It was a perfect weather, almost the same as it is today. We, ordinary citizens of the great country of the Soviets, did not suspect that the explosion took place at night on the 4th block of the Chernobyl NPP. No one could download a video on YouTube as well as post in on Facebook.
We found out everything April 28, when watching TV programme “Time”.
Few people paid attention to this information. It was said as nothing special ha happened, as ordinary news...But the West tolled the bells.
At that time we did not know how "lucky" we were. The wind was blowing North West, so the first effects of the disaster felt the Swedes. Remember the anecdote: "Why it was decided to erect a monument to Pushkin in Chernobyl? Because, first, he has the same initials AS (Alexander Sergeevich = Atomnaya Stantsiya (Nuclear Power Plant in English)), and secondly, he wrote: "From here, indeed, shall we strike terror in the Swede..."
April 28 I left home and went to the bus stop. Instead of the usual LAZ bus a minivan arrived. Then we found out that all the buses from Kiev were sent to evacuate Pripyat the day before. Of course, everyone waited for the evacuation of Kiev. After all Chernobyl is very close.
Meanwhile, there were most terrible rumors. I remember very well, we were sitting with our parents on the front porch of our house. Then our neighbor, who worked in a secret organization, came. His face was white as a sheet. He said: "Immediately go home. Close the windows and stay there. A nuclear catastrophe happened near Kiev". My parents didn’t listen and stayed outside eating steaks in the fresh air. But they told me and my brother to go inside. And the windows, I remember, were closed. Just in case.
Buses were returned back. Cleaned, washed thoroughly. And the city was incredibly clean - flushing machines everywhere. People were waiting for the worst. In the meantime a local newspaper wrote:
"Kiev. It's covered in gardens and parks. Calm, confident, full of life. All enterprises work. Khreschatyk is crowded. In the evening, as always, theaters and concert halls are full. The people of Kiev enthusiastically greeted their heroes - "Dynamo" football players - the winners of the European Cup. These days peace race will start in Kiev".
Optimism and self-confidence. These qualities have always been in the nature of the Soviet man.
Evening Kiev, 1986, 7.05
And then children disappeared from the city...Parents took me and my brother immediately after the Victory Day. Our Volga had Murmansk licence number, which was very handy - and we were released and allowed to go to Moscow. Just a couple of times we were stopped by dosimetricians - I, my brother and mom were "clean", but my father was forced to take off his jeans. Still he had sweats in the trunk...
"Hooray, the reactor exploded! Exams are canceled" - I wrote a letter to my friend Pasha. Mom accidentally saw this and for the first time in my life I got hard for my thoughts. "You see, daughter, people die and more will, people have lost their homes. And the fact that you're not going to pass exams, does not give you the right to be happy about it", - said mom. I still remember it.
And so a long, long summer began. For many of my peers - in distant camps, where they were sent by the state.
Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the organization of work and leisure, students and health promotion in Kiev and its region was adopted in 1986. It was decided to complete the school year in secondary schools in Kiev region, which accepted evacuated schoolchildren, until May 15, then send children to rest camps, summer camps of southern regions.
In Kiev, the school year for grades 1-7 will end May 15. Students of these classes will be sent to summer holiday camps and institutions of other areas of the country. In high schools and other educational institutions summer holidays are held as usual.
Children will be sent to summer camps - a sufficient number of trains and vehicles will be allocated.
All the work and organization of summer holidays will be implemented by the ministries and departments of the republic, regional executive committees and the Kiev City Executive Committee, Council of Trade Unions and the Communist Youth League Central Committee of the Republic.
In conclusion, I want to stress again that all issues related to the effects of the environment on human health are kept under strict control by the Ministry of Health.
Pravda Ukrainy (Ukraine’s Truth), 1986, 9.05
Some were less fortunate (or more). And they spent this summer with relatives. My girlfriend of a professor's family remembers a marvelous summer in Orel province, where she became acquainted with the life of Russian peasants, smoky hut device and traditional method of controlling lice and bedbugs.
During the summer the city lived in fear. Strawberry was surprisingly cheap. The potato was brought from Poltava. No one walked on the grass. Everyone knew that liquidation works are done in Pripyat. The people saved themselves drinking dry wine, alcohol and telling anecdotes. My parents wrote them down: "In 25 years, it will be a history," - said my father. And he was right.
Humor was very black. I think it helped as much as alcohol and cabernet.
Kievans divide into cheerful and smart; smart - the ones who were able to leave, cheerful - which have stayed to tell each other jokes about Chernobyl.
Question: how to recognize a Kievan? Answer: it must be a bald impotent carrying "Kiev" cake.
And my parents have collected newspapers. A huge stack of yellowed leaves carefully preserved in the family archives.
There’s not much truth in them. A lot of propaganda. But here’s what I thought, what would the press wrote about it, if such a catastrophe happened today? Would anyone bother with the evacuation? With disinfection? With health-care services? Or would it end up with activity in social networks with requests to repost, bitter comments and some obscure press-conference? Fortunately, the story does not know the subjunctive mood. Therefore, we can only fantasize. And remember. After all, 27 years have passed. Not only "post-Chernobyl" children were born but also grandchildren. We again started eating mushrooms. Excursions are being arranged to the "zone". Very large, very angry and quite healthy-looking boars live there. Lots of research was done, books were written and films were shot about Chernobyl.
