I decided to translate a few passages from these interviews here with Leonid Toptunov's mother, Vera, all written by Francesca Dani. Her blog is here where she has several stories about Chernobyl and the people touched by that disastrous event. I strongly recommend you visit her blog and read each story in full. All of the paragraphs below were translated from Italian with google translate and have been altered only where the translation doesn't quite make sense. Most corrections are in between "[ ]" brackets.
"I immediately notice that during our entire meeting, Mother Toptunova never calls him Leonid but rather "Lenochka" - a diminishing affectionate of his name. The diminutives are often used in Eastern countries, especially to indicate children. "Lenya", as many knew him, was a nickname used only by his closest friends, in his family, from his childhood and throughout his life he was called with the diminutive Lenochka.
Leonid Toptunov was born on 16 August 1960. He was a very obedient and reserved boy, he started reading very early and spent a lot of time on books. He loved science subjects, so much so that his physics and mathematics professors often called him next to them in the chair as an assistant during her lessons to her classmates: many times he taught her lessons.
He spent a lot of time with his classmates, he was always ready to help them with school problems, he had a great communication with anyone who came into contact with him and everyone loved him."
"He had many friends in Pripyat, some of whom were also his colleagues at work, one of whom was Alexander Akimov with whom he shared some passions, one of which was fishing. His life outside of working hours (which in any case did not leave much time to private life) took place like that of a common 25-year-old boy: he loved the nightlife of the city and went out during the weekend."
"Lenya and Sasha; [those] who got to know them confirmed that one was the shadow of the other. Leonid probably saw Sasha as an older brother he had never had, as someone who would guide him in some life choices at a time of difficult change. Even though he had the character of a rebel, he still needed someone to cling to: being alone, at 25, away from the family, in a work environment that wasn't exactly easy, in a difficult social context, with a job in his hands so difficult and important to manage, a strange mechanism is activated in the psyche that makes you feel incomplete towards the world around you. But in the end one thinks he is incomplete and instead he is only young."
"[Vera] speaks of an episode that has remained particularly engraved in her memory: in the last days of [Leonid's] life his face was covered with open wounds due to the bruises from exposure to acute radiation and the hair that came into contact with them caused him much pain. Vera decided to call a person to cut his hair to avoid this problem, he said, 'Mom I'm dying, it makes no sense to spend money on these things. Then just do it, take them and pull they come away on their own. It doesn't make sense what you want me to do.'"
"As a researcher on the life of this figure, I had a dream that I wanted so much to achieve: being able to hold his posthumous medal of which I spoke to you just above for a few minutes. I therefore expressed my desire to Vera if she could at least grant me to see it. My request was followed by a moment of silence and her words were a direct punch in my stomach: "I don't have it anymore, someone took it away. In all these years many people have come to the Toptunov home and some of them took away Leonid's medal from the house where she was supposed to stay."
"Vera accompanies me on the road for the appointment with my taxi and while we wait she takes me to see her garden, a small green and well-kept jewel in the concrete belly of a chaotic messy city. She was a caring mother, it shows by the care she puts into doing even the small things.
Before leaving us she asked me a very focused question, she asked me if I was married, and I told her no.
'I hope you have three children. Don't do as I did with just one' -it was her wish for my future."
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