Chernobyl - city, where there will be children

to the exclusion zone visitors requirements are rather strict, the documents for registration of permits submitted in two weeks. At a checkpoint with us giving instructions: Do not smoke or consume food in the open air, to bring to memory all your favorite items and plants, drinking water from wells, rivers and other land-based sources.

Clothing should be closed as much as possible, with a minimum of seams. Protected areas at the appropriate level. People in the form of an eye - more than a dozen, one of them is carefully studying our passports checked against the lists and makes the go-ahead, they say, drive.

The realization that you are in a completely different, parallel universe, comes unexpectedly and never let go until the end of the trip. Behind the fence of barbed wire, which we have passed, - the same field, with bushes and copses. Suddenly our guide Sergey Chernov tells the driver to stop. We leave. Sergey points into the distance and said, "Przewalski's horses. Wild herd. Brought here a few dozen, but they are accustomed. Now the population has reached to 70 goals. "

From this point on, all changes radically. Begin to take a closer look around and notice that here and there abandoned buildings, completely rusted structure, the purpose of which is now understood quite difficult. And absolutely do not want to approach and treat these ruins near - it is like a zoo, near the cages with Tigers: interesting, of course, but the thought did not even occur to stroke. It seems that the human habitat in a closed area is bounded roads and towns. Actually, the way it is. Every meter of the road and the city "washed" more than a dozen times, the building, which can be seen in the distance, may contain invisible and deadly surprises.

We drive to the city. Our guide completes the traditional introduction: "Today in Chernobyl there are 6 shops, 2 cafes, several gyms, cultural center, library. An ordinary town, but there are things that appear here very soon. Based on the fact that published in the times of the Soviet Union, the law is still in effect in the city be prohibited for persons under 18 years of age. Therefore, for more than 20 years in Chernobyl is not the hospital, schools, kindergartens, clinics. "

Almost all high-rise buildings inhabited. But this is just a dorm or office. By law, permanent residence in the contaminated area is prohibited. 5000 people are here, working in shifts, two weeks are in the area, two - relaxing at home. Some come to work in the city from Monday to Thursday, and after three days' leave home. However, not always complied with these rules. Talking to us road worker admitted that he lived in Chernobyl for a month without a break.

On several buildings set placards which in real time shows the radiation background in the city, at the plant and on the territory of the resettled villages.

In a short time (maybe just on the day when there will be an article) Chernobyl visit high-level government delegation. Rumor has it that it may be even presidents of 4 countries, so now the city in an emergency order wash and paint. Get clean, but lifeless, like make-up on the dead man's face superimposed.

In the central area of ​​the city is located memorial evacuated villages "Star Wormwood". The complex was built for the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the main part is the avenue crosses with the names of evacuated villages and several monuments. One of the modern sculptures - Blowing angel beside her - a monument to the bull tamer, who looked quite strange here. This monument used to stand near the village of Zalesie in front of the animal complex. Apparently, the locals do not have for the sculpture with artiodactyl no trepidation and routinely stained eyes, nostrils and genitals bull bright red paint. Before the arrival of the delegation of the paint carefully washed.

At the fire station Chernobyl is another monument dedicated to the rescue of the city, who arrived at the scene of the accident one of the first. Every year on April 26 at the hour of the night near the monument thousands of people gather. Buzzing fire siren announced a minute of silence. Sneer at this sculptural composition, no one even thought does not arise.

Nearby is the exhibit space, which shows the technique, participated in the work in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident. Fenced exhibits a low fence that can easily step over, but the guide urges us not to approach close, will own peril.

Next stop - the building where, according to local residents, in 1986, was judged the plant management. Director, Chief Engineer and his deputy were given 10 years, the shift supervisor - 5 years, the head of the reactor department - 3 years. Two of the accused died in prison director was released due to ill health after serving 5 years. It is noteworthy that only one of the accused, deputy chief engineer, partially admitted his guilt. Others, including the director, thought that convicted unjustly. To date, public opinion is divided on this issue: some believe that the perpetrators simply appointed court, made "switchmen". Others insist that the punishment was too lenient and sentenced to serve their terms had from start to finish.

The only St. Elias Church working in the exclusion zone. Before the Chernobyl accident there were 15 temples. Rector of the church and parishioners claim that in the church and in the area adjacent to it, the lowest radioactivity in the city.

- In the world of the sarcophagus, which is buried in the exploded reactor, referred to as "nuclear monster." Locals, or rather, those who regularly have to work in an area referred to him only as "breadwinner". While he was there, they have a job - says our guide. - Salaries here are much higher than the alienation of territory.

- What about radiation?

- It there is almost no notice. After several years of work you are already at the subconscious level allocated to each dangerous area, you realize that this path can go, but in any case impossible to approach out to the old tractor, which strongly fonit. And in most places in the Chernobyl radiation levels even lower than in Kiev.

By the way, the whole trip on the exclusion zone we spent without dosimeter. It has not been our companion, we have not seen any personal dosimeters in one person, encountered in Chernobyl, Pripyat. Apparently, the people who work here are either very confident or extremely careless.

We go to a local shop to buy provisions for the journey. On the shelves - a rich selection of alcohol. There is a vague doubt that the "dry law", which was mentioned to us during the briefing at the checkpoint here strictly observed. Nodding at the counters, Sergey Chernov says: "Even we, in Chernobyl, manifested" grin of capitalism. " The city has only one pharmacy, it bought privately owned and has a grocery store. "

To date, almost all the buildings in the abandoned private sector. Residential construction signs marked "Here lives the master of the house", as, for example, in this house, located down the street in October. The mistress, 80-year-old grandmother-squatters are thus calculated to frighten off marauders, who are still looking in abandoned buildings and the value of non-ferrous metals.

Chernobyl residents hard saying goodbye to their home country, some of them returned to their homes within a few years after the tragedy, and found them completely ruined. In one of these houses we find fragments of the history of the 30-year-old: Photo Tereshkova on magazine pages, student diary entries about the Olympics, records, postcards, signed by hand. Inscription on the wall: "I'm sorry and goodbye, my house!"

10-kilometer zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been settled out by 21:00 May 3, 1986. In the week after the disaster, about 60 thousand people, including the entire population of Pripyat, the city of Power Chernobyl, was taken to a new place of residence - mainly in Kiev and Chernigov. The next day, the evacuation of the inhabitants of the so-called 30-kilometer zone, large settlements which was the regional center of Chernobyl. Unlike Pripyat, where the layout of the city allowed to file individual bus to each dwelling house, 13000th population of Chernobyl, the old Jewish town with narrow streets and dominated by private buildings, concentrated on centralized collection points. Thousands of buses, trucks for removal of the residents of the district center of the property, and even special vehicles for transportation of cattle allowed as soon as possible to relocate the city and dozens of villages within a 30-kilometer zone. From 15:00 hours on Sunday, May 4, when the evacuation of Chernobyl, and until 7 May about 12 000 families (and with them, about 100 000 head of cattle, pigs, sheep, horses) were evacuated and accommodated in 53 settlements series preferably areas Kiev region.

In one of the private holdings meet squatters. Permanent residents in the exclusion zone - a few hundred.

- I worked as a teacher in 1986. On the day of the explosion with two eighth grade was in the field, a few kilometers away from the station, went through potatoes, - says Evgeny Markevich. - We have seen that from the block a smoke, thought maybe bonfires tow or paint which caught fire, this has already happened. The fact that there was something serious, I found out on the second day, in the evening, when Pripyat began to catch buses string from which poured a lot of soldiers and police with gas masks. On 27 April I was going to take her son to the river - long promised to teach him to fish. I came home, waiting for him. The window is knocking neighbor sends a note from his wife: "All the children are taken out of the city, I send Denis in Kiev." I remember the war, and I know how people are still searching for their loved ones lost in the occupation. How cold shower breathed: "leave, I will not see anymore!" I ran to look for his wife, he found saying that he'll take his son on a motorcycle. In Chernobyl, I returned a few months later. Agreed with the local authorities, so as not to touch: in my school was a great workshop, I was able to produce any work. In general, useful, I took on the job. Since then, and I live, but like as registered in Kiev. The wife and son of the zone remained. A house built by his grandfather, I can not quit.

Our next stop - a place that the locals call "island". Before the accident worked here a small shipyard after the Chernobyl tragedy there housed departments dealing with forest in the contaminated area - felling, planting, putting out fires. According to scientists, the territory of the zone should be possible to planting a forest, it will be to contain the spread of radiation. Not far from the port, located on an island in the water is somewhat rusty sunken dry cargo. One of them, "Skadovsk", is a key point in the cult video game "S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat". Picture of the game is very different from the original. This year, the water in the river rose to a level not observed for any age 20. Rusty cutting "Skadovsk" only half visible, the ship itself is hidden under the water.

We leave Chernobyl.