The Chernobylites
For those who are alive, and for those who are no longer here.
On April 26, 1986, an accident occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. The explosion destroyed the fourth power unit and countless human lives. This page gathers stories about the fates that were changed by the largest man-made disaster in history. The stories of the Chernobylites.
Oleg Chichkov, a 76-year-old pilot and a "liquidator" [the official designation for workers who dealt with the consequences of the disaster] of the Chernobyl accident, poses for a photographer during an interview. Yuri Chichkov and the crew of the Mi-26 helicopter were among those who, in the first days after the accident, dropped materials (lead, dolomite, boric acid) into the reactor to extinguish the fire.
Elena Muzychenko, 86, stands with a kerosene lamp in her home in the village of Bartolomeevka, Vetka district, Gomel region, Belarus, 170 km from the Chernobyl plant. In 1992, the five hundred houses here were evacuated and the power was cut off. However, some residents decided to return to their homes despite the high radiation levels and lack of electricity. People like Elena Muzychenko are called "samosely" or self-settlers.
A portrait of Chernobyl liquidator Vasily Ignatenko hangs on the wall in his mother Tatyana's apartment in Berezino, Minsk region, March 9, 2016. Vasily Ignatenko was one of the first firefighters called to extinguish the fire at the station. Less than three weeks later, he died in a hospital in Moscow. Later, Svetlana Alexievich would write the book Chernobyl Prayer, which tells the love story of the young firefighter and his wife.
Alexander Kosar, a specialist in the scientific department of ecology and fauna at the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, stands in his parents' home in the village of Orevichi. The village is located in the resettlement zone [the territory most affected by the explosion in Belarus, from which the population was officially evacuated].
Boris Safronov, a former employee of the radiological reserve, receives treatment at the district hospital in Vetka with a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.
Nina Derikova, a resident of the resettled village of Sebrovichi, stands in the house provided by the state to replace her native home, which is located in the territory affected by the Chernobyl explosion. Her current house is in the village of Ozery, Grodno district, on a street named after her home village, from which the residents were evacuated.
Petr Kudan, the director of the Polesie Radiological Reserve, poses in front of an alley of trees that he planted as a first-grader with his teachers near the school in his native village of Savichi, Bragin district. The village is now contaminated with radionuclides and partially resettled.
Sofya Nikitichna Klyuchinskaya, the last resident of the village of Rudnya-Dudichskaya, Chechersky district, clears leaves at the village cemetery on the eve of the Orthodox holiday of Radonitsa [a special day for the commemoration of the dead, when people visit cemeteries to honor their ancestors]. The village is in the resettlement zone, but Sofya and her husband Nikolai Klyuchinsky refused to leave their home. In early 2017, Nikolai Klyuchinsky passed away.
