BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Polish Culture Chernobyl accident's anniversary

i just today. I remember running around the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Krakow with my counter and checking the radiation level.

Here is the article about Chernobyl's Polish connection Chernobyl Accident & Chernobyl's Polish Connection

It perfectly showed the true nature of communism. The Soviet authorities tried to block all information and keep the whole incident secret, but alarm about the increased level of radiation was raised by other European countries. The Soviets had to admit there had been a serious accident, later it turned out a catastrophy.
The most appalling is the Soviet government`s behaviour. It lied not only to the West, it had become sort of tradition. What is much worse, it lied also to its own people. Communist regime hid the information as long as it was possible. Why? The citizens of the SU were sacrificed in a way. More important than people was the image of the SU as a flawless leading communist country. People were less important.

And President Putin mourns the collapse of communism. It`s really strange.

I invite you to a website of an Ukrainian woman who is fond of biking in the countryside. She was a small girl when the meltdown happened and she has already been to Czarnobyl area several times.

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/chapter1.html

This is an excerpt from her net diary:
My trips to Chernobyl are not like a walk in the park, but the risk can be managed. I always go for rides alone, sometimes with pillion passenger, but never in company with any other vehicle, because I do not want anyone to raise dust in front of me.
I was a schoolgirl back in 1986 and within a few hours of the accident , dad put all of us on the train to grandma's house. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough away to keep us out of reach of the big bad wolf of a nuclear meltdown.
The Communist government that was in power then kept silent about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their preciously stupid labor day parade and it was then that ordinary people began hearing the news of the accident from foreign radio stations and relatives of those who died. The real panic began 7-10 days after accident. Those who were exposed to the exceedingly high levels of nuclear radiation in the first 10 days when it was still a state secret, including unsuspecting visitors to the area, either died or have serious health problems.

Jerzy,

I know this website. We even awarded it with our site of the month award!

May 04 Polish Culture Site: Chernobyl � Biking through the Dead Zone
http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art20396.asp

The website that both Jaga and Jerzy mention is really quite extraordinary. I spent quite some time and followed it all the way to the end. The woman really knows how to tell a story with pictures and just a few words. Some of her photos are really wrenching. Not bad for a biker chick, but I think she is ~nuts~ to go into that area.

In my part of the US, we have several families that host children from Chernobyl area each summer, ostensibly for a vacation but also to bring them if need be to the medical facilities in Boston. Their problems are heartbreaking. Sometimes a family tries to adopt the child, but I don't know how often that actually happens.

I have worked as a translator for the organization Nancy is talking about.

Previously, only children from families would be allowed to participate in the program. In this case, adoption in the U.S. would be totally unthinkable, because the children did have families to return to. However, now they do allow children from orphanges, and this does lead to problems. However, adoption is still not supposed to be allowed, and the Russian, Belarussian, and Ukrainian governemnts would not easily allow it.

I have also travelled to Gomel, Belarus, and Klintsy, Russia, where many of the children come from.

Usually, it is a very positive experience for everyone. Unfortunately, in 2003 there was a big scandal in the project, and so I have no desire to work for them anymore. The whole idea of the project has been perverted. It's disappointing, really.

Jerzy beat me, but what the heck. I really enjoyed reading it and seeing how everything really looks like a ghosttown. I wonder if it would ever be totally safe to re-populate. (I've read articles that say tens of thousands of years).

Besides that ugly bldg. in Warsaw the Soviets gave to Poland, this Chernobyl accident is the height of Soviet stupidity