Voices from Chernobyl

This book, despite being relatively slim at 240 pages, took me several weeks to read because the first-hand or second-hand accounts were punches to the gut. I'm glad I got them. Chernobyl's reactor explosion was only months after the Challenger explosion in 1986. Somehow, my then 12-year old self was more affected by the Challenger explosion. Perhaps, some of that is to do with the Soviet cover-up and some was to do with what seemed like less coverage in the US. Or, I was off in some dreamland. While I didn't grow up in the era of duck and cover, as my parents did, the threat of nuclear war was real. “War Games” was out just a few years before, for crying out loud!

This is not a step-by-step explanation about exactly what caused the explosion and scientific steps about how it must be contained properly. Instead, it's about people. Real people. People who are a lot like you and me, but who can certainly drink a lot more vodka.

The author, Svetlana Alexievich, weaves together a chorus telling horrific tales about how a nuclear disaster has affected hundreds of thousands; the area surrounding Chernobyl is uninhabitable and will be for thousands of years. Half lives and the length of time this once-beautiful countryside will be dangerous are unimaginable by many residents, no matter how many privations they experienced in the past, as one interview subject explains. How can radiation be dangerous if you can't see it? There are gardens to tend and floors to sweep.

I did not feel a strong editorial hand in this history, certainly less than the great Studs Terkel; the author, who is also a journalist, went to great lengths to present different points of views from different members of the community. Each monologue has a unique voice, regardless of whether you hear from more than one wife of a liquidator. The interviewees were very open with the author, even when it was clear they wanted the after affects to reverse. I suspect that the translation is excellent and some credit for the book must go to Keith Gessen.

Certain monologues really stuck with me. The photographer, who is sent to show officials insuring the area to prove its safe (only after a road is freshly paved so they won't be contaminated by dust). Who notices that he can't smell anything and who wishes he had taken pictures of what really happened. The tales of wives of liquidators, some who died quickly, some who took years to die in agonizing pain. Precepts that having children was not for you! The patchwork shows you the impact on humans and how they were not served by a labyrinthine government.

“Voices from Chernobyl” should be studied in history class, not just because it represents true history, but because it's important to understand what can happen when mankind is callous with technology and the subsequent “cleanup” is mishandled.