City 40 Page #3

After that, I began working

in the organization "Planet of Hopes,"

with Nadezhda Kutepova in Ozersk.

We have a lesson today.

Will you take him? It's Wednesday.

Okay, bye.

Daddy is ill.

Finish your breakfast, get dressed.

Daddy says he's ill.

Both grandfathers of Nadezhda's son,

as well as his father,

spent more than a decade

working at Mayak.

As a result, the baby was born

with a weak immune system.

This is clearly a result

of long-term radiation impact.

His body was working in a way that

any food caused an allergy in this kid.

My third son had

a very serious skin disease from birth.

For the first two years of his life,

he was covered with scabs

and dermatologists

couldn't find the cause.

Now he's better

and again I don't know why.

What if my son marries a local girl

with three generations

of the same genetic problems?

What kind of grandchildren will I have?

I will do everything possible

to keep my kids from getting married

in Ozersk,

and from having children here.

When I worked at the research station,

a classmate was writing

her dissertation...

on the impact of radiation

on future generations.

I read her drafts

and there was a lot of data

on different types of diseases.

But when her dissertation was ready

and published as a book,

all the diseases were left out

and only allergies were left in.

There was definitely pressure

against publications

of long-term health effects

of radiation...

and how radiation affects children.

This was just not allowed.

My mother gave me detailed instructions,

when my baby was born...

about the streets,

I shouldn't go on when I took

the baby out for a walk.

For example, the bus stops

where workers from Mayak...

would disembark from work...

were to be avoided at all costs to keep

the radioactive dust from my home.

In the past, the town

had strict radiological

and sanitary controls.

And every street was thoroughly

washed on a certain day of the week.

Dry leaves were collected,

grass was mowed,

which helped cope

with small-scale aerial emissions.

The town was

under constant sanitary control.

You know, we had strict standards.

After getting a dose of radioactivity,

you had to leave the place,

take a break,

go to the smoking-room.

You weren't sent home because

transportation worked only

at a particular time.

So you went to do something else...

after working in the so-called

"dirty" place.

The only "safety valve" they had

was to go to a beer hall and sit

with a mug of beer.

Beer was considered to have

a therapeutic cleansing effect.

Now nobody cares anymore.

Radiation self-control skills are lost.

The new authorities do not do anything.

For the last five years,

I haven't seen them wash the streets,

or remove grass once.

You go in a car and you pass

a very spectacular chain

of beautiful lakes.

Like, one lake is beautiful, the next

one is even more beautiful,

but then the local people tell you

that this lake is nicknamed...

"The Lake of Death"

or a "Plutonium Lake",

because it is so heavily contaminated

with plutonium.

NO TRESPASSING EITHER BY CAR OR ON FOO During its early years of operation,

when the technology was new

and experimental,

nobody cared about what might happen

to the environment.

The workers weren't concerned,

because they were ordered

to build the nuclear bomb.

They did what they were ordered to do.

Nobody thought the waste

would be radioactive

for millions of years.

And so they just dumped...

the by-products of chemical reactions

into the river.

In the early 90s, when the information

about pollution and accidents appeared,

I thought, like a typical resident

of closed city,

everybody wants to close our good factory,

and we're the good people

who made the atomic bomb.

Later, when I met

ecologists from the green movement,

when I saw the documents with my own eyes,

when I saw government officials

who said totally different things

in public than what they told us...

I realized that it was all a lie.

The first major documented disaster

is officially called an accident.

But in fact it was a planned dumping

of highly radioactive waste

into the River Techa.

The second major accident happened

in 1957...

when an underground container

of liquid radioactive waste exploded.

This is where on the site of Mayak

on the quiet evening

of September 29, 1957,

a tank of liquid nuclear waste exploded.

The deadly radioactive cloud

began to move in a north-east direction.

As a result, a huge territory, 105 km long

and 9 km wide,

was contaminated with radionuclides,

Both people and animals became victims.

DANGER ZONE:

23 villages had to be destroyed.

More than 10,000 people

were evacuated to safe areas.

For how long can we stay in this place?

If we calculate...

using official daily norms...

20 seconds.

There is a radioactive river.

The village cattle

comes up to the river

and drinks its water.

If the cattle just drank,

it would get much less radionuclides.

But the cattle steps in the river,

mixing the sediment...

with the upper level of clear water.

The cattle drinks that water

and it gets into its milk.

People use that milk to make

dairy products...

and also drink it raw.

Of course, we didn't know anything

about this.

We used to swim and fish in that river.

I learned later that at some point

the International Atomic Energy Agency

discovered strontium in the Arctic Ocean.

And then the investigation found out...

where that strontium had come from.

They traced it

all the way back to the River Techa.

Officially, my father got 600 roentgen

of radiation from his work.

DANGEROUS SITE:

It's a very high dose.

My mother got 400 roentgen, officially.

My mother died at 62.

She got stomach cancer.

She underwent surgery, but died.

The third major accident took place

in 1967, when Lake Karachay...

where they were dumping

and are still dumping radioactive waste,

dried out

and created a dust storm

that contaminated a vast territory,

in particular, several villages

upon the River Techa.

The aftermath of Mayak's activities

is really disastrous.

One can say that Mayak was built on dead

and ruined human bodies.

You're coming back, right?

Certainly. I'll just see him out.

Nadezhda Kutepova

is not afraid of going against

the opinion of the majority

of people around her.

She was the first to see

violations of the law,

and human rights violations

in the treatment of people.

When I walk down the corridor

past her office,

I see people waiting to see her.

When I walk,

I see people.

People really trust her.

Ozersk is not included

in the list of towns polluted

by the 1957 disaster.

Officially, Ozersk was not affected.

Of course, that's not true

and everybody knows it.

The number of people the state

is ready to compensate

-is increasingly narrowing down.

-And we are dying.

This is their policy.

Recently, we got a visit from

a State Duma member.

And he said, "You are so many!"

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