,” 110.
So fascinating and important: Borovoi, “My Chernobyl,” 30 and 34.
They granted individual nicknames: Borovoi and Velikhov, Chernobyl Experience: Part 1, 119, 134, and 141.
Chernobylite: Borovoi, author interview, 2015; Sich, author interview, 2018; Valery Soyfer, “Chernobylite: Technogenic Mineral,” Khimiya i zhizn, November 1990, translated in JPRS report JPRS-UCH-91-004: “Science and Technology: USSR Chemistry,” March 27, 1991.
Could soon collapse: Borovoi, “My Chernobyl,” 37.
Former plant director: “Information on the criminal case against V. P. Brukhanov” [Справка по уголовному делу в отношении Брюханова В. П.], personal archive of Yuri Sorokin.
The good Czech overcoat: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2016.
A two-line letter: S. B. Romazin (president of the Collegium on Criminal Cases of the USSR Supreme Court), Letter no. 02DC-36-87, addressed to Y. G. Sorokin, December 26, 1991, personal archive of Yuri Sorokin.
Longed to return to Pripyat: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2016. A 2011 newspaper profile of Brukhanov reports that he returned to work at Chernobyl after his release as head of the technical department and was greeted warmly by the staff (Samodelova, “The private catastrophe of Chernobyl’s director”). But his wife, Valentina, stated in an interview with the author that Brukhanov’s first job after prison was in Kiev and involved administrative assistance for a former colleague.
Eventually Vitali Sklyarov: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2016; Vitali Sklyarov, author interview, 2016; Viktor Brukhanov, interview by Babakov, Zerkalo nedeli, 1999.
The fallen director: Read, Ablaze, 336.
The former nuclear safety inspector: Samodelova, “The private catastrophe of Chernobyl’s director.”
Granted early release: Read, Ablaze, 336. Date of Fomin’s release (September 26, 1988): “Information on the criminal case against V. P. Brukhanov,” personal archive of Yuri Sorokin.
Had spent his years of incarceration: Anatoly Dyatlov, “Why INSAG Has Still Got It Wrong,” Nuclear Engineering International 40, no. 494 (September 1995): 17; Anatoly Dyatlov, letter to Leonid Toptunov’s parents, Vera and Fyodor, June 1, 1989, personal archive of Vera Toptunova.
Also granted early release: Date of Dyatlov’s release (October 1, 1990): “Information on the criminal case against V. P. Brukhanov,” personal archive of Yuri Sorokin.
In the face of opposition from NIKIET: Steinberg, recollections in Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 149–51.
One senior member: Armen Abagyan, interviews by Asahi Shimbun, July 17 and August 31, 1990, cited in Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 151.
In May 1991: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 152; Read, Ablaze, 324.
“scientific, technological”: Steinberg, quoted in Read, Ablaze, 324.
“Under those circumstances”: Ibid.
“Thus the Chernobyl accident”: Ibid., 324–25.
“Those who hang a rifle”: Read, Ablaze, 325.
But the barons: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 152.
“New information”: International Atomic Energy Agency, INSAG-7, 16.
“In many respects”: Ibid., 22.
Attracted little attention: Alexander Sich, author interview, Steubenville, OH, April 2018.
Until his own death: “Brief biography of A. S. Dyatlov” [Краткая биография Дятлова А. С.], preface to Dyatlov, How It Was, 3.
Ukrainian Orders for Courage: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 24–25; Decree of the President of Ukraine No.1156/2008 at the official website of the President of Ukraine: https://www.president.gov.ua/documents/11562008-8322.
20. A TOMB FOR VALERY KHODEMCHUK
It wasn’t until the end of that year: Natalia Yuvchenko, author interviews, 2015 and 2016.
Almost twenty-five years after the explosion: Author visit to Red Forest, February 5, 2011.
The territory of the Exclusion Zone had expanded repeatedly: Mycio, Wormwood Forest, 68–69; Sergiy Paskevych and Denis Vishnevsky, Chernobyl: Real World [Чернобыль. Реальный мир] (Moscow: Eksmo, 2011). Also see Mikhail D. Bondarkov et al., “Environmental Radiation Monitoring in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone—History and Results 25 Years After,” Health Physics 101, no. 4 (October 2011): 442–85.
In Britain, restrictions on the sale of sheep: Liam O’Brien, “After 26 Years, Farms Emerge from the Cloud of Chernobyl,” Independent, June 1, 2012.
Subsequent studies found: “Wild Boars Roam Czech Forests—and Some of Them Are Radioactive,” Reuters, February 22, 2017.
The first evidence for the phenomenon: Sergei Gaschak, deputy director for science, Chornobyl International Radioecology Laboratory, author interview, Chernobyl exclusion zone, February 2011.
After the breakup of the USSR: Adam Higginbotham, “Is Chernobyl a Wild Kingdom or a Radioactive Den of Decay?,” Wired, April 2011; Gaschak, author interview, 2011.
The idea of the miracle of the zone: For example, Mycio, Wormwood Forest, 99–116; Radioactive Wolves, documentary film, directed by Klaus Feichtenberger (PBS: ORF/epo-film, 2011).
Ye
t scientific evidence: The continuing controversy over this area of research was addressed by Mary Mycio in “Do Animals in Chernobyl’s Fallout Zone Glow?,” Slate, January 21, 2013.
Winter wheat seeds taken from the Exclusion Zone: Dmitry Grodzinsky, head of the Department of Biophysics and Radiobiology of the Institute of Cell Biology and Genetic Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, author interview, Kiev, February 2011.
Stephanie Pappas, “How Plants Survived Chernobyl,” Science, May 15, 2009.
The World Health Organization asserted: WHO/IAEA/UNDP, “Chernobyl: The True Scale of the Accident,” joint press release, September 5, 2005, cited in Petryna, Life Exposed, xx.
This bore out decades of earlier research: Jorgensen, Strange Glow, 226–30.
But some researchers insisted: Grodzinsky, author interview, 2011. See also Anders Pape Møller and Timothy Alexander Mousseau, “Biological Consequences of Chernobyl: 20 Years On,” Trends in Ecology & Evolution 21, no. 4 (April 2006): 200–220.
“That’s what we want to know”: Moller, author interview, 2011. By 2017, scientists affiliated with the US National Cancer Institute had begun a genome study examining the long-term effect of radiation on a small sample of the population affected by the accident. Dr. Kiyohiko Mabuchi, head of Chernobyl Research Unit, National Cancer Institute, author interview, September 2018.
“The Chernobyl zone is not as scary”: Andrew Osborn, “Chernobyl: The Toxic Tourist Attraction,” Telegraph, March 6, 2011.
The authorities had already tolerated: These so-called “squatters” began to find their way back into the forests around the plant almost immediately after the first forced evacuations from the thirty-kilometer zone, along the same trails many had used to evade the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. In 1988, the MVD reported that 980 people had already returned to their homes; 113 had never left in the first place, according to an MVD report reproduced in Anton Borodavka, Faces of Chernobyl, 2013, 19. Borodavka attributes the term “aborigines of the nuclear reservation” to the noted Ukrainian poet Lina Kostenko (Faces of Chernobyl, 12).
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