I arrived in Ukraine on the eve of the 32nd anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. I had not intended for it to be the focus of my time in Kyiv, but leading up to my departure it became an obsession. My arrival in Kyiv on 25 April 2018 was maybe happenstance of planning but I was impelled to head straight from the airport to Slavutych. This was the town built to replace Pripyat and host the evacuated personnel of the Chernobyl power plant, after the decision was made to continue power production following the disaster. All of the Soviet republics were called upon to hurriedly help with the construction of what would eventually be the last atomic town.
Liquidators. This term became my obsession. They were the people who had tended to the Chernobyl fallout. A lesser known name for them was “the green machines”, a reference to the colour of their uniforms and the fact that, where machines would fail because of the unimaginably high levels of radiation, they would not.
What I saw in Slavutych at 1.24am, the time when the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl power plant exploded 32 years ago, was a solemn outpouring of raw emotion. Representatives of the church, scientists and members of the army mixed to pay tribute to a group of people who fought an invisible war against the atom. Later that day, at the town museum, a group of liquidator veterans had gathered for me to interview and photograph them. Following those encounters, I made my way to the home of another man, Iakov Mamedov. “There were 12 people in my hospital ward, only four survived. The others were just covered and taken away.”
Guide Vitali Poyarkov at the Chernobyl home he shares with his mother.
I knew I had to go to the exclusion zone. I had been in contact with the head of communications of the power plant and eventually was given approval to enter the plant and take photos. It is very simple to get to the zone as a tourist, as many operators organise day trips from Kyiv, but I wanted to go alone. Vitali was appointed as my guide to organise my itinerary and make sure I did not go where I should not. The 19-mile radius exclusion zone includes the site of the nuclear power plant, but also abandoned villages, a children’s holiday camp, the Duga military radar and it is inhabited by a group of people known as “resettlers”. After the accident, the zone was completely evacuated and locals were told they would have returned to their homes within two or three days. Residents , however, were never officially allowed back. Some people decided the need to stay in their home was greater than the risk of living in a radioactive area and illegally made their way back.
Svetlana Zaharchenko watched the disaster unfold from Pripyat and was 4 months pregnant with Jay; who was born with serious liver complications. Below; Svetlana Zaharchenko in Pripyat before the accident.
Soon after entering the exclusion zone, I discovered my permission to visit the station had been overturned. On the same day, in Chernobyl town – where 1,500 people still work, servicing the power plant – my guide and I remained locked in the local museum, and had to jump out of a first-floor toilet window to get out. Then I blew a tyre, which meant changing it under what I paranoically assumed was radioactive rain. It felt like a post-Soviet cloud of bad luck was following me in my every move.
Nuclear Power Plant – Chernobyl
The source of the nuclear fallout, now encased in a steel and concrete sarcophagus, can only be photographed from one angle, with tourists dutifully disembarking from their tour buses to snap the shot.
Nearby, there are cooling lakes full of oversized fish. They used to be farmed to feed bears for the local fur industry, but after the accident the furs were too contaminated to be worn and the fish were left to their own device.
The exploded reactor is amid an unfinished building site.
Nearby lakes are full of oversized fish.
An employee of the nuclear testing bureau in Chernobyl town. A shopkeeper in Chernobyl town, where 1,500 people still work servicing the power plant.
The people working at the power plant do so usually for 10 days at a time, to service, monitor and safeguard the power plant, which is about five miles away.
Resettlers
Resettler Vasiliy Semyonovych Razumenko at his home in the exclusion zone. Vasiliy claims to be 113 years old, although records say he is 95. He used to work at a shipyard in Odesa.
“Tell them this old bastard is still alive,” were his parting words. “Those men in the shipyard I worked with, tell them Vasiliy is still breathing.”
Hanna and Sonya Zavorotnya.
Hanna has looked after her younger sister, Sonya, since she was born. They live on their small farmed land, food brought by the military police and donations from tourists.
Pripyat
Pripyat is the closest town to the power plant. It used to be the shining example of Soviet modernity, with nuclear scientists from around the world visiting it every year. In the centre of the abandoned town sits the amusement park that was supposed to open on 1 May 1986. The rusty ferris wheel has become iconic of the Chernobyl dystopia.
Statues of Lenin have been removed from cities in Ukraine in recent years, but within the zone of alienation things must remain untouched.
Political party posters in the cultural centre in Pripyat.
The very nature of the disaster means that everything is frozen as it was at the time of the accident and nothing should be touched because of fear of radiations.
Surroundings
The exclusion zone covers around 1,000 sq miles. From the area, about 91,000 people were evacuated. Within the zone, there was a secret military facility containing part of the Duga radar system, a Soviet missile defence radar.
The Duga radar system is about 0.6 miles (1 km) wide.
The abandoned swimming pool in Pripyat, which was used in advertising for Pripyat in 1985.
The location that interested me the most was a children’s holiday camp that lays abandoned just off a main road in the zone of alienation. I had not seen many photographs of it before, but it seemed to sum up the thousands of innocent lives that had been affected by the Chernobyl accident, and the reasoning behind the unquestioning sacrifice of the liquidators.
Iakov Mamedov credits wrestling for his strength to survive.
What at first had seemed to me illogical self-sacrifice, not unlike the nonsense of going to war, started to make sense in this abandoned Soviet paradise.