Chernobyl. 21 years later...
The terrible disaster at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant took place 21 years ago. We will not describe the already known facts from the official sources, but we’ll have a different look at it, from the direction of common human lives, with the eyes of ordinary people... + photos of Chernobyl and the town of Pripyat in 2006.
Native of Chernobyl, Nadezhda Udovenko, who helped to evacuate Pripyat residents, says:
- I worked as a tutor at Pripyat’s dormitory. We celebrated weddings on Satarday, and next morning our chief’s husband returned from the plant and told us about the accident. We pulled pillowcases on our heads and began to help people to get into the arriving buses. I was evacuated with one of the last cars.
Later on I sneaked back to Chernobyl to take a golden chain and money from my apartment. There was something inconceivable in the town: some people threw things out of windows, everything was bestrewn with broken glass, fragments of furniture, pieces of paper. A faded postcard flied up to my feet, I still remember it sad: “My dear! At last it happened – Victory Day came. Soon I’ll come back home. How is our little daughter getting on? She has already grown up. May, 1945.” Through the broken pane I put the postcard on the windowsill of the apartment on the ground floor.
Many of us were like insane then - all of a sudden we were deprived of everything, some people lost their relatives. That’s why our behavior was not always adequate. I remember coming into my apartment and stuffing into the bag the first thing that caught my eye – the crayons. For some reason it seemed to me I couldn’t do without them.
And my neighbour packed his knapsack with nylon shirts which had gone out of fashion long time ago…
Recollections..
Although I was nine and a half years old then, I recollect everything as if it had happened yesterday. My father worked at the power plant and on Sunday he as always went to work. He returned earlier than usual, and that day we were not even allowed to go for a walk out of doors, all day long my brother, sister and I stayed at home. And on Monday we were told that we would not go to school (we were extremely happy). And then the nightmare began. We packed suitcases, as we were going to the country for three days, we didn't have to study, I didn’t even take glasses for reading. And the most terrible memory is a column of buses. Even now when I see a column of pupils, it gives me the shivers. And at that moment I felt some kind of strain.
At our place we had pets – fish and a parrot. We put some birdseed for the parrot for three days, as you were not allowed into buses with animals. We couldn’t put much feed for fish, but we thought nothing would happen to them within three days. Then we closed windows in our apartment and went out to get into the bus, which waited for us near the porch....
