A Day Trip to Chernobyl

BY AWAKE! WRITER IN UKRAINE

The accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility 20 years ago was unprecedented. On April 26, 1986, one of the four reactors at the site experienced a catastrophic meltdown. After most disasters​—man-made or natural—​it is still possible to clean up and rebuild. Yet, this accident left behind contamination that has had longtime ill effects.

IN RECENT years, every May 9, former residents of towns near the site​—at times with friends and relatives—​have made a pilgrimage to abandoned houses that were once their homes. At other times they have gone for funerals. Scientists have visited to study the effects of radiation. In addition, Ukrainian tour companies have recently offered one-day guided tours of the area.

During June 2005 a front-page story in The New York Times told about short “chaperoned tours” of Pripet that “do not carry health risks.” * Pripet​—a city of some 45,000, located about two miles [3 km] from the reactors—​was established in the 1970’s. But it was abandoned​—as were many other cities—​after the nuclear disaster. Such places then came to be off-limits because of the radioactivity. At the time of the meltdown, Anna and Victor Rudnik had been living in Pripet for about a year. *

The much smaller town of Chernobyl (also the name of the nuclear facility) is about ten miles [15 km] from the reactors. Its former residents have for some years been allowed annual visits. Since Chernobyl is actually the Rudniks’ hometown, they have visited Chernobyl during this time. Let me describe the visit my wife and I made with them a few years ago.

Our Grim Holiday

We left Kiev, Ukraine’s capital city, on a two-lane road heading north. We passed through small towns where houses lined the road, tulips adorned the front yards, and people tended vegetable gardens. Between the towns, fields of corn, wheat, and sunflowers stretched all the way to the horizon.

At some point, though, we crossed an invisible boundary. No road sign marked the change, but we sensed it. Eerie silence pervaded the towns along the way. In the deteriorating homes, windows were broken and doors were padlocked. Weeds filled front yards, and gardens were overgrown.

We had entered the exclusion zone​—roughly 20 miles [30 km] from the reactors. “Towns within this area contain high levels of radiation,” Anna told us. “From here more than 150,000 people from dozens of towns and villages were moved to new homes throughout the former Soviet Union.”

Traveling on, we soon arrived at another zone, with a towering barbed-wire fence separating it from the rest of the world. Nearby,  guards in a wooden station​—resembling a customs control point—​monitored all traffic. A guard checked our passports, registered our vehicle, and then opened the gate.

We were now inside the restricted zone. Trees, fresh with new leaves, formed a green canopy over the road. Dense underbrush covered the forest floor​—certainly not the image of burned trees and shriveled shrubbery that I had imagined. Ahead, a white brick sign with blue letters identified the town Chernobyl.

On Chernobyl’s border sat a drugstore. Victor’s mother once worked there. A faded sign listing store hours still hung in the dusty, smudged window. Near the town’s central park stood the culture building. Anna reminisced about how she and other residents used to relax there after work, watching performances by various artists. The movie theater, named Ukraina, was nearby, where children once escaped the sweltering heat to watch the latest films in cool comfort. Sounds of laughter from a dark auditorium had long since ceased. Anna and Victor led us to their home​—a short walk from the town center. Untended trees blocked access to the front door, so we made our way single file through the overgrown weeds to the back door​—by then just a jagged hole in the wall.

Inside, utter devastation reigned. A mildewed mattress sagged in a rusting bed frame. Strips of wallpaper hung like dirty icicles. Anna stooped to rescue an old photograph from the rubbish strewn across the room. “I always wanted to return and find everything waiting for us just as it was,” she said, with sadness in her voice. “What pain it gives me to see our house turned to junk; our possessions stolen over the years!”

We left the Rudnik home and walked down the street. At one corner a group of people were engaged in animated conversation. We walked a quarter of a mile [half a kilometer] to where the road ended at a park on a bluff overlooking a calm expanse of river. The white flowers of chestnut trees fluttered in the breeze. There on the stairs winding down to the pier, hundreds once waited in 1986 to be evacuated by boat.

 Last year the Rudniks for the first time visited their former residence in Pripet. They had fled the city following the nuclear meltdown 19 years earlier.

A Time for Reflection

During April 2006, the 20th anniversary of the nuclear disaster is being commemorated by various kinds of observances. For many people these serve as a solemn reminder of man’s inability​—despite his sincere efforts—​to manage earth’s affairs successfully without divine supervision.​—Jeremiah 10:23.

Last September the results of a scientific report that reevaluated the tragedy were released. The report, which had been commissioned by the United Nations, said that the accident initially killed 56 people and predicted that only 4,000 deaths would ultimately be attributed directly to radiation sickness. Earlier predictions of deaths generally numbered between 15,000 and 30,000. A New York Times editorial of September 8, 2005, noted that the UN report “was attacked by several environmental groups as a biased attempt to whitewash the potential dangers of nuclear power.”

Victor, who learned about his Creator, Jehovah God, after the disaster, observed: “We are no longer depressed, since we know that when God’s Kingdom comes, such terrible accidents will never occur again. We look forward to the time when the countryside around our dear home near Chernobyl will recover from its present state and become part of a wonderful paradise.”

The Bible’s promise that earth’s original Paradise will be reestablished and expanded earth wide has become the firm conviction of millions of people since the Chernobyl disaster. (Genesis 2:8, 9; Revelation 21:3, 4) In Ukraine alone over 100,000 individuals have come to embrace that hope during the past 20 years! May you too be moved to consider the bright future that is promised for those who seek to learn of God’s purposes.

[Footnotes]

[Box/​Picture on page 16]

Monument To The Liquidators

This larger-than-life monument honors the Chernobyl disaster cleanup workers, known as liquidators. These put out the fire, entombed the smoldering nuclear plant, and removed contamination. Eventually, these workers numbered into the hundreds of thousands. It is predicted that some 4,000 deaths would be attributed directly to the accident and that most of them will be from among these workers.

[Pictures on page 15]

Chernobyl’s town sign, and its movie theater

[Pictures on page 15]

The Rudniks and their home in Chernobyl

[Pictures on page 16]

The power plant where the meltdown occurred, some two miles from the Rudniks’ apartment in Pripet (inset)