CHERNOBYL

Many of you may remember the “Chernobyl Disaster” in 1986.  In the middle of the night, the reactor core split in the nuclear power plant and a massive fire followed.  A huge amount of radiation was released and the already teetering USSR had not only an ecological and human disaster on its hands but a political one as well. 

They were slow to release details to the world while the local authorities, fire fighters and technicians attempted to assess and contain the disaster.  Once the fire was contained, and radiation measurements taken, it was determined that  10’s of 1000’s of people needed to be relocated in the surrounding area and 80 towns and cities needed to be abandoned.  Meanwhile those who responded appropriately to the disaster were dying by the day as they succumbed to massive radiation doses.

The “Chornobyl Museum” in Kiev, is Ukraine’s attempt to explain this disaster to the world and commemorate those who were so affected by it.  Although the museum did deal with some of the “numbers” it was really intended to acknowledge those that dealt with the disaster or affected by its aftermath.  Indeed, radiation spread over northern Europe and throughout the Ukraine.   This was a nuclear reactor built by the Soviets in Ukraine, yet Ukraine was most affected by its after affects. 

This was more of a memorial then a museum.  The human toll continues to this day.  Indeed, Alyona, our dear friend and guide in Ukraine was sent to Cuba as a 7 year old to help her “recover” from the affects of the nuclear fallout.  Another of our guide’s uncle was a Russian private in the Soviet Army, he was sent into the fallout zone as a jeep driver where he took people in and out of the “hot zone” for weeks, not being told of the possible affects of the radiation.  He has been incapacitated by the radiation almost his entire life.

Hanging in the entry way to the museum are all the names of the 80 towns that were evacuated and condemned after Chernobyl.  There evacuation is permanent.  The area around Chernobyl cannot be reentered for the half-life of the released isotope , 40,000 years.

The world was fortunate that the “cold war” with the Soviets never heated up.