Midnight in Chernobyl

by Adam Higginbotham

  But for all this apparent care: Oleg Schepin (deputy minister of health of the USSR), “VCh-gram from Moscow” [ВЧ-грамма из Москвы], May 21, 1986, archive of the Chernobyl Museum; Petryna, Life Exposed, 43 and 226n18).

  Back inside the zone: Baranovska, ed., Chernobyl Tragedy, document no. 91: “Materials of the Ukrainian SSR State Agroindustrial Committee on the state of the industry in the wake of the accident at Chernobyl NPP,” May 6, 1986; and document no. 135: “Proposal from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR on the organization of hunting squads for clearing the 30-kilometer zone of dead and stray animals,” May 23, 1986.

  Twenty thousand agricultural and domestic animals: IAEA, “Environmental Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident and Their Remediation: Twenty Years of Experience,” Report of the Chernobyl Forum Expert Group “Environment” no. STI/PUB/1239, April 2006, 75.

  Doza or Rentgen: Dyachenko, ed., Chernobyl: Duty and Courage, vol. 1, 78.

  Soviet contingency plans: Zhores Medvedev cites Leonid Ilyin, then the vice president of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences, as saying that the Soviet response strategy involved a onetime ejection of radionuclides into the atmosphere: Legacy of Chernobyl, 76 and 326n6. See also Anatoly Dyachenko, “The Experience of Employing Security Agencies in the Liquidation of the Catastrophe at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant” [Опыт применения силовых структур при ликвидации последствий катастрофы на Чернобыльской АЭС], Voyennaya mysl, no. 4 (2003): 77–79.

  Radiation experts were summoned: Natalia Manzurova and Cathy Sullivan, Hard Duty: A Woman’s Experience at Chernobyl (Tesuque, NM: Natalia Manzurova and Cathy Sullivan, 2006), 19.

  At first, the chemical troops: IAEA, “Cleanup of Large Areas,” 116.

  Some materials proved more recalcitrant: Wolfgang Spyra and Michael Katzsch, eds., Environmental Security and Public Safety: Problems and Needs in Conversion Policy and Research after 15 Years of Conversion in Central and Eastern Europe, NATO Security through Science Series (New York: Springer, 2007): 181.

  In yards and gardens: IAEA, “Cleanup of Large Areas,” 124.

  Soviet technicians tried: Klochkov, testimony in Dyachenko, ed., Chernobyl: Duty and Courage, vol. 1, 74.

  They sprayed the shoulders: Irina Simanovskaya, account in Kupny, Memories of Lives Given, 39.

  Specialists from NIKIMT: Elena Kozlova, author interview, Moscow, April 2017.

  Meanwhile, the threat posed: Polad-Zade, “Too Bad It Took a Tragedy,” 198–99; L. I. Malyshev and M. N. Rozin (both senior water engineers with the Ministry of Energy at time of accident), “In the Fight for Clean Water,” in Semenov, ed., Chernobyl: Ten Years On, 238.

  Close to Pripyat: IAEA, “Present and Future Environmental Impact of the Chernobyl Accident,” report no. IAEA–TECDOC-1240, August 2001, 65.

  Within ten days, the dense stands of pine: Nikolai Steinberg writes that the trees were already an unusual color, but not yet red, on May 7: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 56.

  The soldiers and scientists: Dyachenko, ed., Chernobyl: Duty and Courage, vol. 1, 79.

  In the fields of the collective farms: Zhores Medvedev, The Legacy of Chernobyl, 90–91; Manzurova and Sullivan, Hard Duty, 31.

  The specialists’ optimistic forecast: IAEA, “Cleanup of Large Areas,” 114.

  But in a place: The total amount of soil removed in the process of decontamination was about 500,000 cubic meters. Zhores Medvedev, Legacy of Chernobyl, 102.

  Encircled by a besieging army: By the end of 1986, more than 70,000 men and 111 military units would have served in the zone, according to Boris Scherbina’s memo to the Central Committee on October 15, 1987: “Memorandum, CPSU Central Committee, no. Shch–2882s” [ЦК КПСС № Щ–2882с], classified, in RGANI, opis 53, reel 1.1007, file 74.

  The detritus of combat: See Chernobyl: Chronicle of Difficult Weeks, shot by the first documentary film crew permitted access to the zone, for footage of the plant and its surroundings during this period.

  The banished citizens: Esaulov, City That Doesn’t Exist, 53–55.

  On June 6 alone: Baranovska, ed., Chernobyl Tragedy, document no. 177: “Report of the Ukrainian MVD on maintaining public order within the 30-kilometer zone and in locations housing the evacuated population,” June 7, 1986.

  Attempts to make Pripyat habitable: Esaulov, City That Doesn’t Exist, 51.

  The members of the Pripyat city council: Protsenko, author interview, 2016.

  On June 10, engineering troops: “The creation of the protective barrier in the Chernobyl NPP zone during efforts to liquidate the 1986 accident’s consequences” [Создание рубежа охраны в зоне Чернобыльской АЭС при ликвидации последствий катастрофы в 1986 году], Interregional Non-Governmental Movement of Nuclear Power and Industry Veterans, Soyuz Chernobyl, May 6, 2013, www.veteranrosatom.ru/articles/articles_173.html.

  A centralized electronic alarm system: “Evgeny Trofimovich Mishin” [Мишин Евгений Трофимович], Interregional Non-Governmental Movement of Nuclear Power and Industry Veterans, undated, www.veteranrosatom.ru/heroes/heroes_86.html.

  Around the edge of the 30-kilometer zone: Dmitry Bisin, account in Kozlova, Battle with Uncertainty, 202.

  By June 24, they had completed: Maleyev, Chernobyl. Days and Years, 68–69.

  A twelve-person committee met: Esaulov, City That Doesn’t Exist, 53–54.

  A five-month campaign: Decontamination efforts in Pripyat continued until October 2, 1986. Belyaev, Chernobyl: Death Watch, 158.

  A dedicated force of 160,000 men: Kozyrev, author interview, 2016.

  “Forget it”: Protsenko, author interview, 2015.

  15. THE INVESTIGATION

  When Sergei Yankovsky arrived: Sergei Yankovsky, author interviews, Kiev, February 2016 and May 2017.

  A strictly capitalist problem: For crime statistics during the later years of the Soviet Union, see Wieczynski, ed., Gorbachev Encyclopedia, 90–92.

  It had been two in the morning: Ibid.

  The investigation into the causes: Yankovsky, author interview, 2017. The deputy prosecutor general was Oleg Soroka, and the head of the Second Department was Nikolai Voskovtsev.

  That same evening: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 113; Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 47.

  A pair of experts on RBMK reactors: The scientists were Alexander Kalugin and Konstantin Fedulenko. See Read, Ablaze, 123; Fedulenko, “Some Things Have Not Been Forgotten,” 74–75.

  “Cause of accident unruly and uncontrollable”: Read, Ablaze, 126.

  By the end of the first week in May: Valentin Zhiltsov (laboratory director at VNIIAES, the Soviet atomic plants research institute), account in Shcherbak, Chernobyl, 182–83 and 186.

  Back at the station: Steinberg, recollections in Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 56–57; Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2015; Steinberg, author interview, 2017; Read, Ablaze, 201.

  “Damn it”: Yankovsky, author interview, 2017.

  “You don’t look well”: Grigori Medvedev, Truth About Chernobyl, 225–26, and “Chernobyl Notebook” [Чернобыльская тетрадь], Novy Mir, no. 6 (June 1989), available online at http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/CHERNOBYL/medvedev.txt.

  Two weeks later: Read, Ablaze, 201.

  “The cause lies”: “A Top Soviet Aide Details Situation at Stricken Plant,” Associated Press, May 3, 1986. In a June 1990 interview for the British documentary series The Second Russian Revolution, Vladimir Dolgikh, the Central Committee secretary who oversaw the energy industry, stated that Yeltsin called this press conference on his own initiative. Dolgikh, interview transcript, 2RR, 5.

  “The accident was caused”: Andranik Petrosyants, “ ‘Highly Improbable Factors’ Caused Chemical Explosion,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1986.

  Hardliners inside the Ministry: Read, Ablaze, 198. />
  The academician had returned home: Margarita Legasova, “Defenceless Victor: From the Recollections of Academician V. Legasov’s Widow” [Беззащитный победитель: Из воспоминаний вдовы акад. В. Легасова], Trud, June 1996, translated in Mould, Chernobyl Record, 304–5; Margarita Legasova, Academician Valery A. Legasov, 381.

  Nevertheless, Legasov threw himself: Inga Legasov, author interview, 2017.

  Meanwhile, behind closed doors: The document was also known as the “Act on the investigation of the causes of the accident at Unit no. 4 of Chernobyl NPP” [Акт расследования причин аварии на энергоблоке No. 4 Чернобыльской АЭС]. Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 113 and 146–47.

  In response, Aleksandrov convened: Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 48.

  The meetings went on for hours: Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 113–15; Shasharin, “Chernobyl Tragedy,” 105; Gennadi Shasharin, “Letter to Gorbachev (draft)” [Письмо М. С. Горбачеву (черновик)], May 1986, available online at http://accidont.ru/letter.html and in translation in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 214–17.

  But Gennadi Shasharin: Shasharin, “Letter to Gorbachev,” in Karpan, Chernobyl to Fukushima, 215–16.

  Viktor Brukhanov returned: The new director was Erik Pozdishev. Viktor Brukhanov, interview by Sergei Babakov, Zerkalo nedeli, 1999. The date of Pozdishev’s arrival was May 27, 1986, according to Steinberg (recollections in Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 61). Also see Read, Ablaze, 202.

  “What are we going to do”: The new chief engineer was Nikolai Steinberg. Steinberg, author interview, 2017; Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2016.

  Inside the headquarters of the Second Department: Yankovsky, author interviews, 2016 and 2017. The other two Ukrainian nuclear power plants, at Rovno and at Khmelnitsky, used VVER reactors.

  On Wednesday, July 2: Read, Ablaze, 201. (Read gives the date as June 2, but this is incorrect: the Politburo meeting held the next day was July 3.)

  By now, the deposed director: Viktor Brukhanov, interview by Maria Vasyl, Fakty i kommentarii, 2000.

  At precisely eleven o’clock: Michael Dobbs, Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire (New York: Vintage Books, 1998), 163.

  “The accident was the result”: Politburo meeting minutes (top secret, single copy), July 3, 1986, reproduced in Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl: Crime Without Punishment, 272–73. In his recorded summary of the meeting, Vorotnikov confirms Scherbina’s discussion of the shortfalls of the RBMK and its designers’ failure to understand and eliminate them: Vorotnikov, This Is How It Went, 104.

  By the time Scherbina had finished: Dobbs, Down with Big Brother, 163–64. See also meeting minutes excerpted form Gorbachev Foundation archives in Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Collected Works [Собрание сочинений] (Moscow: Ves Mir, 2008), vol. 4, 276–77.

  The meeting blazed on: Read, Ablaze, 202; Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl: Crime Without Punishment, 274.

  Slavsky continued to blame: Politburo meeting minutes, July 3, 1986, reproduced in Anatoly Chernyaev, A. Veber, and Vadim Medvedev, eds., In the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union . . . From the notes of Anatoly Chernyaev, Vadim Medvedev, Georgi Shakhnazarov (1985–1991) [В Политбюро ЦК КПСС . . . По записям Анатолия Черняева, Вадима Медведева, Георгия Шахназарова (1985–1991)], 2nd ed. (Moscow: Alpina Business Books, 2008), 57–62. Also see “The meeting of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee on July 3, 1986: On Chernobyl” [Заседание Политбюро ЦК КПСС 3 июля 1986 года: О Чернобыле], Gorbachev Foundation, http://www.gorby.ru/userfiles/file/chernobyl_pril_5.pdf.

  The representatives of the Ministry of Energy: Vorotnikov, This Is How It Went, 104; “On Chernobyl” [О Чернобыле], excerpt from the July 3, 1986, Politburo meeting in a compilation of Politburo protocols published by the Gorbachev Foundation, www.gorby.ru/userfiles/protokoly_politbyuro.pdf.

  Meshkov unwisely insisted: Chernyaev, Veber, and Medvedev, eds., In the Politburo, 58. Also see “On Chernobyl,” Gorbachev Foundation.

  “It is our fault”: Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl: Crime Without Punishment, 279.

  “The accident was inevitable”: Dobbs, Down with Big Brother, 164–65; Chernyaev, Veber, and Medvedev, eds., In the Politburo, 59–60.

  These were drafted into a resolution: “Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU: On the results of investigation of the mistakes that caused the Chernobyl nuclear accident, on measures to address its aftermath, and on the safety of the atomic power industry” [Постановление ЦК КПСС: О результатах расследования причин аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС и мерах по ликвидации ее последствий, обеспечению безопасности атомной энергетики], top secret, July 7, 1986, in RGANI, opis 53, reel 1.1007, file 12. The document was ratified by a unanimous vote of the Politburo on July 14, 1986, according to a signed voting sheet.

  “Openness is of huge benefit”: Gorbachev, Collected Works, vol. 4, 279.

  Not everyone agreed: “Catalogue of information pertaining to the accident at block no. 4 of the Chernobyl NPP that is subject to classification” [Перечень сведений, подлежащих засекречиванию по вопросам, связанным с аварией на блоке № 4 Чернобыльской АЭС (ЧАЭС)], July 8, 1986, archive of the State Security Service of Ukraine fond 11, file 992, online at the Ukrainian Liberation Movement electronic archive: http://avr.org.ua/index.php/viewDoc/24475.

  On his arrival in Kiev: Read, Ablaze, 202; Brukhanov, interview by Sergei Babakov, Zerkalo nedeli, 1999.

  On the evening of Saturday: Associated Press, “Text of the Politburo Statement About Chernobyl,” New York Times, July 21, 1986; Lawrence Martin, “Negligence Cited in Chernobyl Report,” Globe and Mail (Canada), July 21, 1986.

  At home in Tashkent: Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2015.

  Handed down its own verdicts: “Punishment for Chernobyl Officials,” Radynska Ukraina, July 27, 1986, translated in the BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, August 2, 1986.

  Eleven river cruise ships: Lyashko, Weight of Memory, 369.

  On August 12 the deputy chief engineer: Brukhanov, interview by Sergei Babakov, Zerkalo nedeli, 1999; Viktor and Valentina Brukhanov, author interview, 2015.

  Two weeks later, on August 25: Walter C. Patterson, “Chernobyl—The Official Story,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 42, no. 9 (November 1986): 34–36. For archival footage of Legasov’s IAEA appearance, see the documentary film The Mystery of Academician Legasov’s Death [Тайна смерти академика Легасова], directed by Yuliya Shamal and Sergei Marmeladov (Moscow: Afis-TV for Channel Rossiya, 2004).

  Legasov had spent much of the summer: Read, Ablaze, 196.

  And yet, glasnost or not: Alexander Kalugin, interview in The Mystery of Academician Legasov’s Death. Kalugin provides a similar summary of this note in his 1990 article “Today’s understanding of the accident” [Сегодняшнее понимание аварии], Priroda, available online at https://scepsis.net/library/id_698.html.

  While his notions: Read, Ablaze, 196–97.

  Legasov’s delivery: Steinberg, account in Kopchinsky and Steinberg, Chernobyl, 148–49; The Mystery of Academician Legasov’s Death. For specific parsing of Legasov’s language—and particularly the use of the word “drawbacks” rather than “defects”—see Walt Patterson, “Futures: Why a kind of hush fell over the Chernobyl conference / Western atomic agencies’ attitude to the Soviet nuclear accident,” The Guardian, October 4, 1986.

  “About half”: “Soviets: Half of Chernobyl-Type Reactors Shut,” Chicago Tribune, August 26, 1986. Fourteen RBMK units remained in operation at th
e time, according to Dodd, Industrial Decision-Making, Appendix D.

  By the time they departed: Patterson, “Chernobyl—The Official Story,” 36. Alexander Borovoi, author interview, Moscow, October 2015. Interview with Alexander Borovoi, “The Liquidator.”

  In the middle of the conference: Richard Wilson, author interview, Cambridge, MA, August 2016; Alexander Shlyakhter and Richard Wilson, “Chernobyl: The Inevitable Results of Secrecy,” Public Understanding of Science 1, no. 3 (July 1992): 255; Zhores Medvedev, Legacy of Chernobyl, 99.

  “I did not lie in Vienna”: As recalled by Andrei Sakharov, according to Shlyakhter and Wilson, “Chernobyl: The Inevitable Results of Secrecy,” 254.

  16. THE SARCOPHAGUS

  In the darkened room: Tarakanov, author interview, 2016; Nikolai Tarakanov, The Bitter Truth of Chernobyl [Горькая правда Чернобыля] (Moscow: Center for Social Support of Chernobyl’s Invalids, 2011). For documentary footage, see “Chernobyl. Cleaning the Roofs. Soldiers (Reservists),” a segment of the documentary series Chernobyl 1986.04.26 P. S. [Чернобыль. 1986.04.26 P. S.], narrated by Valery Starodumov (Kiev: Telecon, 2016), online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti-WdTF2Q. Also see Chernobyl 3828 [Чернобыль 3828], directed by Sergei Zabolotny (Kiev: Telecon, 2011).

  According to their height: Tarakanov, Bitter Truth of Chernobyl, 142.

  He named each area: Tarakanov, author interview, 2016. Radiation levels: Starodumov, commentary in Chernobyl 3828. Starodumov worked as a radiation scout at the time of this operation.

  As much as 10,000 roentgen: Yuri Samoilenko, interview by Igor Osipchuk, “When it became obvious that clearing the NPP roofs of radioactive debris would have to be done by hand by thousands of people, the Government Commission sent soldiers there” [Когда стало ясно, что очищать крыши ЧАЭС от радиоактивных завалов придется вручную силами тысяч человек, правительственная комиссия послала туда солдат], Fakty i Kommentarii, April 25, 2003, http://fakty.ua/75759-kogda-stalo-yasno-chto-ochicshat-kryshi-chaes-ot-radioaktivnyh-zavalov-pridetsya-vruchnuyu-silami-tysyach-chelovek-pravitelstvennaya-komissiya-poslala-tuda-soldat.