OKSANA MAKOWIEC
author poet writer
Chernobyl Nuclear
Oksana Makowiec English translation by Luda Alexandrova
(Dedication to the Anniversary of the Nuclear Disaster at the Power Plant)
The town of Chernobyl, the former district center, was located in the Kyiv Province among the picturesque woods and meadows of Polessye, surrounded by beautiful authentic Ukrainian villages. The area was famous for its enormously fertile black soil, which every year was producing rich harvests of fruits, vegetables, grains. The residents of the Chernobyl area at that time were considered to be wealthy. Many of them owned a farmstead with a main house built out of white or red brick and other auxiliary constructions. More often then not, you could see a garage, either for a car or a motorcycle. And the so-called “summer kitchen”: the place where the families spent most of their time starting spring and all the way through the fall.
Some people liked to spend the nights in that cozy and warm hut that had that familiar smell of freshly baked bread, cooked potatoes, herbs and spices. Maybe for some of them, when dozing off there in the quiet and warm night, it was bringing memories of their childhood, from long time ago when the whole family had lived in a small place like that “summer kitchen”.
Times change… And a lot changed after the nuclear station had been built; in no time the Chernobyl district became even more presentable. Rural roads became highways; you could hop on a bus in every village and get to town in no time; you could easily get to Kiev any day you would want to. And even more important was the steady job that many area residents got at that new nuclear power plant and substantial wages and salaries that they were earning while working there. Who can blame people for wanting to bring more well-being and prosperity to their lives and to the lives of their families?
Ukrainians are hard-working people, but it’s important not to hinder them from going forward, give them some free will, which was taken from them by numerous enemies so many times before (we’ll leave it for the history to decide who was right and who was in the wrong) and they will live as well or even better than people in West Europe.
On Sundays and holidays neighbors would get together in the sitting places in front of the houses to chat. And soon enough the conversation would steer towards the power plant: in low voices people would share the rumors that lately something had started happening at the plant. They called it “radiation release”, but it was going straight into the air… Would that mean the reactor was in need of repair? Or something was missed during the installation and it would be too hard to correct the error? And lastly: how dangerous that radiation was? Some voices were loud and optimistic, “There is a reason why they call this time “the atomic century”. “If it had been really that dangerous, they would not have built it close to so many densely populated cities and towns and in such a close proximity to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine; and they wouldn’t have built it so close to the main four rivers: the Dnieper, the Dniester, the Desna and the Pripyat, rivers that are the source of fresh water for millions of people in Ukraine.” But there was always somebody who would say that maybe that was exactly the reason why they had built the nuclear power plant right there… That suggestion would bring some grievous memories about the famine in the 1930’s, and the war in the 1940’s, when hundred thousands of Ukrainian people had perished and every Ukrainian family was effected by those losses. The older people would cross themselves, wiping the tears and whispering, “Eternal memory to the innocent souls; God, protect us from another disaster.” Was that people’s intuition working? Did they have a premonition?..
There was one more new construction in that area in the seventies. Actually the whole town.
In record time the beautiful new town of Pripyat was erected right next to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The town was built for the people, working at the plant. They liked to call it “Youth City”. Students, who were about to graduate from the Ukrainian colleges and universities, were dreaming and hoping to get a job at the Chernobyl Nuclear. One of the lucky ones who got that opportunity was Valery Pikozh, my colleague Zhanna’s brother. Zhanna and I worked together at that time at one of the offices of the Kiev Department of Farm Equipment. The office was located right in the downtown of Kiev, next to Khreshchatyk, on the street then named after the Red Army.
Zhanna just came back from her visit to the new place where her brother now lived. They had a house-warming party there. She was truly and sincerely happy for him. And to add to her happiness, her brother’s wife just had a beautiful baby-girl who was called after the proud Dad – Valeria. My friend succeeded in finding a comfortable baby-carriage for her niece and was waiting with anticipation for the so-called “May” holidays, when she would be able to go and see her relatives again. She was dreaming out-loud how they would celebrate the Easter together and baptize her little niece in that church that she had seen in one of the villages on her way back to town.
Usually a working day started at nine in the morning, but on April 27, 1986 I and all my colleagues came to work an hour or more earlier, as everybody was troubled by the news
about the catastrophe at the nuclear power plant. Nothing had been said yet about the size of the catastrophe, but people’s anxiety was growing with every passing minute, bringing them to despair. Soon after, the TV and radio stations broadcasted the news about the evacuation of the population from all dangerous zones. The town of Pripyat was named at the top of the list. All transportation available was sent to help evacuate the residents. The whole atmosphere in Kyiv and everywhere in Ukraine reminded one of the war time. The reservists were called up.
It will be a good time now to remind my esteemed readers that I’ve already shared my personal feelings and emotions I had been overtaken with at that trying times in the series of stories called “Chernobyl Saga”. And now, remembering it all over again (and it will never be forgotten), I am crying, like my friend Zhanna was crying then, when she couldn’t find her brother and his family.
As it became clear later the residents were not nearly prepared for the situation like that; nobody had any idea how dangerous it could be in case anything would go wrong; nobody knew what to do and how to protect themselves if the explosion had happened. The witnesses were saying the fire was visible from afar, and people were running towards it with buckets of water to help extinguish it sooner; children were trying to get higher: either on a fence or a tree top to be able to watch the magnificent bright flame.
When the evacuation was announced, people didn’t want to leave their houses, but they were assured by authorities that was a short-term measure and they would be back home in a few days. All, people were taking with them, was their important personal documents, few clothes, and food for a couple of days. By the time the buses and trucks started arriving to the houses, the radioactive smoke had replaced the fresh air of the picturesque Polessye. As a black raven, sorrow and grief ascended on the area, echoing thousands of voices wailing and weeping in despair. People just realized that what had happened was beyond terrible.
Zhanna found her relatives in a few days. They were staying in one of the villages not far from Zhitomir with the family that had agreed to give shelter to the evacuated from the radioactive zone. It was not easy for my friend during that troubled time to arrange any kind of transportation to move her brother’s family to her place, which was just a small apartment in Kyiv. Everybody who lived in the capital city was trying to take their kids to any place they could, as long as it was further away from the radioactive danger, the danger that seemed to move faster then wind. That was the reason all transport was unavailable. People were standing in lines from the early morning to get train tickets; one could see where the booking agency was from afar as the mile-long “live chain” would indicate its location; schools were closed before summer vacations were supposed to actually start. The parents’ concerns about their children were entirely justified. Standing in those lines, Kyiv residents were silent, sleepy; troubled by the common grief, they were asking each other about any news, expressing concerns about the future. Somebody brought the alarming news that not everywhere our children were received with open hearts and minds; in some of the republics people thought the Ukrainian children were bringing the radiation to their homes and were scared to help anybody who came from Kyiv as if they were infected with plague. There was even a rumor that stones were thrown at the train that was on its way to Armenia. The panic started among the population; it was escalating with each passing day. Fast enough all non-perishables disappeared from the shelves of the grocery stores. Windows at all apartments and houses were shut tight. It was unusually warm weather for that time of the year, but it was important to breathe that radioactive air as little as possible. For some reason the streets of Kiev were washed with water on a regular basis, and the beautiful chestnut blooms fell from the trees right away. I felt sleepy all the time…
Thank God, my son was at my parents’ place in the L’viv province at that time. I stayed in Kyiv and went to the office every day as many of my co-workers had left in a hurry with the families, using their vacation time. Who knows, maybe I would have done it differently now, but I was only twenty seven then and willing to take a risk.
Zhanna’s sister-in-law was young too; that morning she took her baby girl in a carriage outside to let her sleep on the balcony and enjoy fresh air. She didn’t know anything yet about the catastrophe at the nuclear power plant next door; she just knew that for some reason her husband was late to come back from his night shift. Suddenly a knock on the door. The neighbor was at the door with an advice to get some things packed, “There was a fire at the power plant…” There was no power at the apartment complex and TV and radio didn’t work. “What’s going to happen to my baby?” The new mother was running to her little girl. “What’s going to happen to us?” The realization dawned on her; eyes full of terror and fright, she knew now why her husband was not home yet.
I’ve learned now that they never returned to their cozy new apartment in the now dead town of Pripyat, which sits there as a horrific monument to the modern nuclear Sodom, the tragedy of the twentieth century. Eventually Zhanna’s relatives were able to move to a new apartment, and soon their little daughter became gravely ill…After cold winter and rainy March, here comes April, the month I like best of all as it brings the warm weather, spring flowers and hope for many years to come. In spring we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. For the For the holiday we usually color and decorate eggs, bake kuliches (Easter cakes), and put together beautiful baskets for our consecrated food; this is the holiday that every Christian anticipates eagerly every year. There are a lot of important dates to celebrate in our family in April: my dad’s birthday, my son’s birthday, my niece Yulia’s birthday, and soon I will add another one to my Birthdays. And every time when I encounter this day, I thank God for giving me one more time that gift of life that is more precious than any imaginable gifts.Never will I forget my motherland: big and small at the same time. How independent it is now, with all its new laws and statutes… Only Only the law of nature cannot be changed. And now, like many years ago, storks build their nests. They come back to their old nests built along the road on the tall tree trunks or just on the electric poles. These lanky beautiful birds don’t have any idea how perfectly they complete the scenery of my dear country. Oh, storks – storkie-birds, flying to and back… Many of your nestlings never left the nests in that nuclear poisonous spring of 1986. And not only the nestlings…Every year the most prominent ceremony for the world cinematography takes place in Hollywood (United States of America): the Oscars Academy Awards that are presented for the best movies of the year. One of the few unexpected surprises during the 2003 Oscars was the recognition of the documentary “Chernobyl Heart”. The short documentary is about the health problems children started developing after the Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe. While being presented with the Oscar Award, the director of the above mentioned documentary Maryann De Leo started crying. She certainly mentioned how excited and honored she felt receiving the award. But even more important for her was that the Oscar would help again attract the world’s attention to the Chernobyl
disaster, the memory of which had started fading away with passing years, and turn around people’s consciousness and memory. “That high radioactivity effects people’s health and all nature around in a negative way has been proved with no doubts”, said Ms. Maryann De Leo, while being interviewed by BBC. “It is necessary to continue research in that field in order to completely understand the destructive outcome of the Chernobyl catastrophe, which may take up to half a century according to the scientists and doctors.” “Chernobyl Heart” does not allow us to forget the tragedy, which through the ironic twist of fate, happened in Ukraine.
Chernobyl Techno-genetic Nuclear Catastrophe is the tragedy for the whole world, for the hearts of future generations.
……….
“Summers are passing by…
Springs are quietly floating away over the Earth.
The sequence is sacred –
When day is gone, night falls down.
But in my nightmare…
The dawn is not glowing in the East,
But the infernal redness
Touches the future of the next hundred centuries.
It’s not a morning star
Shining brightly…
And it’s not the sun rising radiantly.
It’s not the thunder or lightning,
And it’s not joyful time for us.
Atom’s now escaped, having been obedient once,
And it’s impossible to pacify the terrible power
That’s preparing its deadly poison for us.
…The Dnipro turned black.
Over the Pripyat smoky vicious clouds
Started crowding.
The tender Desna was exploding with
Deadly radioactive tornadoes.
Oh, woe to you, Chernobyl,
Nuclear, painful, fiery!
Taunting challenge and reproach to the mankind?
That recent hard, lethal, bitter
Nuclear spring…”
(Makowiec, Oksana “O, Chernobyl…”)