Enjoying Life in Chernobyl
SBS, Friday, April 26, 8.30pm (8pm in SA)
Reviewed by Pip Hinman
Danish film maker Gyda Uldall first went to Chernobyl in 1988 and recorded the devastation caused by the nuclear disaster two years earlier in When the Wind Blows. In her latest documentary, Enjoying Life in Chernobyl, Uldall interviews clean-up workers and people who, for one reason or another, have had little option but to settle in areas still contaminated by radioactivity.
After the explosion on April 26, 1986, the mopping-up operation was a disaster, in part due to the secrecy of the Soviet authorities, in part due to the scale of the crisis. Inadequately protected clean-up workers — mainly military conscripts — shovelled the contaminated refuse into piles by hand. According to Ukrainian government statistics, 97,000 clean-up workers have died from radiation poisoning.
The documentary shows very clearly that not only were reactor workers not told of the dangers 10 years ago, but today's clean-up workers (who apparently are allowed to work only two-hour shifts) seem to have a resigned or ambivalent attitude. Asked if they are worried, they shrug their shoulders: "Who's not afraid of radiation?", one responded. Another said: "We've got used to all kinds of radiation".
Two of Chernobyl's reactors are still in operation, producing electricity, and the Ukrainian government is still trying to contain radiation from reactor 4. In other words, many people still work — some on double pay — in the "closed zone". Yet, the original inhabitants of the surrounding districts — zones 2, 3 and 4 — are desperate to be relocated.
In Pripyat, five kilometres from Chernobyl, 600,000-700,000 people were evacuated; 650,000 children were affected. Between 1986 and 1993, 12,000 children died (Ukrainian government statistics). One government official admitted that because radiation had permeated the ground to a depth of 10-15 centimetres, radiation levels had fallen "until the ground was dug up again".
At Polesskoye, in zone 2, 12,000 people lived in 1986; by 1991 only 2000 poverty-stricken elderly people were left, most still impatiently awaiting their evacuation. The evacuation office opens once a week; some people told Uldall that they had been waiting in queues for more than three months. Some 7% of the land is contaminated, yet many still grow their own produce. As one elderly woman said, "Better to eat radioactivity than starve to death".
A short distance away in Belarus (zone 3), which borders the Ukraine, up to 2 million people (out of 4 million inhabitants) were living on contaminated land but not told anything about the dangers. When the news leaked out, some 700,000 Belarussians fled to Russia. The horrible irony is that while 40,000 people await permits to relocate — and receive a paltry US$2/month in radiation compensation — people fleeing from other trouble spots have settled in Belarus.
Refugees from the war in Kirghizia, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have ended up settling in Belarus after finding a large number of deserted houses and lots of uncultivated land. Asked if they are not worried about the radiation, they tell Uldall that they are, but that they have nowhere else to go. For these refugees, the "choice" is between a fast death (by being caught in cross-fire) or a slow one (by radiation).
These refugees also have other problems to surmount: they can't get work without residency permits, which officials are reluctant to give out. Yet the refugees are not forcibly removed and survive by growing their own food.
Chernobyl presents a grim picture of overwhelming backwardness and desperation. It's clear that neither the former Soviet government nor the new republican governments had, or have, the resources to deal with such a nuclear disaster. Uldall's documentary, the impact of which could have been greater with a little more editing, nevertheless leaves no doubt that the Chernobyl disaster has not ended. A powerful statement against nuclear power.