Kara

“His friend proposed to me. He'd been in love with me long ago, back when we were in school. Then he married my friend, and then they got divorced. "You'll live like a queen."
He owns a store, has a huge apartment in the city, he had a dacha. I thought and thought about it. Then one day he came in drunk: "You're not going to forget your hero, is that it?" He went to Chernobyl, and I refused. I'm alive, and he's a memorial.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“They held political discussions with us -- they explained that we were heroes, accomplishing things, on the front line. It was all military language. But what's a bec? A curie? What's a milliroentgen? We ask our commander, he can't answer that, they didn't teach it at the military academy. Milli, micro, it's all Chinese to him. "What do you need to know for? Just do what you're ordered. Here you're soldiers." Yes, soldiers -- but not convicts.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“You felt sorry for everyone there. Even the flies, even the pigeons. Everyone should be able to live. The flies should be able to fly, and the wasps, the cockroaches should be able to crawl. You don't even want to hurt a cockroach.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“They wash the windows, the roof, the door, all of it. Then a crane drags the house from its spot and puts it down into the pit. There's dolls and books and cans all scattered around. The excavator picks them up. Then it covers everything with sand and clay, leveling it. And then instead of a village, you have an empty field. They sowed our land with corn. Our house is lying there, and our school and our village council office. My plants are there and two albums of stamps, I was hoping to bring them with me. Also I had a bike.”
― Svetlana Alexievich, Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster