Arthur Shigapov

ISBN 978-5-699-38637-6

Introduction

What you see, write in a book and send it to the churches in Asia...

So, write what you saw, and what is, and what will happen after this.

Apocalypse 1

Before you - perhaps the most unusual of all the guidebooks published in the world. He talks about how to go where you don't need to go. Where no “sane” person will go voluntarily. There, where there was a catastrophe of a universal scale, completely discarding the usual ideas about good and evil. accident on Chernobyl nuclear power plant changed the existing coordinate system and became a kind of Rubicon for the whole country. This is a symbol of a new troubled time, when the usual way of life is collapsing, and it is replaced by a cold emptiness and border posts with barbed wire on yesterday's busy roads. The decline of one of the great empires of the 20th century did not begin in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1991, or even in the Baltic States, which declared itself free three years earlier. It all started here, on a warm April night in 1986, when a radioactive rainbow rose into the sky over Ukraine, and with it over the entire country. Chernobyl is a zone of transition to a new time, where the ruins of the Soviet past are absorbed by a new environment, perceptible only with special devices. This is no longer a future post-nuclear era, but a post-human era.

It is all the more interesting to look beyond the edge of being and realize the scale of the tragedy that befell this once fertile land and the people who inhabited it.

"You are crazy? Are you tired of living? If not about yourself, then think about the children!”

How many times have I heard these exhortations from relatives and friends, going on another "extreme" trip, be it the mountains of Afghanistan, the vast Iraqi villages or the ruins of the Lebanese capital immediately after the Israeli bombing. A long time ago, when the trees were big and the soda from the machine was real, we young boys climbed dark basements and abandoned dusty attics in search of imaginary dangers. Years have passed, and now matured stalkers - adventurers on their own head - can be seen in the most uncomfortable corners of the planet, such as the Somali wilderness or a pass in mountainous Chechnya. But every time the danger can be seen or felt, whether it's fog on the famous "road of death" in Bolivia, which winds serpentine over the abyss, or bearded Taliban with machine guns at the ready, from which I once had to flee in the Afghan gorge of Tora Bora. The Chernobyl enemy is invisible, inaudible, intangible. It is recognized only by the crackle of the dosimeter, and this crackle dispassionately announces that the enemy is already here and has begun his destructive work. You cannot negotiate with him, you cannot pity him, he does not take payoffs and does not warn of an attack. You just need to know what he is, where he is hiding and how dangerous he is. Together with knowledge, fear recedes, the fear of radiation disappears - the so-called radiophobia. There is a desire to refute the philistine ideas about the Chernobyl zone as the territory of two-headed mutants and birch trees with fir cones instead of leaves.

This guide will answer many of your questions. It will help to gain an understanding of what happened here 23 years ago and how events developed further. He will talk about the dangers, imaginary and real. He will become a guide to the most interesting places associated with the accident, and will tell you how to get around obstacles - real radiation and artificial ones that timid officials piled up.

On one of my visits to the Zone, I rode incognito in an electric train carrying workers to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. “Welcome to hell!” read the inscription on the wall of an abandoned house a few kilometers from the final stop. What for some means an extreme foray into the radioactive hell, for others is just a daily commute to and from work. For some, exceeding the daily allowable dose of radiation is a reason for panic, but for someone it is a good reason for taking time off. Shift of coordinates or a new post-accident reality? Read this book and then try to see everything with your own eyes. Good luck with your travels!

Although this guide is out of line with ordinary guides to "city-countries", its structure is simple and clear. First, the author will introduce you to the history of the Chernobyl accident, and not from the moment the fatal atomic chain was launched, but much earlier - when decisions were only being made to build a new energy monster. This narrative least of all resembles a dry chronology of events and is rather a story-remembrance of the past, present and future. Only by realizing the scale and depth of the tragedy that has occurred, you can make a decision about the trip, otherwise it will turn into wasted time and money.

Radiation is invisible and intangible, its danger can only be assessed by clearly understanding its structure, dimensions and methods of exposure, as well as by owning measuring instruments. To do this, you are presented with the relevant section, which tells about the basics of radiation safety in a simple and accessible form. There is also a list of actually sold dosimeters. The author is in no way connected with the manufacturers and considers only popular models tested by many stalkers, whose advantages and disadvantages were discussed in detail on specialized sites.

The practical part included the most interesting places, significant from a historical and visual point of view. The cost of excursions and trips are real, published on the websites of firms, clarified through negotiations or paid by the author personally. The cost of hotels is given as of the summer of 2009, their description is the author's. In the "Informpracticum" section you will find all the necessary timetables and prices for travel by trains, electric trains and buses leading to and around the Exclusion Zone. The names of some villages and settlements given in Russian and local interpretation.

In general, the author conceived this guide as an interesting and useful book for the widest range of readers who are going to visit the site of the tragedy or are simply interested in Chernobyl issues. The monotonous scientific and academic style is left for other, specialized publications; it also expresses a deeply personal position, gained through suffering in the course of perfect travels, studied literature, viewed photo and video materials, meetings with employees of the nuclear power plant and the Exclusion Zone, self-settlers and representatives government agencies operating in the resettled areas.

Story. How it was, how it is and how it will be

In the beginning was the Word...

Chernobyl(lat.- Artemisia vulgaris, English “ mugwort”) is a species of perennial herbaceous plants of the genus Wormwood. The name "Chernobyl" comes from a blackish stem - a blade of grass (material from the free Internet encyclopedia "Wikipedia", website)

“The third angel sounded, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the fountains of water. The name of this star is Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from behold, because they became bitter ...

And I saw and heard one Angel flying in the middle of the sky and saying with a loud voice: “Woe, woe, woe to those who live on earth from the rest of the difficult voices of the three Angels who will trumpet!”

Apocalypse 8

Apocalypse Today. What does he look like?

Eyewitnesses of each era give the answer in different ways. The Holy Apostle John, who mystically predicted the events of the distant future, does not spare colors and amazes the reader with the scale of disasters:

“The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven to earth, and the key was given to it from the treasury of the abyss. She opened the well of the abyss, and smoke came out of the well, like smoke from a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the well. And the locusts came out of the smoke to the earth, and power was given to them, such as the scorpions of the earth have. And she was told not to harm the grass of the earth, and no greenery, and no tree, but only to one people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. And it was given to her not to kill them, but only to torment them for five months; and its torment is like the torment of a scorpion when it stings a man.”

Two thousand years later, an eyewitness to the man-made apocalypse, Yuri Tregub (shift supervisor of the 4th unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant), will describe what is happening in a language much more ordinary and much more terrible in this routine:

“April 25, 1986, I took over the shift. At first I was not ready for the tests ... only after two hours, when I got into the essence of the program. When accepting the shift, it was said that the security systems had been removed. Well, of course, I asked Kazachkov: “How did they get you out?” He says: "On the basis of the program, although I objected." With whom did he speak with Dyatlov (deputy chief engineer of the station), or what? It was not possible to convince him. Well, the program is the program, it was developed by the people responsible for the implementation, after all ... Only after I carefully read the program, only then did I have a lot of questions about it. And in order to talk with management, you need to deeply study the documentation, otherwise you can always be left in the cold. When I had all these questions, it was already 6 pm - and there was no one to contact. I did not like the program for its vagueness. It was evident that it was made up by an electrician - Metlenko or someone from Dontekhenergo ... Sasha Akimov (the head of the next shift) came at the beginning of the twelfth, at half past twelve he was already in place. I tell Akimov: “I have a lot of questions about this program. In particular, where to take the extra power, it should be written in the program.” When the turbine is cut off from the reactor, the excess thermal power must be put somewhere. We have a special system that, in addition to the turbine, provides steam intake ... And I already realized that this test will not take place on my shift. I had no moral right to interfere in this - after all, Akimov took over the shift. But I told him all my doubts. Lots of questions about the program. And he stayed to be present at the trials ... If only he knew how it would end ...

The running experiment begins. The turbine is disconnected from the steam and at this time they look at how long its run-out (mechanical rotation) will last. And then the command was given, Akimov gave it. We didn't know how the coast-down equipment worked, so in the first seconds I perceived… there was some kind of bad sound. I thought it was the sound of a braked turbine. I remember how I described it in the first days of the accident: as if the Volga at full speed began to slow down and skid. Such a sound: doo-doo-doo-doo ... Turning into a roar. The building vibrates. The control room (panel control unit) was trembling. Then a blow sounded. Kirshenbaum shouted: "Water hammer in the deaerators!" This blow was not very good. Compared to what happened next. Although a strong blow. The control room shook. I jumped back, and at that time a second blow followed. That was a very strong blow. The plaster crumbled, the whole building went down ... the light went out, then the emergency power was restored. I jumped back from where I was standing because I couldn't see anything there. I only saw that the main safety valves were open. The opening of one GPA is an emergency, and eight GPAs - it was already such ... something supernatural ...

Everyone was in shock. All stood with long faces. I was very scared. Complete shock. Such a blow is the most natural earthquake. True, I still thought that there might be something with the turbine. Akimov gives me the command to open the manual valves of the reactor cooling system. I shout to Gazin - he is the only one who is free, everyone on the watch is busy: "Let's run, we will help." We jumped out into the corridor, there is such an extension.

They ran up the stairs. There is some kind of blue fumes ... we simply did not pay attention to it, because we understood how serious everything was ... I returned and reported that the room was steamed up. Then… ah, that's what happened. As soon as I reported this, SIUB (senior unit control engineer) shouts that the fittings on the process capacitors have failed. Well, I-I'm free again. I should have gone to the turbine hall ... I open the door - there are fragments here, it seems that I will have to be a climber, large fragments are lying around, there is no roof ... The roof of the turbine hall has fallen - something must have fallen on it ... I see the sky and stars in these holes, I see that underfoot pieces of the roof and black bitumen, so ... dusty. I think - wow ... where does this blackness come from? Then I understood. It was graphite (the filling of a nuclear reactor. - Approx. Aut.). Later, at the third block, I was informed that a dosimetrist came and said that on the fourth block, 1000 microroentgens per second, and on the third - 250.

I meet Proskuryakov in the corridor. He says: "Do you remember the glow that was on the street?" - "I remember." “Why is nothing being done? Probably, the zone has melted ... "I say:" I think so too. If there is no water in the separator drum, then this is probably the “E” circuit heated up, and from it such an ominous light. I went up to Dyatlov and once again pointed out to him at this moment. He says, "Let's go." And we went down the corridor further. We went out into the street and went past the fourth block ... to determine. Underfoot - some kind of black soot, slippery. We passed near the blockage ... I pointed to this radiance ... showed under my feet. He said to Dyatlov: "This is Hiroshima." He was silent for a long time ... we moved on ... Then he said: “I never dreamed of such a thing even in a terrible dream.” He, apparently, was ... well, what can I say ... An accident of enormous proportions.

I am Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End

Apocalypse 1

The city of Chernobyl, which gave the name to the nuclear power plant, actually has practically nothing to do with it.

This town, known since 1127 as Strezhev, received its current name under the son of the Kyiv prince Rurik in late XII century. As a small county center, it remained until recently, passing from hand to hand. In the XIX century, a large Jewish community appeared in the town, and a couple of its representatives (Menahem and Mordechai of Chernobyl) were even canonized by the Jewish Church as saints. The last owners of the district - the Polish moneybags Khodkevich - were driven out by the Bolsheviks. It would have been so easy for a provincial town of Polissya to perish in historical obscurity, like thousands of its twins, if in 1969 the then authorities did not decide to build the largest nuclear power plant in Europe in its vicinity (at first, the state district power station appeared in the project). It received the name of Chernobyl, although it is located at a distance of 18 km from the "progenitor" city. The provincial log village was not suitable for the role of the capital of Ukrainian nuclear scientists, and on February 4, 1970, the builders solemnly drove the first peg into the foundation of the new city, named after the local full-flowing Pripyat River. It was to become a "showcase of socialism" and its most advanced industry.

For you say: “I am rich, I have grown rich, and I have need of nothing,” but you don’t know that you are unfortunate and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

Apocalypse 3

The city was built in a complex, according to a pre-approved master plan. Moscow architect Nikolai Ostozhenko developed the so-called "triangular building type" with houses of different heights. Neighborhoods, similar to their Togliatti and Volgodonsk twins, surrounded the administrative center with its district executive committee, the Palace of Culture, the Polesie hotel, a children's park and other objects, as they said then, "social and cultural life." In terms of their diversity and number per capita, Pripyat had no equal in the Soviet Union. In defiance of the cramped streets of old cities, the avenues of the newcomer turned out to be wide and spacious. The system of their location excluded the appearance of traffic jams, still unseen at that time. Residential houses formed cozy green courtyards where children frolicked and adults rested. All this made it possible to call Pripyat "the standard of Soviet urban planning", according to the title of the book by architect V. Dvorzhetsky, published in 1985.

The city was originally planned to accommodate 75-80 thousand people, so those 49 thousand that were actually registered at the time of the accident felt quite spacious. The station workers, of course, received separate apartments in the first place. Bachelor visitors relied on dormitories (there were as many as 18 in total), there were "hostels" and hotel-type houses for young married couples. There were almost no others in the city - the average age of Pripyat residents did not exceed 26 years. At their service, the builders handed over a large cinema, kindergartens, 2 stadiums, many gyms and swimming pools. By the May Day holidays of 1986, a "Ferris wheel" was supposed to be launched in the park. He was never destined to roll happy kids ...

In a word, Pripyat, according to the plan of its creators, was to become an exemplary city, where crime, greed, conflicts and other "vices characteristic of the decaying West" are completely absent. The apologists of a bright communist future did not take into account one thing - that along with new residents, old social problems will come to this oasis. And although former Pripyat residents usually characterize their former life as “happy and serene,” it was not much different from the widespread Soviet reality. It is not true that there was almost no crime in the city of nuclear scientists. The kids were really fearlessly let out on the street, and the doors of the apartments were often not locked, but theft of personal property was common. Bicycles and boats were especially popular with thieves. In V. Gubarev's play "Sarcophagus", a burglar named Cyclist robbed an apartment on the night of the accident and fled the scene of the crime in a two-wheeled vehicle. He was later covered by a radioactive cloud. “We doubt,” the locals grin, “while he was cleaning the apartment, his bicycle would have been stolen.” There were also murders in the city, mainly on domestic grounds, on the day of receiving a salary and its “washing”. The most high-profile crimes were the hanging of two young people on a horizontal bar in 1974 (the butcher of the Beryozka store was detained in this case) and the death of a young Komsomol girl in hostel No. 10 ten years later. She began to drive out the young guys who came to her and received a fatal blow to the head with a fist. The show trial was held at the Palace of Culture, where the killer received capital punishment. The old-timers also remember the armed robberies of the savings bank at the local Yanov railway station and the department store on Friendship of Peoples Street (1975). The youth also did not have a meek disposition: mass fights between local lads and visiting "Rex" happened all the time. This was the name of the builders, who, as a rule, came from Ukrainian villages who lived in hostels. The police did not remain in debt and since 1980 they have been intensively chasing companies of more than three people. Pripyat even had its own exhibitionist, who frightened the girls with his dubious "merits".

In the evenings, the audience walked along the local Broadway - Lenin Street, arranged gatherings in the Pripyat cafe and drank culturally on the river bank near the pier. The youth was torn to the legendary disco "Edison-2" by Alexander Demidov, held in the local recreation center "Energetik". Tickets were often not enough, and then the unfortunate palace was subjected to a real storm of excited dance lovers. This disco survived Pripyat for a whole five-year period, gathering in the new Slavutich.

Surprisingly for such a regime city, there were dissatisfied with the Soviet regime in it. In 1970 there was a certain riot, which remained without visible consequences. In 1985, a crowd of young people overturned several cars and seriously clashed with law enforcement, which was even reported by "enemy voices." Self-made printouts of dissidents circulated around the city, and the population listened with might and main to the Voice of America and the Air Force radio stations. The fact is all the more surprising when you consider that the largest radio tracking station Chernobyl-2, which will be discussed below, was located very close by. And yet, on the whole, local life was much calmer than in any other provincial town. The basis of the population were highly skilled workers and engineers, in whose interests there was a prestigious job at a nuclear power plant, where people with a tarnished reputation were not allowed.

In parallel with the construction of city blocks, the construction of four blocks of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was carried out. The site for it was chosen for a long time, since 1966, considering also alternative options in the Zhytomyr, Vinnitsa and Kyiv regions. The floodplain of the Pripyat River near the village of Kopachi was recognized as the most suitable due to the low fertility of the expropriated lands, the presence railway, river communication and unlimited water resources. In 1970, the builders of Yuzhatomenergostroy began to dig a foundation pit for the first power unit. It was commissioned on December 14, 1977, the second one a year later. The construction, as usual, faced a shortage of materials and equipment, which was the reason for the appeal of the first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine V. Shcherbytsky to Kosygin. In 1982, a fairly large accident occurred at the station - a rupture of one of the fuel elements (fuel rod), which caused the first power unit to stand idle for a long time. The scandal was hushed up at the cost of removing the chief engineer Akinfeev from his post, but all plans were fulfilled, and following the results of the five-year plan, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was presented for awarding the Order of Lenin. The first call went unanswered...

The launches of the 3rd and 4th power units are dated 1981 and 1983. The station was expanding, the project already included the launches of the 5th and 6th units, which meant constant well-paid work for thousands of new citizens. A large area has already been cleared for future residential microdistricts in Pripyat.

Antenna ZGRLS "Chernobyl-2"

Few people then knew that quite close, literally a few kilometers away, there lives another city, the super-secret Chernobyl-2, serving the over-the-horizon radar tracking station (ZGRLS). It is located in the forest northwest of the real Chernobyl, 9 km from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and is not marked on any map. However, its giant steel radar, called the "Arc" by the military, has a height of almost 140 m and is perfectly visible from everywhere in the district. About a thousand people served such a colossus, and an urban-type settlement was built especially for them with a single street named after Kurchatov. Naturally, it was fenced along the perimeter with a “thorn”, and warning signs were installed another 5 km before the restricted area. Sometimes they didn’t help either - the most mushroom places are located here, and KGB officers had to run through the forests for mushroom pickers, taking crops and screwing license plates from cars. Of course, such secrecy gave rise to a lot of rumors and rumors. The most popular one said that psychotronic weapons were being tested here in order to turn hostile Europeans into friendly zombies with the help of radio waves at X-hour. This version was seriously discussed even in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in 1993.

In fact, the only purpose of the ZGRLS was to track launches ballistic missiles NATO, the direction of capture - the countries of Northern Europe and the United States. Similar stations were built in Nikolaev and Komsomolsk-on-Amur. The Duga itself, unique in its size and complexity, was assembled in 1976 and tested in 1979. In the Chernihiv region, there is a powerful source of short waves that passed through the entire territory of the United States, were reflected and caught by the Chernobyl radar. The data was received by the most powerful computers at that time and processed. The complex also included the TsKS - the center of space communications. For its service, a whole complex with residential and technical premises was erected. After the Chernobyl accident, it was used to shelter soldiers who worked as liquidators.

Tracking station, Chernobyl-2

The proximity of Chernobyl-2 to the nuclear power plant is not accidental - the object devoured a colossal amount of electricity. Despite all its uniqueness, the radar had a lot of shortcomings. It was useless for detecting pinpoint missile launches and could only "catch" the massive attacks characteristic of a nuclear war. In addition, its powerful emitters jammed the conversations of aircraft and ships. European countries which sparked violent protests. The operating frequencies had to be changed, and the equipment had to be finalized. New commissioning was planned for 1986 ...

Was there any predestination for the events that crossed out the smooth course of peaceful pre-accident life? It is known that the inhabitants of nearby villages said: "There is a time when it will be green, but not fun." Eyewitnesses claim that some old women prophesied: “There will be everything, but there will be no one. And on the site of the city, feather grass will grow. You can condescendingly treat these "grandmother's tales", but there is a description of the dream of the master of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant Alexander Krasin. In 1984, he dreamed of an explosion at the 4th unit, he dreamed in all the details that took place two years later. He warned all his relatives about a future accident, but he did not dare to go to the authorities with this idea. The most famous such case of "prophetic dream" occurred a hundred years ago, when a reporter for the Boston Globe newspaper, Ed Sampson, dreamed of a terrible explosion on a distant native island. He wrote down his dream on paper, and by mistake the message was printed in all the newspapers. The reporter was fired for lying, and only a week later, battered ships brought news of the catastrophic eruption of the Krakatoa volcano, several thousand kilometers from Boston. Even the name of the island coincided ...

Be that as it may, the countdown was started, and "green, but gloomy times" were not long in coming.

Judgment Day

What preceded the blow that Yuri Tregub witnessed? And could it have been avoided? Who is guilty? - these issues were actively discussed both immediately after the accident and two decades later. There are two camps of irreconcilable opponents. The first claim that main reason catastrophes were the design flaws of the reactor itself and an imperfect protection system. The latter blame the operators for everything and point to unprofessionalism and a low culture of radiation safety. Both those and others have strong arguments in the form of expert opinions, conclusions of various examinations and commissions. As a rule, the version of the "human factor" is put forward by designers who defend the honor of the uniform. They are opposed by exploiters who are no less interested in saving face. Let's try to break up a third, independent camp between them, to assess the causes and consequences from the outside.

The reactor installed at the 4th block of the Chernobyl NPP was developed in the 60s by the Research Institute of Power Engineering of the USSR Minsredmash, and the scientific management was carried out by the Institute of Atomic Energy. Kurchatov. It was named RBMK-1000 (high power channel reactor for 1000 electric megawatts). It uses graphite as a moderator, and water as a coolant. The fuel is uranium, compressed into pellets and placed in fuel rods made of uranium dioxide and zirconium cladding. The energy of the nuclear reaction heats the water flowing through the pipelines, the water boils, the steam is separated and fed to the turbine. It rotates and generates much-needed electricity for the country. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant became the third station where this type of reactor was installed, before that they were "made happy" with the Kursk and Leningrad nuclear power plants. It was a time of economy - earlier in the USSR, and throughout the world, they used reactors enclosed in cases made of superalloys. RBMK did not have such protection, which made it possible to significantly save on construction - alas, at the expense of safety. In addition, the fuel on it could be reloaded without stopping, which also promised considerable benefits. The reactor was created on the basis of the military, which produced weapons-grade plutonium for defense needs. He had a congenital defect in the form of those same rods that regulate the chain reaction - they are introduced too slowly into the active zone (in 18 seconds instead of 3 required). As a result, the reactor gets too much time for self-acceleration on prompt neutrons, which the rods are designed to absorb. In addition, during the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in order to save concrete, the height of the under-reactor room was reduced by 2 meters, as a result of which the length of the rods also decreased - from 7 to 4 meters. But the most important imperfection of the protection turned out to be the complete ignorance by the designers of the effect of steam on the power of the reactor. In its transitional modes, the working channels were filled with steam instead of "dense" water. Then it was believed that in this case the power should fall, and there were no reliable calculation programs and opportunities for laboratory experiments. Only much later, practice showed that steam gives such a jump in reactivity, and in a matter of seconds, that the power increases a hundredfold, and the slow control rods remain halfway at the moment when the atomic genie is already breaking out of the bottle.

Simultaneously with the construction of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the city department of the KGB was deployed in Pripyat. The 3rd Division of the 2nd Directorate of Counterintelligence was engaged in affairs at the facility itself. His competence included collecting data on the construction of the station, its work, employees and the possibilities of sabotage and other activities of enemy intelligence. The first document of the Department, which had great analysts, was a certificate dated September 19, 1971, which assessed the technical characteristics of the future Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It noted that the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine had no experience in operating such facilities, a low level of personnel selection, and shortcomings in construction. Then no one began to listen to the Chekists. In 1976, the Kiev KGB sent a special message to the leadership of the department about "systematic violations of the technology of construction and installation work at certain construction sites." It contains deadly data: technical documentation from designers is not delivered on time, welded pipes of the Kurakhovsky KMZ are completely unsuitable, but accepted by the station management, Buchansky brick for building premises has a strength 2 times lower than the standard, etc. The concrete for the liquid radioactive waste tank (!) was laid with violations that threatened to leak, and its lining turned out to be deformed. The message ended, as usual, with the imperfection of protection from possible saboteurs, which was entrusted entirely to pensioners - Vokhrovites. But the "voice of the crying security officer" drowned in the desert of inaction. The first secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine and in fact the owner of the republic, Vladimir Shcherbitsky, reacted very sluggishly to the warnings of the chairman of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR Vitaliy Fedorchuk, sending another “duty” commission to the station. Well, by God, don't stop construction because the welded equipment of our Yugoslav friends from Energoinvest and Djura Dzhurovich turned out to be defective! And the fact that at high temperatures a threat of an accident is created - this still needs to be proven ...

Meanwhile, in 1983-1985, there were 5 accidents and 63 failures of the main equipment at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. And a whole group of KGB workers who warned of the possible consequences received penalties for "alarming and disinformation." The last report was dated February 26, 1986, exactly 2 months before the accident, about the unacceptably low quality of the floors of the 5th power unit.

There were also warnings from scientists. Professor Dubovsky, one of the best experts in the USSR on nuclear safety, warned back in the 70s about the danger of operating a reactor of this type, which was confirmed during the accident at the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant in 1975. At that time, only an accident saved the city from disaster. Employee of the Institute of Atomic Energy V.P. Volkov bombarded the leadership with reports on the unreliability of the protection of the RBMK reactor and proposed measures to improve it. Management was inactive. Then the stubborn scientist reached the director of the Institute, Academician Aleksandrov. He appointed an emergency meeting on this issue, which for some reason did not take place. Volkov had nowhere else to turn, since his all-powerful boss then headed the Academy of Sciences at the same time, that is, he was the highest scientific authority. Another great opportunity to overhaul security has been missed. Later, after the accident, Volkov with his report will make his way to Gorbachev himself and become an outcast in his Institute ...

On March 27, 1986, the Literaturna Ukraina newspaper published an article by Lyubov Kovalevskaya “Not a Private Matter”, which was hardly noticed by anyone. Then she will make a splash in the West and serve as proof of the non-randomness of the events that have taken place, but for now, the young journalist, with the ardor characteristic of those perestroika years, scourged negligent suppliers: “326 tons of slotted coating for the storage of spent nuclear fuel arrived defective from the Volzhsky metalwork plant. About 220 tons of defective columns were sent to the installation of the storage by the Kashinsky ZMK. But it’s unacceptable to work like that!” Kovalevskaya saw the main cause of the accident in the nepotism and mutual responsibility that flourished at the station, in which mistakes and negligence got away with the authorities. She, as usual, was accused of incompetence and the desire to make a name for herself. There were only a few weeks left before the adventurous experiment at Unit 4…

And Az saw that the Lamb had opened the first of the seven seals, and Az heard one of the four animals saying, as it were with a voice of thunder: "Come and see."

Apocalypse 6

His program, scheduled for April 25, was also designed to save money - it was about using the energy of the turbine's rotation at the moment the reactor was shut down. The conditions for the conduction provided for the shutdown of the emergency reactor cooling system (ECCS) and power reduction. The creators did not work out the issues of the reactor behavior and its protection in such modes to the end, leaving the prerogative of decision-making to the station personnel. The personnel acted as best they could, obeying the test conditions approved at the top, and making fatal mistakes. But can a simple engineer be blamed for consequences that are not foreseen by physicists and design academics? Be that as it may, the countdown had already begun, and the chronicle of the experiment turned into a chronicle of an undeclared tragedy:

01 h 06 min. The beginning of the reduction of power unit.

03 h 47 min. The thermal power of the reactor was reduced and stabilized at the level of 50% (1600 MW).

14h00. ECCS (Reactor Emergency Cooling System) is disconnected from the circulation circuit. Postponement of the test program at the request of the Kievenergo dispatcher (the ECCS was not put into operation, the reactor continued to operate at a thermal power of 1600 MW).

15 h 20 min. - 23 h 10 min. The preparation of the power unit for testing has begun. They are led by Deputy Chief Engineer Anatoly Dyatlov, a tough, strong-willed boss and one of the country's leading nuclear specialists. He is aiming for the chair of his boss Nikolai Fomin - a party nominee who is going to be promoted, and a successful experiment can bring him closer to the goal.

Curriculum vitae

Dyatlov, Anatoly Stepanovich(03/03/1931 - 12/13/1995). A native of the village of Atamanovo, Krasnoyarsk Territory. In 1959 he graduated from MEPhI with honors. He worked in Siberia at the installation of nuclear submarine reactors, where a major accident occurred. He received a radiation dose of 200 rems, and his son died of leukemia. At the Chernobyl nuclear power plant - since 1973. He reached the rank of deputy chief engineer and was considered one of the strongest specialists of the station. Convicted in 1986 under article 220 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for a period of 10 years as one of the perpetrators of the accident at the fourth unit. He received a radiation dose of 550 rem, but survived. Released after 4 years for health reasons. He died of heart failure caused by radiation sickness. Author of the book "Chernobyl. How it was”, where he blamed the reactor designers for the accident. He was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and the Badge of Honor.

00 h 28 min. With a thermal power of the reactor of about 500 MW, in the process of switching to an automatic power controller, a decrease in thermal power, not provided for by the program, was allowed to approximately 30 MW. There was a conflict between Dyatlov and cameraman Leonid Toptunov, who believed that it was impossible to continue the experiment at such a low power. The opinion of the boss, who decided to go all the way, won. Started power up. The dispute in the control room does not stop. Akimov is trying to persuade Dyatlov to raise the power to 700 safe megawatts. So it is fixed in the program signed by the chief engineer.

00 h 39 min. - 00 h 43 min. The personnel, in accordance with the test regulations, blocked the emergency protection signal to stop two heat generators.

01 h 03 min. The thermal power of the reactor was raised to 200 MW and stabilized. Dyatlov still decides to test at low values. The boiling in the boilers weakened and xenon poisoning of the core began. The personnel hurriedly removed the automatic control rods from it.

01 h 03 min. - 01 h 07 min. In addition to the six operating hydraulic pumps, two standby MCPs have been put into operation. The water flow increased sharply, steam formation weakened, the water level in the separator drums dropped to an emergency level.

01 h 19 min. The personnel blocked the emergency shutdown signal of the reactor due to insufficient water level, violating the technical regulations for operation. Their actions had their own logic: this happened quite often, and never led to negative consequences. Operator Stolyarchuk simply did not pay any attention to the signals. The experiment had to go on. Due to the large influx of water into the core, steam generation almost stopped. The power dropped sharply, and the operator, in addition to the automatic control rods, removed the manual control rods from the core, preventing the decrease in reactivity. The height of the RBMK is 7 meters, and the speed of the removal of the rods is 40 cm / sec. The active zone was left without protection - in fact, left to itself.

01 h 22 min. The Skala system issued a record of the parameters, according to which it was necessary to immediately shut down the reactor - the reactivity increased, and the rods simply did not have time to return to the core to adjust it. Passions flared up again on the control room control panel. Head Akimov did not turn off the reactor, but decided to start testing. The operators obeyed - no one wanted to argue with the authorities and lose a prestigious job.

01 h 23 min. Start of testing. The steam supply to turbine No. 8 was shut off and its run-out started. Contrary to the regulations, the personnel blocked the emergency shutdown signal of the reactor when both turbines were turned off. Four hydraulic pumps have started running. They began to slow down, the flow of cooling water decreased sharply, and the temperature at the entrance to the reactor increased. The rods no longer had time to overcome the fatal 7 meters and return to the active zone. Then the count went on for seconds.

01 h 23 min. 40 sec. The shift supervisor presses the AZ-5 (reactor emergency protection) button to speed up the introduction of the rods. A sharp increase in the volume of steam and a jump in power are recorded. The rods passed 2-3 meters and stopped. The reactor began to self-accelerate, its power exceeded 500 megawatts and continued to grow sharply. Two protection systems worked, but they did not change anything.

01 h 23 min. 44 sec. The chain reaction has become uncontrollable. The power of the reactor exceeded the nominal by 100 times, the pressure in it increased many times and displaced the water. The fuel rods became red-hot and shattered, filling the graphite filler with uranium. The pipelines collapsed, and water gushed onto the graphite. chemical reactions interactions formed "explosive" gases, and the first explosion was heard. The thousand-ton metal cover of the Elena reactor jumped up like on a boiling kettle and turned around its axis, cutting off pipelines and supply channels. Air rushed into the active zone.

01 h 23 min. 46 sec. The resulting "explosive" mixture of oxygen, carbon monoxide and hydrogen detonated and destroyed the reactor with a repeated explosion, throwing out fragments of graphite, destroyed fuel rods, particles of nuclear fuel and equipment fragments. Hot gases rose to a height of several kilometers in the form of a cloud, revealing to the world a new post-nuclear era. For Pripyat, Chernobyl and hundreds of villages around, a new, post-accident countdown began.

The accident took its victims in the first seconds. Operator Valery Khodemchuk was cut off from the exit and remained forever buried in the fourth block. His colleague Vladimir Shashenok was crushed by fallen structures. He managed to send a signal to the computer center, but he could no longer answer: his spine was crushed, his ribs were broken. The operators carried Vladimir out of the rubble, and a few hours later he died in the hospital.

Fires broke out on the roofs of the third unit and the turbine hall. The hall of the fourth block was blazing with might and main. To the credit of the people who worked on that fateful night, they did not leave the situation to chance and immediately began to fight for the survivability of the station. Computing center engineers saved the Skala system from floods pouring from the ninth floor. The shift operators restored the operation of the feed pumps of the third unit. The workers of the nitrogen-oxygen station did not leave their place and supplied liquid nitrogen all night to cool the reactors. Stunned by the explosion, Vladimir Palagel, junior inspector of the preventive monitoring service, transmitted an alarm signal to the nuclear power plant fire station.

Ordinary heroism

Firefighters must show courage, courage, resourcefulness, resilience and, in spite of any difficulties and even the threat to life itself, strive to complete the combat mission at all costs.

From the combat charter of the fire service

... That week was not warm in April. The trees are already painted green, the ground has long dried up and covered with grass. The traditional May holidays were already on the nose, and the inhabitants of Pripyat filled their refrigerators with food to capacity.

Curriculum vitae

Pravik, Vladimir Pavlovich(06/13/1962 - 05/11/1986) - head of the guard of the 2nd paramilitary fire department for the protection of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Born on June 13, 1962 in the city of Chernobyl, Kyiv region Ukrainian SSR in the employee's family. Secondary education.

In the internal affairs bodies of the USSR since 1979. In 1982 he graduated from Cherkasy fire technical school Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR. He loved radio work, photography. He was an active worker, chief of staff of the Komsomol Searchlight. My wife graduated from a music school and taught music in a kindergarten. A month before the accident, a daughter was born in the family.

While extinguishing a fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Pravik received a high dose of radiation. With poor health, he was sent to Moscow for treatment. He died in the 6th clinical hospital on May 11, 1986. He was buried in Moscow at the Mitinsky cemetery.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of September 25, 1986, for courage, heroism and selfless actions shown during the liquidation of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union. Awarded the Order of Lenin. Enlisted forever in the lists personnel militarized fire brigade of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Kyiv Regional Executive Committee. The monument to the Hero was erected in the city of Irpin, Kyiv region. The name of the Hero is immortalized on the marble slab of the memorial "Chernobyl Heroes", erected in the park on the boulevard of the Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv.

The city was sleeping and seeing its last peaceful dreams, when a bell rang on the control panel of the HPV-2 duty officer in charge of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Lieutenant Vladimir Pravik, who was in charge of the guard, immediately understood the seriousness of the situation and gave a regional fire danger signal (No. 3) on the radio.

The fact is that it was the second part that was directly responsible for the station, and the sixth served the city. At numerous exercises, the fighters tested the extinguishing technology at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant to automaticity, but this level of complexity was considered only theoretically. The outfit of the sixth unit, led by Lieutenant Viktor Kibenok, arrived almost simultaneously with their colleagues, since the distance from Pripyat to the station is much shorter than from Chernobyl.

These two young guys once studied together at the same school, and now they were alone in front of the fire-breathing mouth of the underworld and were not afraid of him. They led their comrades behind them - 27 people in all - and not one flinched, did not hint at mortal danger. Pravik took command as the first officer to arrive at the fire site. At that time, the turbine hall was already burning with might and main, the roof was on fire, and the pieces of graphite thrown out of the active zone “shone” with death itself. According to the Combat Manual, the commander must conduct reconnaissance, identify the source of the fire and the method of suppressing it. The young lieutenant quickly climbed to the roof and stopped, dumbfounded by an unprecedented sight. Before him, the first man in history, a radioactive volcano opened its torn inside, spewing the otherworldly light of its red-hot bowels. It so happened that the first man was not afraid of almost inevitable death, did not step back, but stood with his comrades as a wall in the path of fire. The roof of the turbine hall of the third unit was flooded with combustible material - bitumen - it was hurriedly handed over for the next congress, the refractory coating was not delivered, and the builders used the one that was at hand, despite all the protests of the firefighters. Now it's time to take the rap for all the sins of that system, for the victorious reports on early surrender, for gross violations of technology and a disregard for safety.

Curriculum vitae

Kibenok, Viktor Nikolaevich- head of the guard of the 6th paramilitary fire brigade for the protection of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, lieutenant of the internal service.

Born on February 17, 1963 in the village of Ivanovka, Nizhneserogozsky District Kherson region Ukrainian SSR in the family of an employee. Ukrainian. Secondary education.

In the internal affairs bodies of the USSR since 1980. In 1984 he graduated from the Cherkasy fire-technical school of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

While extinguishing a fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, he received a high dose of radiation. With poor health, he was sent to Moscow for treatment. He died in the 6th clinical hospital on May 11, 1986. He was buried in Moscow at the Mitinsky cemetery.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of September 25, 1986, for courage, heroism and selfless actions shown during the liquidation of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, he was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Awarded the Order of Lenin, medals.

Forever enlisted in the lists of personnel of the paramilitary fire brigade of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Kyiv Regional Executive Committee. The name is immortalized on the marble slab of the memorial "Chernobyl Heroes", erected in the park on the boulevard of the Verkhovna Rada in Kyiv.

Pravik took Tishchura and Titenok, fighters from the sixth part, with him to the roof. The roof burned in many places, boots got stuck in hot bitumen. The lieutenant took over the extinguishing from the fire barrel, and the soldiers began to throw down burning graphite.

Who knows whether they imagined the level of radiation emanating from these pieces or not.

Meanwhile, Kibenok went straight to the fourth reactor, where the fire danger was lower, but the radiation went off scale for hundreds of roentgens per hour - the level of imminent death. The fire threatened to spread to the third operating reactor, and then the consequences would become unpredictable. Subordinates took turns standing at the fire carriage, and only the commander did not leave his post for a minute.

On April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl disaster occurred. The consequences of this tragedy are still being felt throughout the world. She spawned many amazing stories. Below are ten stories that you probably did not know about the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.

The buried village of Kopachi

After the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) and the evacuation of the inhabitants of the adjacent territory, the authorities decided to completely bury the village of Kopachi (Kyiv region, Ukraine), which was heavily contaminated with radiation, in order to prevent its further spread.

By order of the government, the entire settlement was demolished, with the exception of two buildings. After that, all the debris was buried deep in the ground. However, such a move only exacerbated the situation, since radioactive chemical substances entered the local groundwater.

At present, the territory of the former village of Kopachi is overgrown with grass. The only thing left of it is the warning signs of radiation hazard, which stand near each place where this or that building was buried.

The cause of the Chernobyl accident was a successful experiment

The experiment using the reactor of the 4th power unit, which directly led to the disaster, was actually designed to improve the safety of its operation. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant had diesel generators that continued to power the cooling system pumps even when the reactor itself was turned off.

However, there was a one minute difference between the shutdown of the reactor and the generators reaching full power, a period that did not suit the operators of the nuclear power plant. They modified the turbine in such a way that it continued to rotate after the reactor was shut down. Without approval from higher authorities, the director of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant decided to launch a full-scale test of this safety function.

However, during the experiment, the reactor power fell below the expected level. This led to reactor instability, which was successfully countered by automated systems.

And although the test was successful, the reactor itself experienced a powerful surge of energy, from which it literally blew the roof off. This was one of the worst disasters in human history.

Chernobyl nuclear power plant continued to operate until 2000

After the work to eliminate the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was stopped, the Soviet Union continued to operate the remaining reactors until its collapse and the declaration of independence of Ukraine. In 1991, the Ukrainian authorities announced that in two years they would completely close the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

However, chronic energy shortages forced the Ukrainian government to postpone the shutdown of the nuclear power plant. However, the country did not have money to pay workers at nuclear power plants, so at least 100 safety incidents occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant every year. In 2000, 14 years after the Chernobyl disaster, the President of Ukraine, under strong pressure from the leaders of other countries, finally decided to permanently close the nuclear power plant. In exchange, he was promised one billion dollars to build two new nuclear reactors. The money was allocated, but no reactors, no money ...

In 1991, a second fire broke out at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Given the gross safety violations, poor maintenance and lack of professional training of the personnel of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it is not surprising that after the 1986 disaster, another tragedy occurred here at one of the remaining steam generators.

In 1991, a fire started at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the steam turbines that produce electricity at the 2nd reactor were transferred to a planned Maintenance. It was necessary to turn off the reactor, but instead, automated mechanisms accidentally rebooted it.

splash electrical energy caused a fire in the turbine hall. Due to the release of accumulated hydrogen, the roof caught fire. Part of it collapsed, but the fire was extinguished before it could spread to the reactors.

Consequences of the Chernobyl disaster cost national budgets dearly

Since the disaster was radioactive in nature, the protection of the exclusion zone, the resettlement of people, the provision of medical and social assistance victims and much more initially took a huge amount of money.

In 2005, almost twenty years after the catastrophe, the Ukrainian government continued to spend 5-7 percent of the national budget on Chernobyl-related programs, after the new president Poroshenko came to power, spending fell sharply. In neighboring Belarus, authorities in the first year after the collapse of the Soviet Union spent more than 22 percent of the national budget on reimbursing expenses related to the consequences of the Chernobyl tragedy. Today, this figure has decreased to 5.7 percent, but it is still a lot.

Obviously, government spending in this regard will be unsustainable in the long run.

The myth of the brave divers

And although the fire formed as a result of the first explosion was quickly eliminated, molten nuclear fuel continued to remain under the ruins of the reactor, which posed a huge threat. If it had reacted with the coolant (water) below the reactor, it could have destroyed the entire object.

According to legend, three volunteer divers, in the face of lethal radiation, dived into a pool of water located under the reactor and drained it. They died soon after, but they managed to save the lives of millions of people. Real story much more down to earth.

Three men actually went down under the reactor to drain the pool, but the water level in the basement of the building was only knee-deep. In addition, they knew exactly where the water drain valve was located, so they completed the task without any difficulty. Unfortunately, the fact that they soon died is true.

Swedish radiation detectors

On the day when the Chernobyl disaster occurred, the “Radiation Hazard” signal went off at the Swedish nuclear power plant Forsmark. Emergency protocols were activated and most workers were evacuated. For almost a day, the Swedish authorities tried to establish what was happening at the Forsmark, as well as other nuclear facilities in the Scandinavian countries.

By the end of the day, it became clear that the likely source of radiation was in the territory of the Soviet Union. It was only three days later that the Soviet authorities informed the world about what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Eventually northern countries received a significant part of the Chernobyl radiation.

The exclusion zone has turned into a nature reserve

You might think that the exclusion zone (the vast territory around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, forbidden for free access) is something like a nuclear desert. Actually it is not. The Chernobyl exclusion zone has actually turned into a wildlife sanctuary. Since people no longer hunt here, all kinds of animals thrive in the exclusion zone, from wolves to voles and deer.

The Chernobyl disaster had a negative impact on these animals. Under the influence of radiation, many of them have undergone genetic mutations. However, three decades have passed since the tragedy, so the level of radiation in the exclusion zone has been steadily declining.

The Soviet Union tried to use robots during the liquidation of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant

Radiation killed the lives of thousands of brave people who took part in the aftermath of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The Soviet authorities sent 60 robots to help them, but the high level of radioactivity destroyed them instantly. Also, remote-controlled bulldozers and modified moon rovers were involved in the aftermath of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Some of the robots were resistant to radiation, but the water used to disinfect them rendered them useless after the first use. However, robots by 10 percent (the equivalent of five hundred workers) were able to reduce the number of people needed to eliminate the consequences of the Chernobyl accident.

The United States of America had robots that could have done a better job than the Soviets in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident. But since relations between the USSR and the USA were tense, America did not send its robots to Chernobyl.

self-settlers

You will be surprised to learn that people continue to live in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone decades after the disaster. The houses of most of them are located ten kilometers from the 4th power unit of the nuclear power plant. However, these people, mostly elderly, are still exposed to high levels of radioactive substances. They refused resettlement and remained abandoned to their fate. AT this moment The state does not provide any assistance to self-settlers. Most of them are engaged agriculture and hunting.

Many self-settlers are already 70-80 years old. Today, there are very few of them left, because old age does not spare anyone. Oddly enough, but those who refused to leave the Chernobyl exclusion zone, on average, live 10-20 years longer than people who moved to other places after the accident at the nuclear power plant.

To date, there are many books and literature about Chernobyl, Pripyat and the Chernobyl accident. Writers did not stand aside, creating fiction novels, popular science works, about the largest man-made disaster in the history of mankind. Here is some of them

V. Akatov "Point of no return"

Liquidator's Notes. This is essentially the notes of a person who went through one of the greatest tragedies in the history of mankind - Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Just one year in the life of Petr Rusenko and at the same time his whole life, intertwined with the fate of the country and people. All the events described in the novel really took place, the characters are real people, the author of the notes changed only nine names. The reader will find in the "Notes" many previously unpublished information related to the Chernobyl tragedy, other accidents and nuclear disasters, known historical events, get acquainted with the original versions of the causes of their occurrence, including the collapse of the Soviet state.

Aleksievich S. "Chernobyl prayer: a chronicle of the future"

In the book of Svetlana Aleksievich, real stories appear before us. existing people, written in the blood of the heart, diluted with a burning tear of memoriesstories of people who went through all the horror of the disaster: evacuation, illness, loss of loved ones ... Every resident of Chernobyl was attached to that event, and the book reflects not fictional stories, but real events in life real people.

Voznesenskaya Y. "Star of Chernobyl"

“And a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the fountains of waters. The name of this star is "wormwood"..." - says the Apocalypse. 30 years ago, many remembered that the inconspicuous fragrant grass of our fields - wormwood - has another name: Chernobyl... fear, death and gives hope for the future. Written in the best traditions of realistic Russian literature, the novel includes documentary material, taken by the author from Soviet newspapers, radio and television broadcasts, is therefore valuable not only as piece of art but also as historical evidence.

Gigevich V, Chernov O. “The waters have become bitter. Chronicle of the Chernobyl disaster»

In this chronicle book, the authors return to the tragic events of April 1986 in order to rethink its consequences in various aspects - economic, psychological, technical, medical, social. The book summarizes the material collected by the authors from the beginning of the disaster to April 1990.The book tells how the state kept people in the dark in the first days and months after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It tells about what ordinary people had to go through, it is said about how ridiculous rumors were sometimes spread by people simply because the truth was hidden from them. Also in the book there is information that speaks about the sources of radiation, the effect of radiation on the human body and about nuclear energy in general.

Gubarev V. "Passion for Chernobyl"

Writer and journalist Vladimir Gubarev was a witness and participant in the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The book contains official documents, interviews with direct participants in the aftermath of the accident and their memories of life after the tragedy. According to the author, “this day in the history of our civilization was a turning point. He not only changed the destinies of many people, but also forced History to follow a new path. On April 26, 1986, a giant radioactive cloud covered not only our country, Europe, Asia and America, but also the past, present and future of mankind. Passion for Chernobyl has been going on for a quarter of a century. They do not leave everyone who is related to what happened.”

A.S. Dyatlov. "Chernobyl. How it was"

Kazko V. (Kozko V.) "Save and have mercy on us, black stork": Novel.

In a village forgotten by everyone, stained with the glow of Chernobyl, people continue to work, joke, live without fear, hope. Yanka Kaganets also hopes - a conscientious person who loves his land. He knows that both for him and for his beloved Mary will come peace of mind. When the question arose about the destruction of the grove thinned from numerous clearings, where the black stork listed in the Red Book lives, people seemed to wake up ...

Kupny A. “Chernobyl. Alive as long as we are remembered"

This is a book of memories. People who went through Chernobyl themselves will tell about their work, which we consider heroic. 12 stories about the elimination of the consequences of the accident, about life and work in extreme conditions. AT different time and to varying degrees they came into contact with the Chernobyl disaster and with the Shelter object. These are leaders, scientists, the first researchers of the destroyed block - "stalkers".

Levanovich L. "Wind with the bitterness of wormwood » ( « Wormwood Wind", "Liquidator's Wife")

Based on a documentary basis, the stories tell about how the accident affected the fate of ordinary people.

Medvedev G. "Nuclear tan"

The book of the writer Grigory Medvedev includes three stories: "Nuclear tan", "Power unit" and "Chernobyl notebook".Documentary investigative stories that have become a fearlessly truthful confession. The author truthfully tells about the events of the first hours and days of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Writer and publicist, nuclear specialist, who at one time worked at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, personally acquainted with all the main participants in the events. Immediately after the accident, he was sent to Chernobyl and had the opportunity to learn a lot and see with his own eyes on fresh tracks. He gives many technical details, reveals the secrets of bureaucratic relations, talks about scientific and design miscalculations, about pernicious pressure from the authorities, about violations of publicity that brought great harm. The author shows the behavior and role of numerous participants in the drama, living, real people, with their shortcomings and virtues, doubts and weaknesses, delusions and heroism. Here is what the author writes about his work: The pain, the pangs of conscience that I experienced when I learned about the Chernobyl explosion were special. After all, for 10 years before Chernobyl, I wrote novels and stories on the atomic theme, trying to warn people. Now I had to write about Chernobyl most truthfully, relying on my experience as a nuclear power engineer and writer". After reading this book, you will get an idea of ​​the true extent of the tragedy, as well as the situation that has developed in nuclear safety over the years.

Mirny S. “Living force. Diary of a liquidator"

Author- Writer and screenwriter, scientist and expert on environmental disasters. A real participant in the liquidation of the Chernobyl disaster: in 1986, the author was the commander of a radiation reconnaissance platoon. This is a book about the liquidation of the man-made disaster in Chernobyl and the people who were directly involved in it. Despite the drama of the situation, which is described in the book, it is written in an easy and accessible language. The heroes of the novel emerge from difficult trials with dignity and new knowledge - balanced and unexpectedly optimistic.

Mirny S. “Liquidators. Chernobyl comedy"

Peaceful morning on April 27, 1986. Residents of the town of Pripyat are preparing for the May Day holidays, but at this time columns of buses are drawn into the city. The general evacuation of the Chernobyl Zone begins ... He is yesterday's graduate of the Faculty of Chemistry, and now he is a radiation intelligence officer. She is a local resident, the first beauty, forced to cut her luxurious hair bald. But the love that broke out between them turned out to be stronger than the explosion at the fourth power unit ... The Chernobyl tragedy turned into a comedy - a funny and dramatic story about a real Zone where everyone can become a stalker! Even against your will...

Odinets M. "Chernobyl: days of testing"

Poems, essays, stories, excerpts from novels and stories, interviews. Collected together, these documentaries and works of art form the content of the collection “Chernobyl. Days of testing.The book is based on essays and reports by a Pravda correspondent from the scene of events - the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. They tell about the courage and heroism of those who took upon themselves the heat of the flame and the deadly breath of the reactor. At the same time, special attention is paid to firefighters, employees of internal affairs bodies and other law enforcement agencies. It tells about the energetic and coordinated actions of representatives of the Soviet and party bodies to eliminate the consequences of the accident, about the help of many thousands of people who sympathetically responded to the disaster. Interviews with eminent scientists highlight some important questions human relations with peaceful atom and long-term consequences of the accident. A detailed chronicle of memorable events and the reaction of the international community to them are presented.

Eagle E. "Black and white Chernobyl"

At the time of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Evgeny Orel lived in the city of Pripyat and worked in the city's financial department. "Black and White Chernobyl" was written on the basis of the author's impressions and is located at the intersection of a documentary story and journalism, representing partly a cross section of society in the mid-80s of the last century. The technical side of the disaster in the work is almost not affected. Having provided the title of the story with a modest subtitle "Notes of an Everyman", the author focuses on the psychological aspects of the post-accident period. Here and decency, and dishonesty, and tragedy, and love, because such is life in its complexity and diversity.

Sirota L. "Pripyat Syndrome"

This book has been waiting in the wings for 15 years. It all started with the script for the feature film How to Save You, Son? The film could not be filmed due to the crisis in the country, but the script remained and was later transformed into an autobiographical film story about the events in Pripyat on April 26-27, 1986, about the evacuation, about the fate of the author's relatives and friends - Lyubov Sirota from Pripyat.The city woke up on a sunny morning, not yet knowing that in a few days these green streets would become a death zone. Irina was evacuated from Pripyat, and soon an invisible death began to take away friends and acquaintances. She experienced the human "exclusion zone": the indifference of officials, the cynicism of official medicine ... Irina begins to lose her sight. Weaker, she learns about the terrible illness of her son, who can only be saved by an operation abroad - a miracle for which there is almost no hope left. But the woman does not back down. She and the baby are waiting for new trials and betrayal, through which only faith will help.

SopelnyakB."Chernobyl fault"

These people are rarely known by sight. But they are always remembered, as soon as a terrible misfortune happens somewhere - a fire. And it doesn't matter if it's a residential building, a factory shop, a nuclear power plant or the endless taiga. On April 26, 1986, a power unit exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and a severe fire started. A lot has been written about this tragedy, but not about the people who were the first to take the brunt of the elements. The story "Chernobyl Fault" tells about what these unknown heroes managed to do.

Fishkin M. "The third angel trumpeted ..."

There are legends that many clairvoyants predicted the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. But the earliest prediction, perhaps, refers to biblical times. In "The Revelation of St. John the Theologian" there are the following words: "The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of this star is Wormwood; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died from the waters, because they became bitter.” Wormwood has a popular name - Chernobyl ... This book is a true story about the relationships and behavior of people in extreme conditions of liquidation of the consequences of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the spring and summer of 1986, told by a participant in the events.

Shamyakin I. "Evil Star"

About how the Chernobyl tragedy affected the lives of ordinary people. The action in the novel takes place in one of the districts of the Gomel region.In the center is the image of the chairman of the district executive committee Vladimir Pylchenko, on whose shoulders lies the burden of liquidating the consequences of the accident, the fate of his family: the youngest son Gleb is an engineer at a nuclear power plant, the elder Boris, a pilot officer, having visited Afghanistan twice, dies. A mother's heart can't take it...The novel begins very symbolically from the scene of preparing the wedding and the celebration itself, but unfortunately the happiness of the newlyweds was very short-lived. The groom, who worked as an engineer at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, breaks down from the second day of the wedding celebration when he finds out that something happened at the station. The fate of all the heroes of the novel will not turn out in the best way, but the most important tests will have to be endured by the newly-made newlywed.

Shcherbak Y. “Chernobyl. Documentary Narrative»

The documentary narrative "Chernobyl" was conceived by the author as an artistic study of the causes of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. " For three years now I have been living and suffering from Chernobyl, trying to understand the causes of the accident and its consequences, constantly thinking about the heroes and criminals of Chernobyl, about its victims - past and future; I correspond, meet with many people involved in this tragedy, listen and write down more and more new stories. Sometimes I think presumptuously that I already know everything or almost everything about the accident - but no, in the story of a stranger or in a letter that came from afar, an unexpected, piercing detail suddenly flashes, another new drama appears, the Chernobyl plot, it would seem so familiar , makes another sharp turn". The voices of peasants and academicians, NPP operational personnel and firefighters, military specialists and priests sound in the book. According to eyewitnesses, the picture of the development of the accident was reconstructed for the first time, numerous unknown publications of the Western press about the Chernobyl events. He was the first to speak the truth. For the first time, it was he who mentioned a terrible tragedy during the construction of the sarcophagus: a helicopter crashed. “Horror ... the helicopter “folded”, crumbled. He just caught on the cables of the crane. PEOPLE died." There are books that you believe. You shudder with horror, but you read it and you can't put it down. Human destinies float before your eyes. And it seems that people are no longer strangers, but close, relatives. And there is no place for the usual, everyday indifference.

Yavorivsky V. Wormwood

The author worked as a correspondent at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On the material of his essays from Chernobyl, the novel "Mary with Wormwood at the End of the Century" was written. Yavorivsky's novel is almost entirely a work of art. Here is what the author put as an epigraph to it: “It is not enough to tell about these events. So I'm trying to help you see them. Hence the style. Maybe it's a video novel. The action takes place in a young town of nuclear power engineers and in a village located in a 30-kilometer zone. The writer tells us about the life of his characters before the tragedy, and how it changed after.

Yaroshinska A. "Chernobyl. 20 years later. Crime without punishment

For the previous book-investigation “Chernobyl. Top secret" Alla Yaroshinskaya was awarded in 1992 "an alternative Nobel Prize". In the new book, Alla Yaroshinskaya publishes many previously secret Chernobyl materials: documents of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, correspondence of medical and party officials shocking with its cynicism, documents of “Chernobyl resistance” to the authorities, the results of research by independent scientists. To one degree or another, nine million people in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia have already suffered from a nuclear catastrophe. But this number is far from final - Chernobyl continues to threaten each of us.

G. Medvedev: « I walk along the graves, stopping for a long time near each one. I put flowers on gravestones. Firefighters and six nuclear operators died in terrible agony between May 11 and 17, 1986. They received the highest doses of radiation, took the most radionuclides inside, their bodies were highly radioactive, and, as I already wrote, they were buried in sealed zinc coffins. So demanded the sanitary and epidemiological station, and I thought about it with bitterness, because the earth was prevented from doing its last work - turning the bodies of the dead into dust. Damn nuclear age! Even here, in the eternal human exodus, thousands of years of tradition are violated. You can’t even bury, humanly, you can’t betray the earth. That's how it turns out ... And yet I say to them: peace be upon your ashes. Sleep well. Your death has stirred up people, they have moved even an inch away from hibernation, from blind and gray diligence... Let us bow our heads before them - the martyrs and heroes of Chernobyl. So what is it, the main lesson of Chernobyl? The most important is the feeling of unsteadiness human life, its vulnerabilities. Chernobyl demonstrated the omnipotence and impotence of man. And he warned: do not revel in your omnipotence, man, do not joke with him. For you are the cause, but you are also the effect. Ultimately, this torments the most: those strands of chromosomes cut by radiation, killed or mutilated genes, they have already gone into the future. Gone, gone...»

"Pripyat, April 26, 1986, 3 hours 55 minutes, Lenina St., 32/13, apt. 76. I woke up a phone call. I waited for the next signal. No, I didn’t dream. I slapped to the phone. The voice of Vyacheslav Orlov was in the receiver , my boss - deputy head of the reactor shop N1 for operation.

Arkady, hello. I give you Chugunov's command: all commanders urgently arrive at the station in their workshop.

There was anxiety in my heart.

Vyacheslav Alekseevich, what happened? Anything serious?

I don’t really know anything myself, they said that there was an accident. Where, how, why - I do not know. I'm running to the garage now to get my car, and we'll meet at the Rainbow at 4:30.

Got it, I'm getting dressed.

He hung up the phone and returned to the bedroom. The dream was gone. The thought came to mind: "Marina (wife) is now at the station. They are waiting for the shutdown of the fourth block for the experiment."

He dressed quickly and chewed on a piece of bread with butter. Jumped out into the street. Towards a pair of police patrol with gas masks (!!!) over his shoulder. I got into the car of Orlov who drove up, drove to Lenin Avenue. To the left, from the medical unit, two ambulances under blue flashing lights broke out at breakneck speed and quickly went ahead.

At the crossroads of the Chernobyl - Chernobyl road - police with a walkie-talkie. An inquiry about our persons, and again Orlov's "Moskvich" is picking up speed. They broke out of the forest, all the blocks are clearly visible from the road. We look in both ... and we do not believe our eyes. Where the central hall of the fourth block (TsZ-4) should be, there is a black hole ... Horror ... From the inside of the TsZ-4 there is a red glow, as if something is burning in the middle. It was later that we learned that the graphite of the reactor core was burning, which at a temperature of 750 degrees. C burns very well in the presence of oxygen. However, at first there was no thought that the reactor gasped. Such a thing could not have occurred to us.

4 hours 50 minutes ABK-1. We drove up to ABK-1. We almost ran into the lobby. At ABK-1 - the car of the city party committee, at the entrance to the civil defense bunker - workers (mostly commanders) of all workshops. In the bunker, Viktor Petrovich, director of the Chernobyl NPP, is on the phones, and there is no chief engineer Fomin.

We ask. Answer: explosion on the fourth block at the time of shutdown. This is so clear. No one knows anything in detail. The fire that had started was extinguished: on the roof of the engine room and the roof of TsZ-3 - by the fire brigade, inside the engine room - by shift personnel of the 5th shift of the turbine shop. All possible work is underway to prevent re-ignition: oil is drained from the oil systems into tanks, hydrogen is displaced from generators N7 and 8.

Flashed by Igor Petrovich Alexandrov, the head of the Marina. According to him, she is not on the list of those withdrawn (injured) from the territory of the station. There was no more anxiety, because I understood that it should not be on the 4th block, but what if?! Almost at a run, he rushed to the sanitary inspection room. We quickly changed into white clothes - at the crossing I saw Sasha Chumakov - Marina's partner. He immediately reported that Marina was changing clothes.

The stone fell from my soul.

We quickly reached the possessions of the shift chief of the first block. What happened, they don't know. Heard two muffled explosions. Both RTs-1 blocks bear the rated load. There are no equipment failures. All work on the reactor and systems has been stopped. Mode of operation - with increased vigilance and attention. I looked into the TsZ-2. People in the field. Calm, although alarmed, - the radiological danger alarm is yelling in the hall. The armored doors of the TsZ-2 are battened down.

A call from the shift supervisor of the reactor shop-1 (NS RTs-1) Chugunov. A wonderful man, I will say more than once about him. Chugunov has just come from Unit 4. Things seem to be crap. Everywhere high background. Devices with a scale of 1000 microroentgen per second go off scale. There are failures, many ruins.

Chugunov and Anatoly Andreyevich Sitnikov, deputy chief engineer for the operation of the 1st stage (that is, the 1st and 2nd units), together tried to open the cut-off valves of the reactor cooling system. The two of them couldn't break it. It dragged on.

We need healthy, strong guys. And on the block shield-4 (BSHU-4) there are no reliable ones. Blockers are already running out of steam. To be honest, it's scary. We open the emergency complex of "personal protection equipment". I drink potassium iodide, I drink water. Ugh, what a mess! But we have to. Orlov is well - he took potassium iodide in a tablet. We dress silently. We put on shoe covers made of plastic on our feet, double gloves, "petals". We lay out documents and cigarettes from our pockets. It's like we're on a reconnaissance mission. They took a miner's lantern. We checked the light. "Petals" are put on, tied. Helmets on heads.

Remember their names. The names of those who went to help their comrades in trouble. I went not under orders, without any receipt, without knowing the true dose situation. Having acted as prompted by professional, human decency, the conscience of a communist:

Chugunov Vladimir Alexandrovich CPSU, head of the reactor operation shop.

Orlov Vyacheslav Alekseevich CPSU, deputy. head of the reactor shop for operation.

Nekhaev Alexander Alekseevich CPSU, senior mechanical engineer RTs-1.

Uskov Arkady Gennadievich CPSU, Art. RC-1 operation engineer.

Maybe it's written too loudly and immodestly. I am absolutely sure that the motives for helping were the most disinterested, lofty. And remember our names, maybe not necessary. Maybe even a high commission will say: "Why did you go there, eh ???"

6 hours 15 minutes, Chernobyl, corridor 301. We went out into the corridor, moved towards the 4th unit. I'm a little behind. On the shoulder - "breadwinner" - a special armature to increase the lever when opening the valve.

Opposite the control room-2 - the head of the decontamination shop Kurochkin. In overalls, helmet, boots. On the chest there are crosswise straps from a gas mask and a bag. Equipment - even now into battle. Nervously paces the corridor. Back and forth... Why is he here? Unclear…

We moved to the territory of the 3rd and 4th blocks, looked at the radiation safety control panel. Samoylenko shift supervisor at the entrance. I asked him about individual dosimeters.

What dosimeters? Do you know what background?

Comrade seems to be in shock. Everything is clear with him. I tell him:

We went to control room-4. Do you know the fix?

He no longer listens to us. The man is deeply confused. And behind the shields they pour obscenities on each other: his boss V.P. Kaplun and his deputy - G.I. Krasnozhen. From the flow of mats, it is clear that they do not have dose control devices for a solid background. And devices with a scale of 1000 microroentgen / sec. - minuscule. A fun situation to say the least.

In front of the control room-4 itself, a suspended ceiling has collapsed, water is pouring from above. All crouched - passed. The door to the control room-4 is wide open. Come in. A. A. Sitnikov is sitting at the table of the head of the block shift. Near NSB-4 Sasha Akimov. The technological schemes are laid out on the table. Sitnikov, apparently, is not feeling well. He dropped his head on the table. He sat for a while, asked Chugunov:

Never mind.

And again, nausea sets in (Sitnikov and Chugunov have been on the block since 2 o'clock in the morning!).

We look at the devices of the SIUR console. Don't drink anything. The SIUR console is dead, all devices are silent. The caller is not working. Nearby - SIUR, Lenya Toptunov, a thin, young guy with glasses. Confused, depressed. It stands silently.

The phone is constantly ringing. A group of commanders decides where to supply water. It's decided. We supply water through drum-separators to the outlet pipes of the main circulation pumps for core cooling.

7 hours 15 minutes They moved in two groups. Akimov, Toptunov, Nekhaev will open one regulator. Orlov and I, like healthy men, will stand on the other. Sasha Akimov leads us to the place of work. We climbed the stairs to mark 27. We jumped into the corridor, dived to the left. Somewhere ahead, steam hoots. Where? I can not see anything. All have one miner's lantern. Sasha Akimov brought Orlov and me to the place, showed the regulator. Returned to his group. He needs a flashlight. Ten meters from us, there is a torn opening without a door, there is enough light for us: it was already dawn. The floor is full of water, water gushing from above. A very uncomfortable place. We work with Orlov without interruption. One turns the wheel, the other rests. Work is going fast. The first signs of water consumption appeared: a slight hiss in the regulator, then noise. The water is gone!

Almost at the same time I feel how the water went into my left shoe cover. Looks like it caught and broke somewhere. Then this trifle did not honor with his attention. But later it turned into a radiation burn of the 2nd degree, very painful and did not heal for a long time.

Moved to the first group. Things are unimportant there. The regulator is open, but not completely. But Lena Toptunov feels bad - he vomits, Sasha Akimov can barely hold on. We helped the guys get out of this gloomy corridor. Again on the stairs. Sasha still vomited - apparently, not for the first time, and therefore there is only bile. The "breadwinner" was left outside the door.

7 hours 45 minutes The whole group returned to the control room-4. Reported - water is supplied. Just now they relaxed, I felt - the whole back was wet, the clothes were wet, it was squelching in the left shoe cover, the “petal” was wet, it was very hard to breathe. Immediately changed the "petals". Akimov and Toptunov are in the toilet opposite - vomiting does not stop. We need the guys urgently to the medical center. Entering control room-4 Lenya Toptunov. All pale, eyes red, tears still dry. It twisted him hard.

How do you feel?

It's okay, it's getting better. I can still work.

That's enough for you. Let's go with Akimov to the first-aid post.

It's time for Sasha Nekhaev to turn in his shift. Orlov points to Akimov and Toptunov:

Come along with the guys, help them get to the first-aid post and come back to hand over the shift. Don't come here.

On the speakerphone, they announce the gathering of all the heads of the shops in the civil defense bunker. Sitnikov and Chugunov leave.

Just now I noticed: "fresh people" have already arrived at the control room-4. All the "old" have already been sent. Reasonable. No one knows the dosing situation, but vomiting indicates a high dose! How much - I do not remember.

9 hours 20 minutes Replaced a torn boot. We rested a little - and again forward. Again on the same ladder, the same mark 27 Our group is already being led by Akimov's replacement - NSB Smagin. Here are the valves. Tightened from the heart. Again, I am paired with Orlov, together we begin to "undermine" the valves at the full power of our muscles. Slowly things went on.

There is no water noise. The gloves are all wet. The palms are on fire. We open the second one - there is no water noise.

We returned to the control room-4, changed the "petals". I really want to smoke. I look around. Everyone is busy with their work. Okay, I'll survive, especially since there is absolutely no need to shoot the "petal". The devil knows what is in the air now, what you will inhale along with tobacco smoke. And we don’t know the dose situation for the control room-4. A stupid situation - at least one "dose" (dosimetrist) ran in with the device! Scouts, fuck them! I just thought - and then just the "dose" ran in. Some kind of small, crushed. Measured something - and go. But Orlov quickly caught him by the collar. Asks:

Who are you?

Dosimetrist.

Once a dosimetrist - measure the situation and report, as expected - where and how much.

"Dozik" is back again. Measures. You can see in the face that you want to get out of here as soon as possible. He calls the numbers. Wow! Device on the scale! Phonite is clearly from the corridor. Behind the concrete columns of the control room, the dose is less. And the "dose" fled in the meantime. Jackal!

I looked out into the corridor. It's a clear sunny morning outside. Against the Eagles. Waving hand. From the corridor we go into a small room. There are shields and remotes in the room. The glass on the windows is broken. Without leaning out of the window, carefully look down.

We see the end of the 4th block ... Everywhere there are piles of debris, torn off slabs, wall panels, mangled air conditioners hang on wires ... Water is gushing from broken fire mains ... Noticeable at once - everywhere is gloomy dark gray dust. Under our windows is also full of debris. Fragments of the correct square section. That is why Orlov called me to look at these wreckage. It's reactor graphite!

We have not yet had time to assess all the consequences, we are returning to the control room-4. What we see is so terrible that we are afraid to say it out loud. We call to see the deputy chief engineer of the station for science Lyutov. Lyutov looks where we are pointing. Silent. Orlov says:

It's reactor graphite!

Come on, guys, what kind of graphite is this, this is "assembly-eleven".

It is also square in shape. Weighs about 80 kg! Even if it's "build-eleven", radish horseradish isn't sweeter. She flew off the "nickle" of the reactor with no holy spirit and ended up on the street. But this, unfortunately, is not an assembly, dear Mikhail Alekseevich! As deputy for science, you need to know this as well as we do. But Lyutov does not want to believe his eyes, Orlov asks Smagin, who is standing next to him:

Maybe you had graphite here before? (We also cling to straws.)

No, all Saturdays have already passed. It was clean and tidy here, not a single graphite block was here until tonight.

Everything fell into place.

Sailed.

And over these ruins, over this terrible, invisible danger, the generous spring sun shines. The mind refuses to believe that the worst thing that could happen has happened. But this is already a reality, a fact.

* Reactor explosion. 190 tons of fuel, in whole or in part, with fission products, with reactor graphite, reactor materials, was thrown out of the reactor shaft, and no one knows where this muck is now, where it settled, where it settles! *

We all silently enter the control room-4. The phone rings, they call Orlov. Chugunov feels bad, he is sent to the hospital. Sitnikov is already in the hospital. Transfer the management of the shop to Orlov as a senior.

10:00 a.m. Orlov is already in the rank of and. about. the head of RC-1 receives the "go-ahead" to go to the control room-3.

With a quick step we leave towards the control room-3. Finally we see a normal dosimetrist. Warns not to approach the windows - very high background. Already understood without him. How? They themselves do not know, all the instruments go off scale. Instruments with high sensitivity. And now we don’t need sensitivity, but a large measurement limit! Ah, shame...

We are tired hard. Almost five hours without eating, at the work of the draft. We go to the control room-3. The third unit was urgently stopped after the explosion, there is an emergency cooldown. We go to our "home" - to the first block. There is already a portable sanitary lock at the border. Immediately noted - our sanchute, from RC-1 Well done guys, they work well. Without touching his hands, he took off his shoe covers. I rinsed the soles, wiped my feet. Orlov showed signs of vomiting. Run to the men's restroom. I don't have anything yet, but somehow it's disgusting. We crawl like sleepy flies. Forces are running out.

We reached the room in which the entire command staff of RC-1 sits. Took off the petal. Gave me a cigarette, lit it. Two puffs and I had nausea in my throat. He put out the cigarette. We are all wet, we must urgently go to change. And if in a good way - we do not need to change clothes, but to the first-aid post. I look at Orlov - he is sick, me too. And this is already bad. Probably, we look very tortured, because no one asks us about anything. They said themselves:

The thing is rubbish. Reactor collapsed. We saw fragments of graphite on the street.

We go to the sanitary inspection room to wash and change. This is where it broke me. Turned upside down and across every 3-5 minutes. I saw Orlov slam a magazine shut. Yeah ... "Civil Defense", of course.

Well, what did you read?

Nothing good. Went to surrender to the infirmary.

Later, Orlov said what was written in that magazine: the appearance of vomiting is already a sign of radiation sickness, which corresponds to a dose of more than 100 rem (X-ray). The annual rate is 5 rems.

In the bunker

Sergey Konstantinovich Parashin, former secretary of the party committee of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (now S. K. Parashin - head of the shift of block N1 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, chairman of the council of the plant's labor collective):

“They called me about half an hour after the accident. In a choking voice, the telephone operator told my wife (I myself was sleeping) that something very serious had happened there. Judging by the intonation, my wife immediately believed, so I quickly jumped up and ran out into the street. with headlights on, I raised my hand. It was Vorobyov, the head of the civil defense staff of the station, who was also raised at the alarm signal.

At about 2.10-2.15 am we were at the station. By the time we got there, the fire was gone. But the change in the block configuration itself brought me to the appropriate state. We went into the office of NPP Director Bryukhanov. Here I saw the second secretary of the Pripyat city committee, Veselovsky, there was a deputy director for the regime, me and Vorobyov.

When we got to the office, Bryukhanov immediately said that we were moving to control the bunker. He apparently realized that there was an explosion, and therefore gave such a command. That's the way it's supposed to be in civil defense. Bryukhanov was in a depressed state. I asked him, "What happened?" - "I do not know". He was generally laconic even at the usual time, but that night ... I think he was in a state of shock, inhibited. I myself was in a state of shock for almost six months after the accident. And another year - in complete decline.

We moved to the bunker, located here, under the ABK-1 building. This is a low room filled with desks and chairs. One table with telephones and a small console. Bryukhanov sat down at this table. The table is poorly placed - next to the front door. And Bryukhanov was, as it were, isolated from us. All the time people walked past him, the front door slammed. Plus fan noise. All the heads of shops and shifts, their deputies began to flock. Chugunov and Sitnikov came.

From a conversation with Bryukhanov, I realized that he called the regional committee. He said: there is a collapse, but it is not yet clear what happened. Dyatlov understands there ... Three hours later Dyatlov came, talked with Bryukhanov, then I sat him at the table and began to ask. "I don't know, I don't understand anything."

I'm afraid no one reported to the director that the reactor had been blown up. The wording "the reactor is blown up" was not given by any deputy chief engineer. And the chief engineer Fomin did not give it. Bryukhanov himself went to the area of ​​the fourth block - and also did not understand this. Here is the paradox. People did not believe in the possibility of a reactor explosion, they developed their own versions and obeyed them.

I also formulated for myself what happened there. I assumed that the separator drum had exploded. The whole ideology of the first night was built on the fact that everyone was sure that it was not the reactor that exploded, but something - it is not clear yet.

There were about thirty or forty people in the bunker. There was noise and din - everyone on his phone negotiated with his shop. Everything revolved around one thing - supplying water to cool the reactor and pumping out water. Everyone was busy with this work.

The second secretary of the Kyiv Regional Committee, Malomuzh, arrived at the station somewhere between seven and nine o'clock in the morning. He came with a group of people. The discussion turned to the need to draw up a single document that would go through all channels. Either Bryukhanov instructed me, or I volunteered myself - it's hard to say now - but I took up the preparation of the document.

I thought I was in control of the situation. I started writing this paper. I got rough. Then another took over. Wrote a draft. The five of us agreed - this way and that. The collapse of the roof was indicated there, the level of radiation in the city was still low at that time, and it was said that further study of the problem was underway.

And before that it was such an unpleasant thing. It's hard for me to explain now. The head of civil defense, Vorobyov, with whom we arrived, came up to me a couple of hours later and reported: he went around the station and found very large radiation fields near the fourth block, about 200 roentgens. Why didn’t I believe him? Vorobyov by nature is very emotional person, and when he said this, it was scary to look at him ... And I did not believe it. I told him: "Go, prove to the director." And then I asked Bryukhanov: "How?" - "Badly". Unfortunately, I did not bring the conversation with the director to the end, did not demand a detailed answer from him.

Sitting in the bunker, did you think about your wife and children?

But do you know what I thought? If I had fully known and imagined what had happened, of course, I would have done the wrong thing. But I thought that the radiation was due to the release of water from the separator drum. I started sounding the alarm too late - on the second night, when the reactor flared up. Then I began to call the city committee, saying: it is necessary to evacuate the children. Only then it dawned on me that I needed to urgently evacuate. But by that time, a lot of high officials had already come to the city. The director was not invited to the meeting of the Government Commission, no one asked him. The arrival of the chiefs had a great psychological effect. And they are all very serious - these big ranks. Inspire confidence. Like, here come people who know everything, understand everything. Only much later, when I talked to them, did this belief pass. We didn't make any decisions. All right and wrong decisions were made from outside. We, the staff, did something mechanically, like sleepy flies. The stress was too great, and our belief that the reactor could not explode was too great. Mass blindness. Many see what happened, but do not believe.

And now I'm haunted by guilt - for life, I think. I did very badly that night in the bunker. I had to say in court that I was afraid - otherwise I could not explain my behavior. After all, it was I who sent Sitnikov, Chugunov, Uskov and others to the fourth block. This tragedy hangs over me. After all, Sitnikov died ... They ask me: "Why didn't you go to the fourth block yourself?" Then I went there, but not that night... What can I say? No, I don't think I'm afraid. I just didn't understand then. But I know this alone with myself, but how can I explain it to people? Like, everyone was there, everyone was irradiated, and you, my dear, are standing alive in front of us, although you should ...

And everything is explained simply. I myself did not know the fourth block. Worked on the first. If it happened on the first - would go himself. And here in front of me are Chugunov, the former head of the shop, and Sitnikov. Both worked there only six months ago. I tell the director: "We need to send them, no one will understand them better, will not help Dyatlov." And they both went. And even they - the most, most honest people who were not responsible for the explosion, even they, having returned, did not say what happened there ... If Sitnikov had understood what had happened, he would not have died. After all, he is a top professional.

I'm trying to justify myself, but this excuse is weak .. "

Nikolai Vasilyevich Karpan (now N.V. Karpan, deputy chief engineer of the station for science), deputy head of the nuclear physics laboratory.

“The day before the accident, I returned from Moscow, I was not at work. I found out about the accident at seven o’clock in the morning, when a relative from Chernobyl called. She asked what happened at the station? She was told terrible things about some kind of explosion. I assured her I called the station in the evening and found out that Unit 4 was going to shutdown, and before the shutdown, they usually do some work related to opening the safety valves and releasing a large amount of steam into the atmosphere.This creates noise effects. I calmed her down, nevertheless, some anxiety remained. I started calling the station - the fourth block. None of the phones answered. I called the third block - I was told that there was practically no central hall above the third and fourth blocks. I went outside and saw ... the changed contours of the second stage.

Then I called my boss and asked - did he make an attempt to get into the station? "Yes, but I was detained by the posts of the Ministry of Internal Affairs." The head of the nuclear safety department... was not allowed into the station! My boss and I went out to a small round square before leaving the city, we decided to take a passing car. We saw the head of the adjustment shop there, who said that the director's car had left and we could all get to the station together.

We arrived at the station at eight o'clock in the morning. So I ended up in a bunker.

The director, the chief engineer, the party organizer, the deputy chief engineer for science, the head of the spectrometry laboratory and his deputy were there. By this time, they managed to take samples of air and water and do tests. Up to 17% of the activity due to neptunium was found in air samples, and neptunium is a transitional isotope from uranium-238 to plutonium-239. They are just particles of fuel… Water activity was also extremely high.

The first thing I encountered in the bunker and what seemed very strange to me was that no one told us anything about what had happened, about the details of the accident. Yes, there was an explosion. And about the people and their actions committed that night, we had no idea. Although work on the localization of the accident has been going on since the moment of the explosion. Then, later that morning, I tried to restore the painting myself. I started asking people.

But then, in the bunker, we were not told anything about what was happening in the central hall, in the turbine hall, which of the people were there, how many people were evacuated to the medical unit, what doses there, at least presumably ...

Everyone present in the bunker was divided into two parts. People who were in a stupor - the director, the chief engineer were clearly in shock. And those who tried to somehow influence the situation, actively influence it. Change it to better side. There were fewer of them. Among them, I include, first of all, the party organizer of the station, Sergei Konstantinovich Parashin. Of course, Parashin did not try to entrust himself with making technical decisions, but he continued to work with people, he dealt with personnel, solved numerous problems ... What happened that night? Here's what I was able to find out.

When the explosion happened, there were several dozen people near the station. This includes security guards, builders, and fishermen who fished in the cooling pond and in the supply channel. With those who were in close proximity, I talked, asked them - what did they see, what did they hear? The explosion completely demolished the roof, the western wall of the central hall, collapsed the wall in the area of ​​the turbine hall, pierced the roof of the turbine hall with fragments of reinforced concrete structures, and caused a fire in the roof. Everyone knows about the fire on the roof. But very few people know that fires also started inside the engine room. But there were turbogenerators filled with hydrogen, tens of tons of oil. It was this internal fire that represented the greatest danger.

The first thing the reactor workers did was to close the door to the central hall, or rather, to that open-air space that was left of the hall. They gathered all the people - with the exception of the deceased Khodemchuk - they took them out of the danger zone, from the destruction zone, carried out the wounded Shashenok, and the fifth shift, led by Sasha Akimov, began to do everything to remove explosive hydrogen from the generators and replace it with nitrogen, turn off the burning electric assemblies and mechanisms in the turbine hall, to pump over oil so that, God forbid, the fire does not spread here.

After all, firefighters worked on the roof, and the staff did everything else inside. Their merit is the suppression of fires in the turbine hall and the prevention of explosions. And here is the ratio of the danger and the amount of work performed in such conditions, and gave such losses: firefighters working on the roof, six people died, and those who worked inside, twenty-three people died.

Of course, the feat of firefighters has entered the centuries, and the degree of heroism and risk is not measured by numbers. But nevertheless, what the personnel did in the first minutes after the accident should also be known to people. I am convinced of the highest professional competence fifth shift operators. It was Alexander Akimov who was the first to understand what had happened: already at 3:40 he told the head of the station shift, Vladimir Alekseevich Babichev, who arrived at the station on the call of the director, that a general radiation accident had occurred.

Does this mean that the primary link understood what really happened already at night?

Of course. Moreover, he reported this to the leadership. He assessed the size of the accident, perfectly imagined the danger of what had happened. He did not leave the zone, doing everything to ensure the cooling of the power unit. And he remained a man. Here is an example. You know that under normal conditions three operators and a shift supervisor work at the control room. So, the youngest of them, Kirshenbaum's senior turbine control engineer, who did not know the layout of the building, was urgently expelled from the control room by Akimov. Kirshenbaum was told: "You're superfluous here, you can't help us in any way, go away."

All the information that was taken out of the Dyatlov, Sitnikov, Chugunov, Akimov zone, all of it settled in the bunker at the level of the director and chief engineer, was cemented here and was not allowed to pass further. Of course, I cannot say with certainty that she did not go to the upper floors of the leadership of our central office. But this information did not reach us. All subsequent knowledge about what happened was obtained independently.

By 10 o'clock in the morning, with the head of our laboratory, I managed to visit the control room-3, ABK-2, was in the central hall of the third block and in the area of ​​the control room-4, in the area of ​​the seventh and eighth turbogenerators. From the territory of the industrial site, he examined the affected block. One circumstance alarmed me very much: the protection control rods entered the zone by an average of 3-3.5 meters, that is, half. The core load was approximately fifty critical masses, and half the effectiveness of the protection rods could not serve as a reliable guarantee ... I calculated that by about 17-19 hours the block could go from a subcritical state to a state close to critical. Critical situation- when self-sustaining is possible chain reaction.

Could this mean an atomic explosion?

No. If the zone is open, then there will be no explosion, because there will be no pressure. I did not expect an explosion as such. But it was supposed to overheat. Therefore, it was necessary to develop such technical solutions that could prevent the unit from exiting the subcritical state.

Did the station management meet and discuss this problem?

No. This was done by specialists - the head of the nuclear safety department, the head of the nuclear physics laboratory. There was no one from Moscow yet. The most acceptable solution in those conditions was to muffle the apparatus with a solution of boric acid. This could be done as follows: pour bags of boric acid into tanks of clean condensate and use pumps to pump water from these tanks into the core. It was possible to stir boric acid in the tank of a fire engine and use a hydraulic gun to throw the solution into the reactor.

It was necessary to "poison" the reactor with boric acid. By about 10 am, the deputy chief engineer for science handed over this idea to the chief engineer of the station, Fomin. By the same time, there was a complete idea of ​​what needs to be done urgently and what awaits us at the end of the day, and at the same time the demand was born to prepare the evacuation of the city's residents. Because if a self-sustaining chain reaction starts, then hard radiation can be directed towards the city. After all, there is no biological protection, demolished by an explosion. Unfortunately, there was no boric acid at the station, although there are documents according to which a certain supply of boric acid should have been stored ... "

Column special purpose

Alexander Yuryevich Esaulov, 34 years old, deputy chairman of the city executive committee of the city of Pripyat:

“At night I was awakened, on the twenty-sixth, somewhere around four o’clock. Maria Grigorievna, our secretary, called and said: “Accident at the nuclear power plant.” Some acquaintance of hers worked at the station, he came at night, woke her up and told her.

At ten minutes to four I was in the executive committee. The chairman has already been informed, and he went to the nuclear power plant. I immediately called our chief of staff of civil defense, raised him with a gun. He lived in a hostel. Arrived right away. Then the chairman of the city executive committee arrived, Vladimir Pavlovich Voloshko. We all got together and began to figure out what to do.

Of course, we didn't quite know what to do. This, as they say, until the roasted rooster pecks. In general, I think that our civil defense turned out to be not up to par. But here the miscalculation is not only ours. Give me the name of a city where GO is set to its proper height. Before that, we had the usual exercises, and even then everything was played in the office. There is also such a moment to take into account: even theoretically, such an accident was ruled out. And it was inspired constantly and regularly ...

I am the chairman of the executive committee planning commission, I am in charge of transport, medicine, communications, roads, employment offices, distribution of building materials, pensioners. Actually, I am a young deputy chairman of the city executive committee, only on November 18, 1985 I was elected. On my birthday. Lived in a two-room apartment. The wife and children were not in Pripyat at the time of the accident - she went to her parents, because she was on postnatal leave. My son was born in November 1985. Daughter is six years old.

Here you go. I went to our ATP, I decided to organize a city wash. I called the executive committee Kononykhin, asked to send a washing machine. Came. It's the same song! For the whole city we had - you won’t believe it - four watering and washing machines! For fifty thousand inhabitants! This is despite the fact that the executive committee and the city committee - we had very cocky both of them - went to the ministry, asked for cars. Not foreseeing an accident, but simply to keep the city clean.

A car arrived with a tank, where they dug it up - I don't know. The driver was not her native and did not know how to turn on the pump. Water from the hose flowed only by gravity. I drove him back, he arrived in about twenty minutes, he had already learned how to turn on this pump. We began to wash the road near the gas station. Now I already understand in hindsight that this was one of the first dust suppression procedures. Water came with soapy water. Then it turned out that it was just a very polluted place.

At ten in the morning there was a meeting in the city committee, a very short one, fifteen or twenty minutes. There was no time for talking. After the meeting, I immediately went to the medical unit.

I am sitting in the medical unit. As I remember now: the block is like on the palm of your hand. Near, right in front of us. Three kilometers from us Smoke was coming from the block. It's not exactly black... it's a puff of smoke. As from an extinguished fire, only from an extinguished fire it is gray-gray, and this one is so dark. Well, then graphite caught fire. It was already late in the evening, the glow, of course, was what we needed. There is so much graphite ... No joke. And we - can you imagine? - spent the whole day with the windows open.

After dinner, V. Malomuzh, the second secretary of the Kyiv regional committee, invited me and instructed me to organize the evacuation of the most seriously ill patients to Kyiv, to the airport, to be sent to Moscow.

From the headquarters of the civil defense of the country was the Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel-General Ivanov. He arrived by plane. I gave this plane for transportation.

It was not easy to form a column. It's not easy: to immerse people. It was necessary to prepare documents, case histories, test results for each. The main delay was precisely in the processing of personal files. Even such moments arose - a seal is needed, and a seal is needed at a nuclear power plant. They hushed up this case, sent it without a seal.

We were carrying twenty-six people, this is one bus, a red intercity Ikarus. But I said to give two buses. Whether it is not enough that can be. God forbid, what a delay ... And two ambulances, because there were two sick patients, heavy, stretchers, with thirty percent burns.

I asked not to go through Kyiv. Because those guys on the buses, they were all wearing pajamas. The spectacle, of course, is wild. But for some reason we drove through Khreshchatyk, then to the left along Petrovsky Alley and drove to Boryspil. We've arrived. The gates are closed. It was at night, at three o'clock, at the beginning of four. We're buzzing. Finally, a sight worthy of the gods. Someone comes out in slippers, riding breeches, without a belt and opens the gate. We drove straight to the field, to the plane. There, the crew was already warming up the engine.

And another episode hit me right in the heart. The pilot approached me. And he says, "How much did these guys get?" I ask: "What?" - X-ray. I say: "That's enough. But in principle - what's the matter?" And he told me: “I also want to live, I don’t want to get extra x-rays, I have a wife, I have children.”

Can you imagine?

They flew away. Goodbye, wishing you a speedy recovery...

We drove to Pripyat. It's already the second day that I haven't slept - and sleep didn't take me. At night, when we were still driving to Borispol, I saw columns of buses that were going to Pripyat. Towards us. It was already preparing the evacuation of the city.

It was the morning of the twenty-seventh of April, Sunday.

We arrived, I had breakfast and went to Malomuzh. Reported. He says: "We need to evacuate everyone who is hospitalized." The first time I took out the heaviest, but now I had to take them all. During this time that I was absent, more people arrived. Malomuzh told me to be in Boryspil at twelve o'clock. And the conversation went on about ten in the morning. It was clearly unrealistic. It is necessary to prepare all the people, draw up all the documents. Moreover, the first time I carried twenty-six people, and now I need to take out one hundred and six.

We collected this entire "delegation", all issued and left already at twelve o'clock in the afternoon. There were three buses, the fourth was reserve. "Ikarus". Here the wives stand, say goodbye, cry, the lads are all walking, in pajamas, I beg: "Boys, do not disperse so that I do not look for you." I completed one bus, the second, the third, now everyone is getting on, I run to the escort car, now the traffic police have worked clearly, I sit down, I wait five minutes, ten, fifteen - there is no third bus!

It turns out that three more victims were admitted, then another ...

Finally let's go. There was a stop in Zalesye. Agreed, if

Flashing lights. Let's go to Zalesye - time! The driver brakes hard. The buses have become The last bus from the first - eighty or ninety meters. The last bus has stopped. A nurse takes off from there - and to the first bus. It turned out that there were medical workers in all the buses, but only the first one carried medicines. Runs up: "The patient is ill!" And that was the only time I saw Belokon then. True, at that time I did not know his last name. I was later told that it was Belokon. Himself in pajamas, he ran with a bag to provide assistance.

V. Belokon:

“The first batch of the injured left on the twenty-sixth in the evening, at about eleven in the evening, straight to Kyiv. The operators were taken out, Pravik, Kibenok, Telyatnikov. And we stayed for the night. We were instructed to take out for dinner. "When they took us on buses, I felt nothing. We even stopped somewhere behind Chernobyl, someone got sick, I ran out and tried to help the nurse"

A. Esaulov:

“Belokon ran, they grabbed him by the hands.“ Where are you, you’re sick. ”He was amazed ... He rushed off with a bag. And the most interesting thing is that when they started digging in this bag, they couldn’t find ammonia. from the escort I ask: “Do you have ammonia in the first-aid kit?” - “Yes.” We turn around, jump to the bus, Belokon to that guy once an ampoule - under his nose. It became easier.

And one more moment in Zalesye was remembered. The patients got off the buses - someone to smoke, warm up, tyry-pyry, and suddenly a woman runs with a wild cry and din. Her son is on the bus. Is that necessary? Such a docking ... Do you understand? .. Where did it come from? - I did not understand. He "mamo", "mamo" to her, reassures her.

A plane was already waiting for us at the Boryspil airport. There was the head of the airport, Polivanov. We went to the field to drive right up to the plane, because the guys are all in pajamas, and this is April, it's not hot. We drove through the gate, onto the field, and behind us a yellow "rafik" was blowing, swearing that we had left without permission. At first, we didn’t drive up to that plane at all. Rafik led us through.

And another episode. We sit comfortably with Polivanov, a bunch of high-frequency phones, draw up documents for the transportation of patients. I gave them a receipt on behalf of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, a letter of guarantee that the station would pay for the flight - it was TU-154. A pretty woman enters, offering coffee. And her eyes are like those of Jesus Christ, she, you see, already knows what the matter is. He looks at me like I'm from Dante's hell. We walked for the second day, I didn’t sleep, I was brutally tired ... Brings coffee. Such a small cup. I drank this pindyurochka in one gulp. Brings a second one. The coffee is wonderful. We settled all the cases, I get up, and she says: "Fifty-six kopecks from you." I look at her - I do not understand anything. She says: "Sorry, we do these things for money." I was so detached from money, from all this ... As if I had come from another world.

We washed the buses again, took a shower - and went to Pripyat. We left Boryspil somewhere at sixteen zero zero. On the way, we already met buses ...

Pripyat residents were taken out.

We arrived in Pripyat - already an empty city."

The seventh, the eighth are in touch, I see a woman with a child, they are running away from someone.
- Eighth, I understand you, how old does the child look?
- Three years, no more, yes, the poor fellows got there, the seventh, maybe it's worth intervening?
- Are you out of your mind? Do you want to go to the tribunal?
- But...
- Set aside, better report the situation.
- Your mother, some creatures are running after them, they look like zombies, but they move too fast!
Probably bloodsuckers.
- Maybe so ... (Long pause) Sir, they cornered them ... They tore it, tore it, oh, hell ... - Vomiting sounds were heard on that line.
- Eighth, are you okay there?
- Not really, they tore the mother, and then ... (Short pause) the child.
- Okay, eighth, go back to base...

I was awakened by the voice of Sergei, informing me that it was time to get up.
Pulling myself up, muttering something, I looked out the window of our UAZ.
According to the checkpoint that stood in front, I realized that we were approaching the entrance to Chernobyl.
We were driving on a special assignment, namely: we had to find the "Brave Link" team, so they let us through without problems, later we already passed by some kindergarten, abandoned old houses appeared ahead, overgrown with moss and so on. Then we drove past the very center of Chernobyl, I saw a picture of the morning Pripyat: Houses that were ready to collapse at any moment, the old Energetik building and many others.
But now we were already approaching the second temporary post, where a detachment was supposed to be waiting for us, which was supposed to follow us to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
But when we drove up, my whole detachment and I noticed that there was no sentry ahead and no one at all.
- Strange... - I said quietly.
Having stopped, Andrey, our guide, came out first, then the rest (including me).
Going inside, where the detachment itself was waiting for us, a terrible picture appeared to us: There were traces of blood on the walls, body parts were scattered throughout the room, the head of one of the soldiers was hung on some kind of hook.
Because of this whole picture, my partner Sergei immediately vomited, and I could hardly restrain myself from throwing out yesterday's leftover food.

All this made us run out into the street with panic and fear.
But as soon as I ran out into the street (I ran out last), something fell on me, it made me pass out for a while, the last thing I saw was how my friend and partner was lifted up by some kind of creature, and the other cut off one limb with one stroke of its paw. After that I lost consciousness.

Soldiers, it's time to move! - shouted the commander of the "Brave Link" detachment.
The whole detachment slowly got up and they all moved towards the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, because there was very little left before it ...
- Stop. The commander said softly.
The detachment stopped, some kind of blinking appeared ahead on the approach to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
It turned out to be a blue ball. He quickly approached the group.
Before the commander had time to give the command to run, he instantly increased in size and "ate" the entire detachment.

Sir, this is an AN-15, the "Brave Link" detachment never reached the indicated point.
- What an infection, no matter what detachment we send, everyone disappears, even no traces remain!
- Sir, wait, the radar noticed that they were at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, only underground!
- What?! Are you joking?
- No Sir!
- Here ... Well, if the radar sees them, it means that they can still be returned. Send a detachment, let them follow the route.

Pavlov, wounded here, doctor urgently!

I woke up in a room, lying on a hospital bed.
Nearby, on a nearby bunk, lay a man, about thirty-five years old.
Suddenly, a girl, about twenty-three years old, pretty with black hair and a snow-white smile, looked into the ward.
- Woke up! - Shouted the girl.
After that, a man in a white coat entered the ward (as I already understood, I was in the hospital).
- Well, finally, and we thought he died. The doctor smiled.
- Where I am? I asked in a hoarse voice.
- And you, if you can call it that, at my base.
I looked at the doctor in bewilderment.
- Well, what are you looking at? My guys found you near the checkpoint and took you away... But you were lucky, your other friends were torn to pieces. - Mikhail, as it was written on a decrepit tablet near his chest, slapped me on the shoulder and gave me brand new military clothes and told me to get dressed.
Having dressed, I went out into the corridor, following Mikhail, we went to his "office".
There he gave me a fresh carcass, and after giving me vodka he said:
- The base is mine, it has been standing here since the year 2000, and in these twelve years there have been so many raids on it that the world has never seen it. Mutants, military, marauders, bandits, many others. - Michael, lighting a cigarette, continued:
- But for now, we are holding on, since childhood I dreamed of visiting here, so I grew up and collected a lot of money and went here. Hired fighters, nurses, etc. Then he began to help people like you, this zone is full of secrets ... - He was interrupted by a guy who burst in with the words:
- Michael, there it is, mutants!
Michael's face showed concern, but calmer.
- Yours to the left! Not a day without rest! - After these words, Mikhail took the machine gun and went somewhere with the guy, I followed them.
We were approaching a door, near it stood a man with a machine gun and a few more with machine guns like Mikhail's.
- Well, as always Michael!
- And do not say, they felt the pigs, the smell of flesh and fled!
And at this time behind the door were heard various sounds: Topony of hooves, roar, grunts.
- Take positions, now trample! - The command was given by the one with whom Mikhail spoke.
Everyone who was present took up positions, Mikhail gave me an AK-47, and I, hiding with one of the soldiers behind a barricade of bags, began to wait, deathly silence hung.

The silence was interrupted by blows, either with hooves or massive paws. A look of excitement appeared on Mikhail's face: saying that such raids had already become a habit for him.
Further, the knock was muffled, but not for long. After a moment of silence, the door was knocked down with one blow.
A huge massive body appeared in the opening, bending down to go inside, it stood up to its full height, a terrible creature looked at us with its empty eyes. I froze in horror.
- Bloodsuckers? - Someone asked quietly.
His question was answered:
- No, it's something else.
After that, the creature rushed at one of ours, since it was possible to shoot it with one hit in the head.
But the horror did not end, after her several more monsters ran inside, three tore to pieces two soldiers, and the rest, gutting their intestines and tearing their limbs, tore another to pieces.
Michael gave the order to retreat. I ran after him, where he led me through the emergency exit and took me out into the street, ordered me to get into the car and leave, and he ran back with the words:
- Get out of here as soon as possible, I have to stay here.
After I got into the car and gave gas, I rushed away, behind me I heard heartbreaking screams ...