Status Updates From Bön för Tjernobyl: Krönika ...

This is already history—the history of a crime.

They took away all the Institute’s radiation-measuring equipment. They just confiscated it, without any explanations. I began receiving threatening phone calls at home. “Quit scaring people, Professor. You’ll end up in a bad place. Want to know how bad? We can tell you all about it.” There was pressure on scientists at the Institute, scare tactics.

Why did I make the copies? That’s the sort of country we live in. I always locked up my office myself, but I came back from a trip, the folders were gone. But I grew up in Ukraine, my grandfathers were Cossacks, I have a Cossack character. I kept writing. I kept speaking out. You need to save people! They need to be evacuated immediately! Our institute was the first to put together a map of the contaminated areas.

“No tiene sentido sufrir de este modo. Solo sé una cosa, que ya nunca más seré feliz”.

“[…] el arte es como el suero de un infectado: puede convertirse en la vacuna para otra experiencia”.

“Una vez más, nos dedicamos a sobrevivir. Toda nuestra energía se consume en esto. Pero el alma se deja a un lado. De nuevo el hombre está solo”.

The city had 700 kilograms of iodine concentrate for that very purpose [in case of a nuclear accident] but it just stayed where it was. People feared their superiors more than they feared the atom. Everyone was waiting for the order, for a call, but no one did anything himself.

“Cada uno encontraba alguna justificación. Alguna explicación. Yo he hecho el experimento conmigo misma. Y, en una palabra, he comprendido que en la vida las cosas más terribles ocurren en silencio y de manera natural”.

“El hombre ha resultado ser peor de lo que creía. Hasta yo misma. He resultado ser peor. Ahora ya sé lo que soy”.

In the civil defense instructions, you were supposed to carry out an iodine prophylaxis for the entire population if there was the threat of a nuclear accident or nuclear attack. Here we had 3,000 micro-roentgen/hr. But they’re worried about their authority, not about the people. It was a country of authority, not people. The State always came first, and the value of a human life was zero.

On covering up Chernobyl:
It was more like a conspiracy of ignorance and obedience. The principle of their lives, the one thing the Party machine had taught them, was never to stick their necks out. Better to keep everyone happy...I’d bet there’d been a call from the Kremlin, right from Gorbachev, saying, you know, I hope you Belarussians can keep from starting a panic, the West is already making all kinds of noises.