Anyone may perform this play but you may not charge an admission fee. Donations to help cover expenses may be accepted. Dalkey Archive Press.

VOICES FROM CHERNOBYL The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

by Svetlana Alexievich

(Adapted for performance by S. Spencer Smith)

THE WITNESSES, in order of speaking: NARRATOR LYUDMILLA IGNATENKO, wife of Fireman Vasily Ignatenko VALENTIN BORISEVICH, Physicist, former Head, Laboratory of the Institute of Nuclear Energy, Belorussian Academy of Sciences VASILY NESTORENKO, Former Director, Institute for Nuclear Energy, Belorussian Academy of Sciences SERGEI SOBOLEV, Deputy Head, Executive Committee, Shield of Chernobyl ANNA BADAEVA, a peasant who moved back to the contaminated Zone LARYSA Z., a mother

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NARRATOR:

Voices from Chernobyl.

From the book by Svetlana Alexievich, adapted by Spencer Smith.

On April twenty-sixth 1986, the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occurred in

Chernobyl, Ukraine, only 40 miles North of Kyiv, the capital and a city of three million people.

The Chernobyl disaster contaminated as much as three-quarters of Europe. We will never

know how many people died prematurely or how many children were born deformed as a result

of this tragedy. Only now [2008] is a leukemia epidemic being reported in New York City

among Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian emigres people who left their homeland after

Chernobyl. Leukemia is a cancer that takes about 20 years to develop.

Fortunately for the population of Kyiv, but unfortunately for the people of Belarus, the wind

that day blew mostly to the North. Over 485 villages had to be abandoned forever. Even today

approximately 2.1 million people (including 700,000 children) live on contaminated land. [You

may have more current statistics]

The voices you will hear are of people who lived through this disaster. The journalist who

conducted these interviews and shaped their words into a book put her own life at risk to do so,

and many of those whom you are about to hear have already died.

[PAUSE]

LYUDMILLA IGNATENKO, wife of fireman Vasily Ignatenko.

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LYUDMILLA:

We were newlyweds. We still walked around holding hands, even if we were going to the

store. I would say to him, I love you. But I didnt know then how much. I had no idea....

We lived in Pripyat, the dormitory of the fire station where he worked. On the second floor.

There were three other young couples and we all shared a kitchen. On the first floor they kept the

trucks. The red fire trucks.

One night I heard a noise. It was late, after midnight. I looked out he window. He saw me.

Close the window and go back to sleep. Theres a fire at the reactor. Ill be back soon.

I didnt see the explosion itself, just the flames. Everything was bright the whole sky. A

tall flame. And smoke. The heat was awful even there at the firehouse.

The smoke was from the burning bitumen that covered the roof. Later he said it was like

walking on tar. They tried to beat down the flames, kicked at the burning graphite with their feet.

They werent wearing protective clothing. No one told them. Theyd been called for a fire. That

was it.

Hours went by. Four oclock. Five. Six. At six we were supposed to go to his parents house,

twenty-five miles away from here, to help them plant potatoes.

Seven oclock. At seven I was told he was in the hospital. I ran there, but the police werent

letting anyone in. Other wives of husbands whod gone to put out the fire were there too. But

none of us could get in. Only ambulances. The police shouted, The ambulances are radioactive!

Stay back!

Finally I saw a friend who was a doctor in that hospital. Get me inside! I begged her.

I cant. Hes bad. They all are.

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I held on to her, wouldnt let her go. Just to see him!

All right, she said, But just for fifteen or twenty minutes.

He was all swollen, puffed up. You could barely see his eyes.

He needs milk. Lots of milk, my friend the doctor said. They should drink at least 3 liters

a day.

But he hates milk.

Hell drink it now.

We didnt know it then but many of the doctors and nurses in that hospital especially the

orderlies would get sick themselves and die.

At ten in the morning, the cameraman Shishenok died. He was the first.

I said to my husband, Vasya, what should I do?

Get out of here! Go! Leave! Save our baby!

First I need to bring you milk. Then well decide what to do.

My friend Tanya comes running in her husbands in the same room. We go in her fathers

car to town, buy all the milk we can find and come back. But they all started throwing up as soon

as they drank it. They passed out. They got put on IVs. The doctors told them theyd been

poisoned by gas. Nobody said anything about radiation. Only the military people wore surgical

masks. They were all over town, closed off roads, washed the streets with some white powder.

That night they wouldnt let any of us in the hospital. There was a sea of people. Vasya

came to the window and yelled something. I couldnt hear what he said, but someone did. They

were being taken to Moscow.

All us wives got together, decided wed go with them. We punched, we clawed at the

soldiers now it was the army all around, not the police. A doctor came out, said they were

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being flown to Moscow but we need to bring clothes. They clothes they wore at the reactor had

been burned. When we came running back with clothes, the plane was already gone. Theyd

tricked us.

NARRATOR:

VALENTIN BORISEVICH. Physicist. Former head, Laboratory of the Institute of Nuclear

Energy, Belorussian Academy of Sciences.

VALENTIN:

On that day I came into work at the Institute which was in a forest outside of Minsk. It was

wonderful weather, Spring! I opened the window. The air was fresh and clean, and I was

surprised to see that for some reason the blue jays Id been feeding all winter, hanging pieces of

sausage out the window for them, werent around. Had they found a better meal somewhere?

In the meantime, theres panic at the reactor at the Institute: the dosimeter readings are up

200 times in the air-cleaning filters. Thats very serious. That level is the highest allowable

during work in radioactively dangerous zones for a maximum of six hours. The first theory was

that a hermetic seal had broken on one of the heat generating elements. We checked and it was

fine.

At this point the internal radio announces that workers are advised not to leave the building.

The area between our separate buildings grows deserted. Not a single person. It was frightening

and strange.

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The dosimetrists check my office the desk is glowing, my clothes are glowing, the walls

are glowing. I get up. I dont even want to sit in my chair.

Is it possible theres an emergency at our institute? Some leak? And I was very proud of our

reactor. Id studied every millimeter of it.

We call up the nearby Ingalinsk nuclear plant. Their instruments are going crazy. Theyre

also panicking. Then we call Chernobyl. Nobody answers. By lunchtime we find out theres a

radioactive cloud over all of Minsk. We determined the activity was iodine in nature. That means

the accident was at the reactor.

LYUDMILLA:

I told my parents I had to go to Vasya in Moscow. My mother was crying, Where are you

going, pregnant the way you are? So I took my father with me. He went to the bank and took

out all the savings they had.

I dont remember anything about the trip.

In Moscow we asked the first policeman we saw, where did they put the Chernobyl firemen.

It was a state secret, but he told us. Hospital number six. It was a special hospital for radiology.

There, I had to bribe a woman at the door to get in.

Finally I get in the office of the head radiologist. Right away she asked, Do you have

kids?

I can see already I need to hide that Im pregnant. But I dont show yet.

I have two children, I lie. A boy and a girl.

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Good. So you dont need to have anymore. But listen. his central nervous system is

completely compromised, and his skull. And listen. If you start crying Ill kick you out. And

absolutely no kissing or hugging. Dont even get near him. You have half an hour.

There are twenty-eight of them who came on the plane. They all want to know about their

children or families in Pripyat. I tell them the whole town is being evacuated. One woman in

their group who had worked at the plant that day began crying, worried about her children.

I met a lot of good people at that time. I remember one old woman janitor at the hospital.

She taught me, There are sicknesses that cant be cured. You just have to sit and watch them.

Vasya started to change. Everyday I met a brand new person. The burns started to come to

the surface. At first they were little lesions. Then they grew. His skin came off in layers. Its

impossible to talk about this!

I loved him so much!

The told me fourteen days. In fourteen days he will die.

NARRATOR:

VASILY NESTORENKO, former director, Institute for Nuclear Energy at the Belorussian

Academy of Sciences.

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VASILY:

Someones going to have to answer for Chernobyl. Theyre criminals! The time will come.

It might be in fifty years, everyone might be old, they might be dead. So we need to leave the

facts behind us.

On that day, April 26, I was in Moscow on business. Thats where I learned about the

accident.

I called Nikolai Slyunkov, General Secretary of the Belarussian Communist Party. They

wouldnt connect me to him. I reached his assistant who knew me well.

Im calling from Moscow. Get me Slyunkov. I have information he needs to hear right

away. Emergency information.

Im calling over a government line and as soon as I start talking about the accident the line

goes dead. Even I was blocked. So I only hope the appropriate agency is listening.

It took me two hours to reach Slyunkov.

Ive already received reports, says Slyunkov. There was a fire but they put it out.

I cant hold it in. Thats a lie! Any physicist will tell you graphite burns at something like

five tons per hour. Think of how long its going to burn!

I get on the first train to Minsk. In the morning Im home. I measure my sons thyroid that

was the ideal dosimeter then. It registered 180 micro-roentgen per hour. He needed potassium

iodide. A child needed two to three drops in half a glass of solvent, and adult needed three to

four. The reactor burned for ten days, and this should have been done for ten days.

But no one listened to us the scientists, the doctors.

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On April twenty-ninth I finally get in to Sylunkovs office, the reception area. They dont

let me in. Im trying to get in, keep trying. I sit there till half-past five. At halfpast five, a

famous poet walks out of Slyunkovs office. I know him, He says to me, Comrade Slyunkov

and I discussed Belarussian culture.

I explode: There wont be any Belorussian culture or anyone to read your books if we dont

evacuate everyone from Chernobyl right away!

LYUDMILLA:

The hospital took away everything of mine, even my clothing and gave me a robe. All my

things were radioactive.

My father, sister and brother came to Moscow and brought me things. On the ninth of May,

Victory day from the War, Vasya asked me to open the window so he could see the fireworks.

Then he pulled three red carnations from under his pillow and gave them to me. Hed given the

nurse money and she bought them.

I ran over to him and kissed him.

Later I was in the hallway and I got dizzy. A doctor came by and took me by the arm. Then,

suddenly, Are you pregnant?

No, no! I was scared.

Dont lie, he sighed.

The next morning the head doctor calls me to her office.

Why did you lie to me? she says.

There was no other way. If Id told you youd send me home. It was a sacred lie!

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What have you done?

I was with him.

All my life Ill be grateful to that head doctor that she let me in. Other wives came, but they

werent let in. Only the mothers of the men. The were no longer fertile wouldnt give birth.

Volodya Praviks mother sat with him the whole time, kept begging God, Take me instead!

NARRATOR:

SERGEI SOBOLEV, Deputy Head, Executive Committee of the Shield of Chernobyl.

SERGEI:

Im actually a professional rocketeer. I specialize in rocket fuel, served at Baikonur, our

space-launch center. It was a miraculous time you give the people the sky, you give them

space! Every person in the Soviet Union went into space with Yuri Gagarin.

For family reasons I moved to Belarus, finished my career here. When I came, I immersed

myself into this Chernobylized space. It was a corrective to my sense of things. Id always dealt

with the most advanced technologies, but still it was impossible to imagine anything like this.

We collect donations, visit the sick and dying. We write chronicles, were creating a

museum. Sometimes I think we have a funeral parlor here, not a museum. This morning I

havent even taken off my coat when a woman comes in, shes crying not even crying, but

yelling: Take his medals and his certificates! Take all the benefits! Give me my husband! She

yelled a long time. And left his medals, his certificates. Well, theyll be in the museum, on

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display. People can look at them. But her cry no one heard her cry but me, and when I put these

certificates on display, Ill remember it.

Colonel Yaroshuk is dying now. Hes a chemist-dosimetrist. He was healthy as a bull. Now

hes lying paralyzed. His wife turns him over like a pillow. She feeds him from a spoon. He has

stones in his kidneys that need to be shattered, but we dont have the money to pay for that kind

of operation. Were paupers, we survive on what people give us. And the government behaves

like a money-lender. It has forgotten these people. When he dies theyll name a street after him

or a school or a military unit. But thats only after he dies. Colonel Yaroshuk. He walked through

the Zone and marked the maximum points of radiation. They exploited him in the fullest sense of

the term, like he was a robot. And he understood this, but he went.

At the reactor, they tried using robots machines to put out the fire. But the radiation was

too much for them. The robots couldnt function. So they had to send in men, human beings.

Soldiers.

Two hundred ten military units were thrown at the liquidation of the fallout of the

catastrophe. This equals about three hundred forty thousand men. The ones cleaning the roof had

lead vests, but the radiation came from below and they wore cheap ordinary boots. They spent

about two minutes on the roof each day and then were discharged, given a certificate and one

hundred roubles.

They were all young guys. Theyre dying now, but they understood that if it werent for

them...

They were a sacrifice. There was a moment when there existed the danger of a nuclear

explosion and the explosion would have been between three and five megatons. That would

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have meant not only Kyiv and Minsk, but a large part of Europe would have become

uninhabitable. Can you imagine it? A European catastrophe.

LYUDMILLA:

Finally Vasya was in a special bio-chamber, all behind a transparent curtain. No one was

allowed inside. Through the curtains they gave him shots and all. He got so bad I couldnt leave

the room. He called for me constantly. Finally the orderlies refused to work. They had soldiers

wipe the walls, change the bedding.

Then every day, someone died. Tischura is dead. Titenok is dead. Each death was like a

sledgehammer to my brain.

I remember someone saying, You have to understand, this is not your husband anymore,

but a radioactive object with a strong density of poisoning. Youre not suicidal. Get a hold of

yourself.

But I remembered how at home he always took my hand and held it all night while he slept.

So in the hospital I take his hand.

One night when were all alone, he says I want to see our child so much.

What are we going to name our child? I say.

You decide, he says.

Why me? There are two of us.

In that case, if its a boy, he should be Vasya, and if its a girl, Natasha.

One day I walk into the hallway and tell the nurse, Hes dying.

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What did you expect? He got sixteen hundred roentgen. Four hundred is a lethal dose.

Hes a nuclear reactor.

When all the men had died they redid the whole hospital. Scraped the walls, dug up the

parquet floors.

One day I leave Vasya to go to the cemetery with Tanya, for the burial of her man and

another one. When I came back, the nurse said Vasya had died. He called your name at the end,

and I told him youd be right back.

At the morgue they dressed him in formal wear. But they had to cut up the shoes and

uniform because they couldnt get him into it. His body was all swollen, distorted. At the end,

pieces of his lungs, his liver were coming out of his mouth.

In this formal wear they put him in a cellophane bag, then into a wooden coffin. They

wrapped the coffin in another clear bag. They told all of us that it was impossible for us to take

their bodies home.

They said, They are very radioactive and will be buried in a Moscow cemetery in sealed

zinc caskets under cement tiles. All you need to do is sign this document here.

VASILY:

Finally I get in to see Slyunkov and tell him we have to save these people. That in Ukraine

they are already evacuating. He says, Why are your men from the Institute running around with

their dosimeters, scaring everybody? Ive already consulted with Moscow, with Professor Ilyin,

Chairman of the Soviet Radiological Protection Board. He says everything is normal. Weve

thrown the army, all our military equipment into the breach.

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Now you should know, at Chernobyl we had thousands of tons of cesium, iodine, lead,

circonium, cadmium, berillium, borium, an unknown amount of plutonium 450 types of

radionucleides in all. It was the equivalent of 350 atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima.

I said to Slyunkov who had been director of a tractor factory, When they call people to

account, youre going to say youre a tractor specialist, and that you didnt understand what

radiation could do. But Im a physicist. I know what they consequences are.

But from his point of view, what was this? A bunch of physicists, some professors, were

going to tell the Central Committee what to do?

(PAUSE)

No, he and the others werent a gang of criminals. It was more like a conspiracy of

ignorance and obedience. The principle of their lives was never to stick their necks out.

Their worst fear was a panic and the truth would come out and theyd lose their jobs. They

just wanted to cover it all up. What had happened.

Believe me, If we were still the Soviet Union, still living in a closed system. People would

still be living right next to Chernobyl.

NARRATOR:

ANNA BADAEVA, a peasant who moved back into the contaminated Zone after the

disaster.

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ANNA:

My first scare was, in the garden and yard wed find these strangled moles. Who strangled

them? Usually moles dont come out from underground. And when my son calls from Gomel he

asks if the black flies are out.

No bugs, not even maggots. I tell him. No worms either.

So he says, Thats the first sign. If there arent any bugs or worms that means strong

radiation.

Whats radiation, I ask.

Mom, thats a kind of death. Mom, tell Grandma you need to leave. Youll come stay with

us.

But we havent planted the vegetable garden yet.

Sometimes I turn on the radio and they scare us with radiation. But our lives have gotten

better since the radiation came. Look around: they brought us oranges, three kinds of sausage,

whatever you want. And here, to the village! My grandchildren have been all around the world

to see doctors.

And what is this, radiation? Have you seen it? Some people say it has no color, no smell and

others that its black like the earth.

How they scare us! But the apples are hanging in the garden the leaves are on the trees, the

potatoes are in the field. I dont think there was any Chernobyl, they just made it up. They

tricked people. My sister and her husband left.

But there are things that happened.

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My Pa kept bees, five hives of them. They didnt come out for two days. They just stayed in

there. They were waiting. Pa didnt know about the explosion, but he was running all over the

yard saying what is this, whats going on? The radio wasnt saying anything then, but the bees

knew.

And if I think about it in every house someone has died. On that street, on the other side of

the river all the women are without men, all the men are dead. And, if you think about it, all of

our women are empty. Their female parts are ruined in one in three of them. In the old and the

young. Not all of them managed to give birth in time.

They scare us that even our water you cant drink. But how can you do without water?

Every person has water inside her. Even rocks have water. All life comes from water.

What else will I say? Who can you ask? People pray to God, but they dont ask him. You

just have to live.

LYUDMILLA:

Two months later I went back to Moscow. To the cemetery. There I go into labor. They

called an ambulance and took me to the same hospital, the radiological hospital. They showed

her to me she was a girl and I called out Natasha! Your father named you!

She looked healthy arms, legs. But she had cirrhosis of the liver. Her liver had twenty-

eight roentgen. And she had a damaged heart. Four hours later they told me she was dead. And,

again, they wouldnt give her body to me.

[Silence]

Im not suppose to yell since I had my stroke.

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When they brought me the little wooden box and said shes in there, I looked. Shed been

cremated already. Put her at his feet, I requested.

I always go to the cemetery with two bouquets. One for him and another for her.

I killed her! My little girl saved me. She took the whole radiation shock into herself, was

like a lightning rod for it.

I found a husband eventually. I told him everything the whole truth. Even that I have only

one love for my whole life.

I gave birth to a boy. Andrei. My friends tried to stop me and the doctors tried to scare me.

You cant have a baby. Your body cant handle it. They threatened that hed be born without

arms. But he came out fine. Hes in school now. He gets good grades.

I had my first stroke when Andrei and I were out walking together. I dont remember

anything, woke up in the hospital.

Andrei is also sick. Hes two weeks in school, then two weeks at home with a doctor. Thats

how we live.

There are many of us here in this new place a whole street. They call it Chernobylskaya. A

lot of them still go to work, part time. Nobody lives near the reactor anymore. But they go to

work there. Theyre scared of the reactor closing down. Who wants them anywhere else? Often

they die. They just drop dead.

No one asks us what weve been through. Nobody wants to hear about death. About what

scares them.

But I told you about love, about my love....

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VALENTIN:

At three-thirty fourteen hours later! we were informed there had been an accident at the

Chernobyl reactor.

That evening on the way back to Minsk on the Institute bus we rode for half an hour in

silence, or talking of other things. Everyone was afraid to talk about what had happened. Nobody

wanted to jeopardize his career, his family be called an enemy of the state.

There was a wet rag in front of my apartment door so my wife had understood my cryptic

phone call. Suddenly this fury took hold of me. The hell with this secrecy! I took my daughters

address book and my wifes and began calling everyone, one by one. I said theres a radioactive

cloud over all of Minsk. Id tell them what they needed to do: wash their hair, close their

windows, take the laundry off the balcony, drink iodine and how to do it correctly.

Peoples reaction was, Thank you.

I think they didnt believe me, or maybe they didnt understand the importance of what was

taking place.

That evening a friend calls, another nuclear physicist. He says hes hoping to spend the May

holidays at his in-laws in Gomel. Its a stones throw from Chernobyl and hes bringing his

little kids!

Great idea! I yell at him. Youve lost your mind!

He probably doesnt remember that I saved his children.

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NARRATOR:

LARYSA. A mother.

LARYSA:

Soon afterward, after the accident they wanted to evacuate our village. Then they crossed it

off their lists the government didnt have enough money. And right away I fell in love. I got

married. I didnt know we werent allowed to love here.

Many years ago, my grandmother read in the Bible that there will be a time when everything

is thriving, everything blossoming and fruitful, and there will be many fish in the rivers and

animals in the forest, but man wont be able to use any of it. And he wont be able to propagate

himself in his likeness, to continue his line. I listened to the old prophecies like they were scary

fairy tales. I didnt believe them.

My little daughter Katya shes different. Shes not like the others. Shes going to grow

up and ask me: Why arent I like the others?

When she was born she wasnt a baby, she was a little sack, sewed up everywhere, not a

single opening, just the eyes. The medical card says: Girl, born with multiple complex

pathologies: aplasia of the anus, aplasia of the vagina, aplasia of the left kidney. Thats how it

sounds in medical talk. But it just means, no pee-pee, no butt, one kidney.

On the second day I watched her get operated on, on the second day of her life. She opened

her eyes and smiled, and I thought she was about to start crying. But, God! She smiled!

The ones like her dont live. They die right away. But she didnt die because I loved her.

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In four years shes had four operations. Shes the only child in Belarus to have survived

being born with such complex pathologies.

[Stops for a moment]

I wont be able to give birth again. I wouldnt dare. I came back from the maternity ward,

my husband would start kissing me at night. I would lie there and tremble.

I heard the doctors talking: That girl wasnt born in a shirt, she was born in a suit of armor.

If we showed it on television, not a single mother would give birth.

I went to church and told the priest that I was there, nearby when it happened. He said I

should pray for my sins. But no one in my family ever killed anyone. What am I guilty of?

They made an anus for her. They made a vagina. But from here on they advised us to seek

medical help abroad. Where are we going to get tens of thousands of dollars if my husband

makes 120 dollars a month? One professor told us quietly, With her pathologies your child is of

great interest to science. You should write to hospitals in other countries. They should be

interested.

So I write. [Tries not to cry] I write that every half hour we have to squeeze out her urine

manually. How much longer can it go on? Take my girl, even if its to experiment. I dont want

her to die. Im alright with her becoming a lab frog, a lab rabbit, just so long as she lives.

[cries]

Tell everyone about my daughter. Write it down. Shes four years old and can sing, dance,

she knows poetry by heart. Her mental development is normal. But weve been living in the

hospital with her for four years. We cant leave her here alone. When we go home for a month or

two she asks me, When are we going back to the hospital? Thats where her friends are, where

these children are growing up.

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I wanted to get papers shed know when she grows up that its not our fault, my husband

and I. I fought for four years with the doctors, the bureaucrats. I knocked on the doors of

important people. It took me four years to get a paper from the doctors that confirmed the

connection between ionized radiation and her terrible condition. They refused me for four years,

kept telling me, Your child is a victim of a congenital handicap. They refused me for four

years. I studied my family tree every one lived till they were eighty or ninety. My grandfather

only died at 94.

The doctors said, We have instructions. We are supposed to call incidents of this type

general sicknesses. In twenty or thirty years, when we have a database about Chernobyl, well

begin connecting these cases to ionized radiation.

One bureaucrat yelled at me: You want Chernobyl privileges! Chernobyl vicitim funds!

Why I didnt faint in his office Ill never know.

Now I give pregnant women the strangest looks. I dont look I glance at them real quick. I

have all these mixed feelings surprise and horror, jealousy and joy. Even a feeling of

vengeance. One time I caught myself thinking that I look the same way at the neighbors

pregnant dog at the bird in its nest.

Oh, my girl! My Katya!

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NARRATOR:

The fourth reactor, now known as the Cover, still holds about twenty tons of nuclear fuel in

its lead-and-metal core. No on knows what is happening with it.

The sarcophagus was well made, uniquely constructed, and the design engineers from St.

Petersburg should probably be proud.

But it was constructed in absentia, the plates were put together with the aid of helicopters

and robots, and as a result, there are fissures. According to some figures, there are now over 200

square meters of spaces and cracks, and radioactive particles continue to escape through them...

Might the sarcophagus collapse? No one can answer that question, since its still impossible

to reach many of the connections and constructions in order to see if theyre sturdy. But

everyone knows that if the Cover were to collapse, the consequences would be even more dire

than they were in 1986.

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