Personal Accounts

During the fight to contain the fire, many radiation victims were sent to Moscow hospital 6. Doctor Natalia Nadejina was working when the disaster stuck and was faced with traumatic memories:

“When they arrived at the clinic it was very hard, psychologically speaking. They came straight from the airport. Almost all of them were young. They arrived during the latency period and seemed fine, they were all dressed alike wearing the same pajamas and were making jokes. But we already knew that a lot of them were going to die. Twenty-seven of them died quite quickly. They’d all received huge doses of radiation and were suffering from life threatening burns.” (“What Really Happened at Chernobyl”)

With a solemn and pained expression, Vladimir Amelkov, a miner who participated in the effort to tunnel under the power plant, describes his experience:

“The hardest thing was the lack of oxygen and the incredible heat. We had to work really fast – at a crazy pace, faster and faster. Someone had to go do it. Us, or someone else. We did our duty.” (“What Really Happened at Chernobyl”)

Igor Kostin, the first journalist to take pictures of the accident, also volunteered in the liquidation process. He describes the common mentality:

“There were no titles. No ministers, generals, or soldiers. No one was saying ‘I am a general, do what I say.’ Everyone was honestly doing what they could. And so the operation named ‘the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident’ was set in motion.” He bravely ventured onto the roof five times total and claims that after a day’s work, his body was spent and furiously ached from the radiation. Finally, he states that he still had the taste of lead in his mouth 20 years after the accident. (“What Really Happened at Chernobyl”)

General Nikolai Antochkin, who was in charge of organizing and monitoring the liquidators on the roof. He concludes the documentary with some chilling words:

“You don’t know what effects it will have on your children if you have any. We know all that and we know the invisible enemy eating away inside of us… For us, the war continues. Little by little, we are slipping away from this world.” (“What Really Happened at Chernobyl”)

 Voices From Chernobyl

“My daughter was six years old. I’m putting her to bed, and she whispers in my ear: ‘Daddy, I want to live, I’m still little.’ And I had thought she didn’t understand anything.” (Nikolai Kalugin, p. 33)

 “There’s this abandoned house. It’s closed. There’s a cat on the windowsill. I think—must be a clay cat. I come over, and it’s a real cat. He at all the flowers in the house. Geraniums. How’d he get in? Or did they leave him there? There’s a note on the door: ‘Dear Kind Person, please don’t look for valuables here. We never had any. Use whatever you want, but don’t trash the place. We’ll be back.’ I saw signs on other houses in different colors—‘Dear house, forgive us!’ People said goodbye to their homes like they were people.” (Unknown, p. 36)

"They made us sign a non-disclosure form. So I didn’t say anything. Right after the army I became a second-group invalid. I was twenty-two. I got a good dose. We lugged buckets of graphite from the reactor. That’s ten thousand roentgen. We shoveled it with ordinary shoverls, changing our masks up to thirty times a shift—people called them ‘muzzles.’ We poured the sarcophagus. It was a giant grave for one person, the senior operator, Valery Khodemchuk, who got caught under the ruins in the first minutes after the explosion.” (Unknown, p. 48)

“I’m not afraid of death anymore. Of death itself. But I don’t know how I’m going to die. My friend died. He got huge, fat like a barrel. And my neighbor – he was also there, he worked a crane. He got black, like coal, and shrunk, so that he was wearing kid’s clothes. I don’t know how I’m going to die. I do know this: you don’t last long with my diagnosis. But I’d like to feel it when it happens. Like if I got a bullet in the head. I was in Afghanistan, too. It was easier there. They just shot you.” (Unknown, p.49)

“But if I think about it – in every house, someone’s died. On that street, on the other side of the river – all the women are without men, there aren’t any men, all the men are dead. On my street, my grandfather’s still alive, and there’s one more. God takes men earlier. Why? No one can tell us. But if you think about it – if only the men were left, without any of us, that wouldn’t be any good either. They drink, oh do they drink! From sadness. And all our women are empty. Not all of them managed to give birth in time. What else will I say? You have to live. That’s all.” (Anna Badaeva – re-settler, p.53)

Monologues by those who returned (Anna Artyushenko, Eva Artyushenko, Vasily Artyushenko, Sofya Moroz, Nadezhda Nikolaenko, Aleksandr Nikolaenko, Mikhail Lis 

“Planes, helicopters – there was so much noise. The trucks with trailers. Soldiers. Well, I thought, the war’s begun. With the Chinese or the Americans." (Unknown, p. 67)

“We’re leaving – I took some earth from my mother’s grave, put it in a little sack. Got down on my knees: ‘Forgive us for leaving you.’ I went there at night and I wasn’t scared. People were writing their names on houses. On the wood. On the fences. On asphalt.” (Unknown, p. 68)

“The soldiers killed the dogs. Just shot them. Bakh-bakh! After that I can’t listen to something that’s alive and screaming.” (Unknown, p. 68)

“We don’t need anything from the government. Just leave us alone, is all we want. We don’t need a store, we don’t need a bus. We walk to get our bread. Twenty kilometers. Just leave us alone. We are alright by ourselves.” (Unknown, p. 68)

“There’s no television. No movies. There’s one thing to do – look out the window. Well, and to pray, of course. There used to be Communism instead of God, but now there’s just God. So we pray.” (Unknown, p. 72)

Children’s Chorus

“Soldiers came for us in cars. I thought the war had started. They were. Saying these things: ‘deactivation,’ ‘isotopes.’ One soldier was chasing after a cat. The dosimeter was working on the cat like an automatic: click, click. A boy and a girl were chasing the cat, too. The boy was alright, but the girl kept crying, ‘I won’t give him up!’ She was yelling: ‘Run away, run little girl!’ But the soldier had a big plastic bag." (p. 217)