“Without people, the world would be more beautiful”: life in Chernobyl through the eyes of an eyewitness

Denis Vishnevsky, Head of the Radiation and Environmental Monitoring Group of the Eco-center, has been working in Chernobyl for 17 for years.

Photos from the personal archive of Denis Vishnevsky

About his life there, believing physicists, and that philosophy is much more dangerous than radiation, he told the publication Kyky.

How I started working in the Zone

I will not say that I have dreamed all my life to work in Chernobyl. It so happened that in the third year I read the book Animals in the Radioactive Zone. There were memoirs of a squad of zoologists who worked in the first years after the accident. It was unusual - a completely different environmental situation. Of course, there was interest. After graduating from the university I found out that a vacancy for a biologist was released at the Ecocenter.

It was relatively easy to get this job. I contacted a specialist who resigned from my position. He gave the director's phone number, I called and we met. Further statement, medical commission and employment. There is a myth that for such work one must be healthy, like an astronaut. In fact, the main thing is that there are no contraindications for working with radiation: these are any oncological diseases and diseases of the thyroid gland.

There is no such thing as a “disease of the employee of the Zone”, though they talk a lot about it. We receive doses more than the population in other regions, but less than the threshold beyond which pathologies begin. Oncology, in fact, can manifest itself from a variety of factors of a non-radiation nature: this is nutrition, genetics, and much more. An employee receives an average 1,5 mSv per year. To go beyond the threshold at which pathologies begin, you need 400 1,5 mSv. And radiation is not only in the Zone - a person who often flies on airplanes also receives a dose. This, by the way, is an important reason for the restrictions for man’s exploration of space.

So, the first two years, from 2000, I worked in the scientific department (radioecology and radiobiology), then 15 for years - in the monitoring service: monitoring the radiation state of the entire exclusion zone. Now I turn to the scientific department of the Chernobyl reserve. I will be engaged in environmental research.

Portrait of a stalker

There are several types of people who work in the Zone. Most professions are quite common: drivers, accountants, cooks, electricians. At the level of low-skilled labor and ordinary professions, there are a lot of residents of the surrounding villages and urban-type settlements. The regime and the salary suits them, so it’s hardly a special choice for them.

Scientists, oddly enough, there are not very many. There is the Institute for NPP Safety Problems, which accompanies the work at the Shelter. Most scientists come here from outside organizations on expeditions. At the same time, life in the Zone is a good university. Teaches sustainability, for example.

During the watch stay here it is easy to slip into drunkenness or other entertainment.

There are no ordinary restraints — families and other forms of social control. Most of the employees are in the 4 zone a day a week, and those who have a continuous work cycle - 15 days in a row.

Photos from the personal archive of Denis Vishnevsky

In the evenings it reads well here. I'm reading now Sapiens Harari. By the way, after the risk of drunkenness, the second risk is a predisposition to philosophy. There is a lot to see: how dangerous are modern technologies, how a man and his material civilization surrender under the onslaught of nature without support. One local philosopher, Alexander Novikov, deputy director of safety of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, said that future nuclear scientists should be brought here so that they understand the price of a mistake.

But all that they say about the mutant animals with luminous eyes - unscrupulous fabrications. Radiation is generally a very aggressive agent, it breaks more than it gives mutations.

An ordinary day in the Zone

Lifting in my 7: 00. By eight, I get to the office. For lunch, some go to the dining room, but I do not - cook myself. Although fed there for free. In the information and analytical department most of the time you work with data, so you sit at the computer a lot. But often it is necessary to leave and on objects. We go to the company car a whole team.

Many people ask me: what is the most interesting thing there? Yes, everything is interesting! Wild animals, the transformation of the anthropogenic environment under the advancing nature. The onset of nature is where man reigned before. Take the city of Pripyat, for example - it is a complete victory of nature.

Looking at this, you inevitably think about it, ask yourself questions. There are more atheists among the employees, but there were also believers. They - do not believe - physics.

Photos from the personal archive of Denis Vishnevsky

The most pressing problem of Chernobyl today is radioactive waste. A chain reaction in the sarcophagus is unlikely, but now it is the largest unorganized storehouse of radioactive waste. By this it is dangerous. There is a waste disposal plan for 100 years. Everything is done not too quickly, and the question here is not even about money, but about the decision. This is a unique event, this has not happened before. There are no ready solutions and approaches. But the process is constantly going on, a NSC (new containment shell) was built here, and a central storage facility for radioactive waste is being built. Now it is the largest mobile building on earth.

Photos from the personal archive of Denis Vishnevsky

This is not extreme

From the Ukrainian side, tourism in the Zone is legal. Almost already 50 000 people a year visit Chernobyl. In Belarus this will also begin soon, they open up a zone for tourists. But in the Belarusian zone there are no such charismatic objects as the Chernobyl NPP, Pripyat and Chernobyl-2.

I realized that when I was working with a film crew from the EU. They filmed all the animalism in the Belarusian part, and the "anchors" were removed from us. The prices of such "tours" are very different. Conditionally from 50-60 dollars - this is a one-day. Individual and multi-day excursions are more expensive. I remember, the shaft of visits began after the release of the game "Stalker".

Photos from the personal archive of Denis Vishnevsky

Now the topic has been promoted by tour operators: most of the visits are from abroad, Europe, USA, Asia. I worked a lot with tourists, media, directors. They say people are looking for extreme here. But this is not extreme at all: you ride yourself on the bus and get off with a guide, you go with him along a certain route. In my opinion, this is about something else: it is an experience. And of course, it is better to see the Zone with your own eyes than on the monitor screen.

The man looks outside, and then inside himself. It is no coincidence that Gorbachev, after speaking in 1986, spoke about a nuclear war. This is terrible, but it is an opportunity to see, on the one hand, a world without people, on the other, attempts to overcome, to take this chaos under control. The possibility of war is quite real - now nuclear weapons have gone to the third world countries: India and Pakistan, for example. Israel has, in all likelihood, its arsenal, but does not tell anyone. AND last, but not least - terrorists.

World without people

Photos from the personal archive of Denis Vishnevsky

If the Zone were music, it would probably be Artemyev and Pink Floyd. Something from “Stalker” and “Solaris” fits well on landscapes. Understand, there is a completely different rhythm. It is the “other”. People are guests here, and the natural rhythm is “summer-winter”, “dawn-sunset”, the sound of wind and the flow of water. Not the one that usually surrounds us.

I spent a week in our hospital almost in an empty village. Two days later, I didn’t need a watch at all. The course of the sun across the sky was quite enough for work and cooking. It turned out it is not difficult. Adaptation is fast - after a month you stop noticing ruins. Just live. You look at the world without people. And you understand that it would be more beautiful for plants and animals.

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