liquidators | Igor Starkov

April 26 2006 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster which was the biggest man-made catastrophe ever. An explosion of a nuclear reactor that occurred during a test has led to a large-scale contamination of 207 500 sq. kilometers of area. Ukraine, Belarus and West Russia were the most affected. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens, reservists, technical specialists, scientists and medics were involved in the rescue efforts. Eligibility criteria were simple: army service, construction-related profession, driver's license or ability to manage people. They were receiving call-up papers from military enlistment offices, those with a red strip - just like in case of war, and the next day they were already at a collecting station. There were no many volunteers among them but there were no many cases of hiding from those red-strip papers either. This is what is called duty. The idea was to enlist people who already had children, preferably two, but there were cases when those without children were enlisted as well and after they returned, they were dissuaded or even prohibited from having kids. Some worked under contracts for good money. In a couple of months, people were able to earn enough for a new car. But usually, what was bought on this money had to be exchanged for deficient medicines later. It was a sort of a state within a state with everyone present, from miners to musicians. There were also 18-20-year-old regular soldiers who stayed in the impact zone during the most dangerous time. Later, many of them could not even prove they had been in Chernobyl because it was not often registered anywhere. During the first years after the disaster, there were many cases of cancer, today there are fewer as almost everyone who had it already passed away. To those Chernobyl rescuers who survive, the government provides higher pensions and a disability status, sometimes also flats or medals, the latter taking place only after liquidators win lawsuits against this very government.
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