The Crime of Chernobyl- The Nuclear Gulag

by Wladimir Tchertkoff

  Lena.—Here, it’s not regularly, it’s all the time.

  Mrs Skidan.—Look at my children: Alexander was born in 1990. Hyperthyroidism. His blood sugar was too high, he is borderline diabetic. When these spectrometers arrived, they measured his levels of radioactivity and found that he already had an enlarged thyroid, aged 3. This is Nina. She was born in 1993. She has a congenital dysplasia of the hip joint. She was registered with the hospital in Gomel, and they suggested operating to straighten her legs. I didn’t take her because I was frightened. Because in some cases, they still remain lame. So she is still like that. Her sight is also very poor. In all of them their eyesight is starting to deteriorate. Aliona was born in 1997. At 3 months she had chronic bronchitis. They tested her for allergies at Gomel when she was 3 years old. Lots of tests. I consulted our doctor. He is a good doctor, and he said it was too soon, it was better to wait until she was 7, otherwise the allergy could be aggravated and it would be worse. This is Vitali, who was born in 1994. He doesn’t speak. His speech is affected. I worry about all of them: one is ill, the other needs something. It’s never ending.

  Nesterenko.—While they are young, you need to look after them; you have to.

  Mrs Skidan.—That’s not all. I had a little boy before Aliona. He fell ill and he died because of the flu. As soon as Aliona gets ill, I get frantic with worry. I immediately think it’s something serious. Apart from that… I think my children are lovely. They work hard at school, they get good marks.

  We are back in Lena’s house where she continues with her measurements. The spectrometer has revealed a very high contamination, 67 Bq/kg, in a baby who is still being breastfed.

  Nesterenko.—It’s too high in such a tiny baby, much too high. Let’s see how contaminated the mother is. Press your back hard against the back of the chair. What is your name?

  The woman.—Poleschiuk, Liubov Konstantinovna.

  Q.—When were you born Liuba?

  Liuba.—In 1974

  Nesterenko.—I can already see on the screen that the mother is very contaminated. We need to understand why?

  Q.—Do such young babies need to be fed with breast milk?

  Nesterenko.—The mother needs to be eating correctly so that her milk is clean. But in this case, when her levels of contamination are so high, the child needs, very quickly, to be given extra food that is clean. Because this is no good at all. Of course, nothing replaces mother’s milk. It provides the baby with natural immunity. Babies do not develop allergies when they are breastfed. But if her milk is contaminated, the whole immune system will be destroyed. We need to do something quickly… We will be able to see the figures soon; we need to just wait three minutes. Can you try very hard, Liuba, while you are sitting there, not to move your back while we are measuring—which food do you think is to blame? Is it the milk?

  Liuba.—Yes, I think so.

  Nesterenko.—Did you bring it to Lena to be monitored?

  Liuba.—No.

  Nesterenko.—Why not? It’s your baby we’re talking about. Your little girl is the most at risk from the radioactivity.

  Q.—But is it her milk that is contaminated or the cow’s milk? How does it work?

  Liuba.—No. it’s me who drinks contaminated milk.

  Nesterenko.—A mother who is breastfeeding passes all her radioactivity on to the child. The radioactivity is transmitted very efficiently through mother’s milk. It’s dangerous, especially if it is very concentrated. (The figure appears on the computer screen showing the levels of caesium-137).

  Nesterenko.—There we are, Liuba, the level is 173 Bq. For a breastfeeding mother, that’s much too high. We will give you some pectin pills. Give them to the baby too, but only half a pill, not more. She may get a bit of diarrhoea but don’t worry. If she does, just give her a little less... Lena will give you the tablets. Take them and your milk will purify itself.

  Q.—Should she stop breastfeeding?

  Nesterenko.—She needs to stop drinking contaminated milk, then she can breastfeed. But for a few weeks she will have to be careful. She should give the baby a mixture of breast and formula milk, because the baby is becoming very contaminated through her breast milk.

  Q.—How long will it take for her breast milk to be purified?

  Nesterenko.—She is 26 years old… So I would think she will eliminate about 50% of the radionuclides in a month, if she takes the pills and if she stops drinking contaminated milk. A month.

  So, let’s recap, Lena. You need to find out if everyone has been taking the Yablopect as they should. Meanwhile we will send you all the information about what people have accumulated in their bodies and the ways to improve the pastures. You should try to obtain fodder containing adsorbents, fertilisers…

  Lena.—We’ve been told that they won’t give us anything like that in our district.

  Nesterenko.—You need to write a letter to Kenik as I explained. If you write to him, I will go and see him. If you keep quiet, I can’t really do much. But it can’t just be you on your own, it needs several signatures , so that it isn’t just your name. You need to get other villagers to sign it… five or six people. Send this letter to Kenik and a copy to me. I will go and see him. I’m going to write to him myself to say that I’ve been here and that I have seen the field that is supposed to have been treated, and it hasn’t been done yet. I will tell him that you are not being given any clean fodder. I could also write to the president of the Vitiutkov district executive committee. They will have to do something; we’re going to pester them. They’ll kick up a fuss but they’ll have to do something anyway. This is what we want to achieve together. The bosses move on, but we have to carry on living here.

  Lena.—You know, immediately after the authorities have monitored the situation, everyone takes notice, but afterwards, they go back to how it was before.

  Nesterenko.—So we need to repeat the operation. In my opinion, your village should be measured at the beginning of spring, then in the summer when the cows are at pasture, in autumn during the mushroom season and in winter when you are eating preserved food, dried mushrooms, dried fish etc. At least four times a year. If we could do it, then people would always understand the situation they’re living in and they wouldn’t fall into bad habits. Because we don’t have sensory organs that can detect radioactivity. (Nesterenko addresses a woman who has come to be measured.) 12 Bq. Well done! That’s fantastic! How much did you measure before?

  The woman.—It was 33.

  Nesterenko.—Well done! What do you put it down to?

  The woman.—The cow is not giving any milk.

  Nesterenko.—Mushrooms?

  The woman.—No

  Nesterenko.—Game? Meat?

  The woman.—We only eat our own food.

  Nesterenko.—You see, if everyone was like you, I wouldn’t be worried. You’re doing it perfectly. May God help you to teach others to do the same.

  The woman.—Thank you, that’s what we try to do. (She smiles and goes off).

  Nesterenko was right. Kenik received the letters and took action. The village was given a milk separator, but then Kenik was replaced as director of Comchernobyl by Tsalko.

  That was April 2000. In January of 2001, a French team, the consortium ETHOS, financed by the European Commission and headed by a representative of the CEA (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique—the French nuclear lobby) had Nesterenko removed from the LRMCs in five villages that he had managed for ten years. They took his place, while having no mandate to undertake work in health or prevention. In 2004, Comchernobyl would close all the remaining LRMCs, apart from about twenty, which were financed by charitable associations from the West.

  June 2001

  I am transcribing the following conversation for the historical record. The reality of the ecological and health situation described by the witnesses has not changed and will continue for de
cades to come. “The bosses move on…”, but the medical situation is getting worse every year.

  The house that the Skidan family lived in before has burned down since our last visit. They are renting another house. The son, Seriozha, rides his bicycle in front of our car to the new house.

  Mrs Skidan.—Hello. You have come back to see us?

  Q.—We have come to see if your children are in any better health. Have they been measured since last year?

  Mrs Skidan.—Yes. They were measured in school. In any case, as you know, when the summer starts their radioactivity increases. When they were at the sanatorium, or when they’re in school in winter, their health improves. But in the summer, they stay here.

  Q.—Are they taking pectin?

  Mrs Skidan.—No.

  Q.—Why not?

  Mrs Skidan.—They were given it once in school. Seriozha was at the sanatorium, weren’t you?

  Seriozha.—Yes.

  Mrs Skidan.—Nina had some, that’s all. But the others haven’t had any. Nor have the little ones either.

  Q.—Do you know what the difference was between the measurement when we were here and the one that was taken a month later?

  Mrs Skidan.—The other time they took pectin and it had gone down…I think by about 20%. They took the pectin for about a month and their radiation dose had gone down.

  Q.—Are you treating the food the way Nesterenko advised? Are you eating mushrooms for example?

  Mrs Skidan.—No. The mushrooms… (She smiles, a little bit ashamed) The only thing was that they once asked for a little bit of girolles with their potato. Otherwise, we don’t eat mushrooms. But the milk is very radioactive too…

  Q.—You eat mushrooms? Do you like mushrooms?

  Seriozha.—Yes!

  Q.—And does Mummy soak them in salt water first?

  Seriozha.—Yes.

  Mrs Skidan.—We soak them.

  Q.—And blueberries?

  Seriozha (categorically)—No!

  Q.—Do they grow here in the wild?

  Mrs Skidan.—They grow here, but we don’t gather them. There, on the reserve the radiation is very high.

  Q.—You need to be very careful with fish and meat also.

  Mrs Skidan.—Here, we know we have to take care with all of the food. But we eat everything even so. Meat is monitored. The radioactivity in the meat exceeds the norm also. So does the milk and the potatoes, with strontium, doesn’t it? All the food, and we eat it.

  Seriozha.—So, what can we eat?

  Q.—What did you say?

  Mrs Skidan.—What can we eat? We don’t get paid enough.

  Q.—How old are you?

  Seriozha.—10 years old.

  Q.—And you already know about radiation and about the economy. You know that you can’t eat anything else! How many are there in the family?

  Seriozha.—Five.

  Q.—And where are the others?

  Seriozha.—At Grandma’s house.

  Q.—And how is their health?

  Mrs Skidan.—What can I tell you? They are ill… two of them have enlarged thyroids… with Sergei, it’s his eyes. He needs new glasses but we can’t get them here, we’d have to go to Minsk. The little one has a congenital dysplasia. You see how many complications she has! Her joints here, her hips, they are not joined together properly. It’s a malformation. When she started to walk—it wasn’t diagnosed early enough—the tibias were not growing straight… She has a congenital malformation of the hips. I did not take her to be operated on because I didn’t understand. I thought it was her hips that needed to be operated on if it was a malformation. But they wanted to break the tibias in order to straighten her legs. To break the bones and then straighten them. We didn’t take her and so she stayed like that. And she also suffers from high blood pressure.

  Q.—Is all this due to the contamination from Chernobyl?

  Mrs Skidan.—Yes. When we took our children to the health commission, they already knew that they were in the critical group. All of our children. All of them.

  Q.—What level of contamination is there in the village?

  Mrs Skidan.—Well, before, they told us it was between 10 and 15 curies. But this year, they said it was 5 to 10 curies.

  Q.—Why? They suddenly noticed that it had gone down?

  Mrs Skidan.—I don’t know. They just handed us the form: 10 to 15. And now it says 5–10.

  Q.—And what does that mean? Do you have fewer rights?

  Mrs Skidan.—Yes, when it was between 10 and 15, we got more benefits for the children. Now we get half of that.

  Q.—Is this decision by the authorities based on any scientific data?

  Elena Dubenchuk.—It’s possible that they have made the decision on the basis of the years that have gone by since the accident, or according to their own measurements, I don’t know. No-one has measured us here. Apart from Nesterenko, no-one has come to measure the inhabitants here; no-one has explained…

  Q.—You haven’t seen any scientists?

  Mrs Skidan and Elena Dubenchuk.—No.

  Mrs Skidan.—Our house burnt down. We are renting here. We lost everything. We weren’t able to save much. I went to see the president of the district. My husband is unemployed, and we have a large family. I’m not saying they should buy us a house, but they could at least lend us something. We do actually live in the evacuation zone. They told us it isn’t an evacuation zone any longer.

  Q.—It was before?

  Mrs Skidpan.—It was a voluntary evacuation zone. Some people evacuated from this zone. They gave them some money for their houses when they left. Now it’s finished.

  Elena Dubenchuk.—They just want to save money. You only need to look, for example, at the way the admissible level in milk is 100 Bq/l whereas in Russia it’s 50 Bq/l. Think about it—here, 50 Bq in the milk means it’s clean and in Russia it’s contaminated.

  Mrs Skidan.—They say categorically that this village is clean. But the cows have tuberculosis, and leucosis.

  Q.—The cattle are ill?

  Mrs Skidan.—Yes. They talk about improving the pasture, but the cows are still using the same fields as before. No-one treats the pastures. When you telephone they say they’ve been treated.

  Q.—Have you noticed any changes in the health of people living here and in children over the last fifteen years? Have there been any changes?

  Mrs Skidan.—Of course. First—I work at the hospital—there has been a big increase in tuberculosis. Secondly, there has been an increase in stomach cancers; that’s very common. Liver cancer. All cancers. And there is even something new: in general, with cancer, even if it spreads rapidly, there are early symptoms, the person loses weight for example… but now there are hidden types of cancer. We have had people ill with a constant high temperature. They have been sent to town. Their lungs have been X-rayed, and everything appears normal. Then, they are examined: liver cancer. This hidden type of cancer is becoming more common. Really very common. The men who drive tractors, who work in close contact with the soil, if they have been working for twenty five years or more, they are given early retirement… But nearly all of them die. Cancer… and then there are many cases of acute cerebral disease, haemorrhages.

  Q.—Are you talking about this village?

  Mrs Skidan.—Everywhere, it’s everywhere… Our hospital covers the whole district of Yurovichi. There have been many deaths. Tractor drivers dying at 55. There’s Klempatch, cancer of the stomach.

  Elena Dubenchuk.—Where’s he from?

  Mrs Skidan.—Chamochek.

  Elena Dubentchouk.—Ah!

  Mrs Skidan.—Then there’s Morek, Nedozhiv… cancer. We have cancer and tuberculosis.

  Elena Dubenchuk..—Because these tractor drivers work in the zone.

  Q.—In the zone?

 
Elena Dubenchuk.—In the evacuation zone. All the fields are out of bounds, but, we don’t know why, the collective farms ploughed, harvested, kept to the plan. All those workers are ill.

  We follow her into the yard, towards the vegetable garden. A small elderly woman with a friendly open expression is working behind the fence. The fences do not hide the faces of people and you can talk or wave hello. Nina, the little blonde girl with deformed legs, is standing in front of the fence and gives Romano a cheeky smile.

  As we are leaving, an old shepherd with a sad face—the very image of humility, like a character from a Dostoyevsky novel—goes by with his dog, and exchanges a few words with the peasant woman. In the West, he’d be seen as a tramp. The dog barks. The shepherd puts his hand on its head, strokes it and in a lilting voice, sings “She helps me, she helps me, Anna Ivanovna”. The little girl strokes the dog too.

  The shepherd. (to Romano, who is filming him)—Thank you! Thank you!

  The peasant woman.—When you go, who do you leave with the herd?

  The shepherd.—No-one.—I leave by myself. Alone, I am alone… little dog. (The peasant woman teases him good-humouredly, repeating “little dog”) Just us two, us two, little dog. Come to me, come here. There we are, my darling. She looks after me. Always. Come on… Thank you! Thank you! (He takes off his hat before Romano in the classic submissive gesture of the poor in Russia.

  Chapter VI

  VERY EARLY MORNING

  IN VALAVSK

  1.3 mSv/y, 5–15 Ci/km²; 96 km from Chernobyl

  In the distance are some sheep, and a cow on its own on the road. Mrs Kokhan, who put us up for the night, gets her cow out and calls to her neighbour—“Vasilievna! Vasilievna!” and she goes off towards the herd, that is gathering at the end of the village. Vasilievna gets her cow out, two young men pass, carrying scythes on their shoulders. “Hello!” Behind the fence a small dog yaps and goes away satisfied. In the distance we can see fields and a group of houses.

  A young woman puts two full buckets of milk down before the fence and covers them with a plank of wood. The milk collector lifts them up, puts them on the handlebars of her bicycle and rides off.