(May 18, 1990) Following is an interview with Valdimir Sjilov, one of many Chernobyl cleanup workers now suffering severe health effects. The interview was exerpted from an article in "Komsomoiskaja Pravda", 2 Feb. 1990.
(332.3316) WISE Amsterdam - I and my comrades at the Novodzerzjinskaja mine were conscripted by the war commissary. This happened, as I remember, on 20 August 1986. We were transported in An-12 military aircraft that can take a great many passengers. We were taken to the city of Belaja Tserkov. We changed into military uniforms and were brought at night by car to the village of Oranoje in the Ivanocskij area.
We worked in Chernobyl without any form of protective equipment; we had only a gauze mouth protector to stop the radioactive dust. We worked in the worst contaminated zone, which was surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Guards were placed all around so that no one could get into this zone. We were given different tasks according to orders. Some of us worked moving bricks, others washed the walls in the fourth block - we worked everywhere. We stood on the root and threw down pieces of graphite, we were in the basement and emptied radioactive waste and water with buckets. In this waste there were big doses of radioactivity, and I repeat, we didnt have any sort of protective equipment.
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During the months of February and March, a number of articles and letters appearing in "Izvestia", "Pravda" and "Sovietskaya Byelorussia" attacked USSR radiation authorities for withholding information from the public and for failing to monitor contamination properly in areas significantly contaminated by the Chernobyl accident. A February article in "Izvestia" stated that "contamination in food is not being monitored" and that "activities of radiation experts are clothed in secrecy." In an article published in "Pravda" in March, a dozen letters written by residents of contaminated areas were cited by the science editor who said that rules for reporting radiation findings "appear to exist only on paper," and that measuring equipment was inadequate and incorrectly calibrated, featuring margins of error as high as 25%. "We have been in many areas where the measuring equipment wasn't inspected or didn't work," eyewitnesses told the Pravda editor. "Nucleonics Week" (US), 12 Apr. 1990 |
We worked almost a whole month in this zone. During this time none of us were examined by a doctor. We didn't get especially good food, but were allowed to drink as much mineral water as we wanted. After each trip to the fourth block we took a sauna, and every day we got new boots and coveralls - but they were of miserable quality. The contaminated coveralls were burnt.
Once in a while we worked in places where we could only stay for five to ten minutes at a time. Such an occasion was when we, six men, carried water from the basement. In this basement there were filters (we worked there a total of one hour, this I made a note of) and I, as the oldest in the group, monitored the radioactivity - in this waste there was up to 70 roentgen and in the water up to 45.
But the foreman who gave us the equipment wrote town only 1.5 roentgen per hour. I objected, "How can you write down such a low radiation dose when we worked almost an hour in this contaminated basement! You must write the truth about us, as it was and is." But he said to us, "I am not allowed to write down such a high dose. I can see it is so high but still I cannot write down the truth because then my boss will complain."
More than three years have now passed since then. Our health has deteriorated, we have done our duty and now we are dying in silence. We can't even have children, even if we want to. These children could be born deformed. Doesn't the State see how young men fade away and die? I was at a hospital in Dontesk and I saw how the whole hospital was filled to capacity with persons who worked and lived in Chernobyl. But nobody can help them.
I am now working as a miner, it is heavy work but so far I keep going although my health gives me trouble. I've started to lose my memory, I forget names of my friends, I even forget my ID number. My legs ache and I get dizzy spells. People look at me in astonishment.
Yes, we have done our patriotic duty, but our native country doesn't recognize us.
Source and contact: Translated by Ola Palmaer and published in Swedish 5 May 1990 by Mothers Against Nuclear Power, c/o The Peoples' Movement Against Nuclear Power And Weapons (FMKK), Box 17 246, S-104 62 Stockholm, Sweden Tel. 46-8-423336.