Interview with a Chernobyl worker, translated from Ukrainian to Czech to English so please forgive mistakes
About the days spent in captivity, about the living conditions at the power plant and also about how the stalkers cleaned the potatoes.
(for longer reading)
The story of a Chernobyl power plant worker who was at work on the day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and remained there for almost a month, with the 12-hour work shift becoming more than 600 hours.
At the time of the invasion, on February 24, there were about 300 people in the power plant. Chernobyl workers spent more than 24 days at the workplace until a rotation was organized.
The-village.com.ua server talked to one of the employees who experienced first-hand what I wrote about in many posts on this FB page. He talked about what had happened during the endless shift in work.
For security reasons, his name and position are not published.
(The text is written in the first person).
We drove to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on February 23 for a night shift. In the morning there was an explosion near the town of Pripet. The National Guard of Ukraine, which guards the power plant, was alerted.
Later, the senior staff, through loudspeakers, asked all workplaces to shut down, collect the necessary documentation and evacuate.
We were taken by bus to the administrative building, where there is a shelter from radiation. We spent a few hours in it, but then people started going out. Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be happening. We got lunch and went back to work. Music played on the radio ...
But in the afternoon the following happened: a column of tanks arrived at the power plant (from the town of Pripyat). The column approached one of the buildings, with tanks aimed at it. The Russians threatened to "turn everyone into meat." This is despite the fact that it is not possible to fight on the territory of a nuclear facility. The commander of the National Guard ordered the weapons to be folded.
Our army (Ukrainian) was set up in the barracks in the administrative building, during the day it was concentrated in the assembly hall for inspection. Movement was restricted on some floors where the Russians deployed their personnel. Their number was increasing every day.
The staff was sent back to work.
"When we told them there was radiation around, they were scared."
Radiation danger was a stimulus for the Russians. We tried to scare them. After all, they themselves did not understand what (dangerous) "thing" they received.
When we told them there was radiation around them, they made big eyes and pulled away. They didn't have dosimeters with them. They even asked how to remove the radiation. And when they were wondering how to protect themselves from radiation, I replied, "Come together and go home from here, then you will be saved."
At first, I tried to communicate with them because I wanted to understand how common sense people could start this war. But they turned out to be just zombies. They truly believed that they had brought us peace and liberation.
We slept where we worked - on the floor.
I didn't have a bed. We slept on the floor of the workplace, we only had an electric heater.
The mobile network and the Internet did not work, but we still had a radio from which we learned information about what was happening in Ukraine.
My working partner and I were constantly under Russian supervision and we could not even talk so that they would not hear us. We decided to switch to Ukrainian, although I have been using Russian all my life.
They left us food, the Russians ate separately, they had their own products.
We have a dining room at the power plant, where staff eat. There was enough food in the warehouses for about a month.
In addition, we had a medical center and two paramedics. There was little medicine, but medics helped the staff as much as possible.
"The cook was so exhausted she had to take an infusion."
About three hundred people needed to be fed and there was only one cook at the power plant. And at one point she was so exhausted she had to take an infusion. Then it was decided that some people who might not return to work would help her.
Over time, the portions and number of meals began to decline, but until the last day we ate twice a day: the first, second and third meals we had.
Another salvation was that most employees had supplies at work: tea, sugar, something to make tea. Colleagues allowed us to break into lockers, so their supplies helped us.
"Stalkers sent to the kitchen"
When the war broke out, there were four stalkers in Pripyat. These boys came from the Dnieper and Zaporozhye to enter the Chernobyl zone illegally. And when the first explosions sounded, they were faster at our office building than a bus picked up by Chernobyl staff. There they were detained by the National Guard.
At first they thought they were saboteurs. Then they showed the documents, explained what they were doing here. But stalkers are still considered intruders, so they were locked in the basement of the dining room - there was no time to deal with them.
But then the occupation of the power plant by the Russians began and these boys were simply forgotten. They were mentioned at dinner. All the while, stalkers sat in the basement without water and food, shouting at us. For them, probably a lifelong experience.
When they released them, they began to think about what to do with them. Eventually, they were sent to the kitchen. They are good, they helped, they washed the dishes, they cleaned the potatoes. Then, during the rotation, they returned with us to Slavutyč and sent them there to help the defense. You can't leave Slavutyč after all, so at least the boys make money. By the way, the bread at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant ran out on the third day.
"The Russians have started pretending to be workers in Chernobyl."
When the Russians decided to film a false story of how they distributed humanitarian aid, the management immediately warned us not to participate. At the hygienic stations, they found overalls from the Novarka company - a company that built a new sarcophagus above the 4th block. The Russians dressed in them and pretended to be workers in Chernobyl.
On the day of filming, cheese sandwiches appeared in the dining room. At first we thought what to do with it. To refuse? And then we thought that once the occupier captured us, let him feed, let him have a headache.
As the number of Russians increased, they began to climb into all the rooms where they could (and could not) stay. The beds began to be made from iron lockers, in which we usually changed. However, the biggest problem for them was washing.
As the guard room was not intended for the long-term stay of the staff, there was only a sink and a toilet, there was no shower. However, this did not stop the occupiers - they began to wash in this sink, washed their clothes there and began to hang wet clothes on electric heaters. Many times I tried to explain to them that it didn't matter if we were Ukrainian or Russian, in case of fire we would burn together here.
Eventually, ropes were stretched to dry the laundry, although the fire could not be completely prevented. (None created).
Later, the occupiers brought their specialists from Rosatom to the power plant. When I noticed that they were civilians, I decided to ask if they were serious nuclear specialists.
They have really understood where they are and how important our object is. They knew that spent nuclear fuel was being stored here.
But when I asked them if they knew that the Russians were firing blocks at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, they just smiled and said, "That's not true." Then I couldn't stand it and I just scolded them. They turned out to be the same zombies living in parallel reality.
These people from Rosatom did not intend to replace us, they allegedly only came to assess whether we did not need spare parts or diesel. At first I didn't understand what diesel was for - we have a nuclear power plant.
And then Chernobyl was without power due to hostilities, and we lived for three days on backup diesel generators. The oil supply was depleted on the first day, and the occupiers, when they realized that the situation could get out of hand, were looking for an oil tanker.
As soon as the Ukrainian repair squads managed to repair the power line, it was immediately bombed again by the Russians. Eventually, the power plant had to be connected to the Belarusian power line.
"Connections to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant have simply ceased to exist."
On the first morning of the war, it was possible to evacuate at least half of the staff, whose absence would not be critical for the power plant, but it did not happen immediately.
And then the ways of connecting to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant simply ceased to exist. We usually go to the power plant from Slavutyč by train - it's 40 minutes one way. On the way we cross two bridges and the territory of Belarus. There is another way for the car. This road also leads through Belarus and across the road bridge across the Dnieper.
Both rail and road bridges were destroyed. The Chernobyl nuclear power plant could go to Slavutych via Vyshhorod and Kiev, but hostilities continued there, so "green corridors" would be needed for the evacuation.
The power plant management regularly called the headquarters to address the rotation. I know that the leadership proposed a rotation in the first week, but the armed forces and the border guard were against it because they could not guarantee the safety of the personnel when crossing the Dnieper.
But our relatives formed an initiative group and demanded that we be evacuated. The rotation was postponed many times and finally on March 20 they provided us with evacuation buses.
On them, we reached the border with Belarus, where we were released only after a detailed passport control with video and a personal search. Then they took us across the river to the Ukrainian side and from there by car to Slavutyč.
As we left the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, the Russian commander asked us, "Will you rest and come back here?"
"The chief engineer and more than a dozen people remained at the power plant."
As we crossed the Dnieper, we saw our colleagues who came to replace us. I have to pay tribute because they knew very little about the conditions in which they would have to work. Nevertheless, they went and volunteered to help us. This is a heroic act in my opinion.
At the same time, there is no medical staff in the new change, this time the doctors simply refused to go to the power plant due to the presence of the occupiers.
Our leading chief engineer and more than a dozen other people stayed at the power plant because no one could replace them.
When it will be possible to reorganize the rotation is a big question, because new ways of connecting to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant have not emerged.
I probably won't have time to return to the power plant, I'm too exhausted.
As for the radiation dose, no one even asked for a dosimeter. I'm alive - I'm glad.
Freely translated.
Source: the-village.com.ua
