Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

by Svetlana Alexievich

We’d ask each other: is this what our life is like? It was the first time we saw it from the outside. The very first time. It made a real impression. Like a smack to the head. . . . There’s a good joke: the nuclear half-life of a Kiev cake is thirty-six hours. So . . . And for me? It took me three years. Three years later I turned in my Party card. My little Red book. I became free in the Zone. Chernobyl blew my mind. It set me free.

Our system, it’s a military system, essentially, and it works great in emergencies. You’re finally free there, and necessary. Freedom! And in those times the Russian shows how great he is. How unique. We’ll never be Dutch or German. And we’ll never have proper asphalt and manicured lawns. But there’ll always be plenty of heroes.

The only thing that remained behind the wire was the land. And the graves. And our health. And our faith. Or my faith.

“Chernobyl,” he’d say, “happened so that philosophers could be made.” He called animals “walking ashes,” and people, “talking earth.” The earth talked because we eat earth, that is, we are built from earth. The Zone pulls you in. You miss it, I tell you. Once you’ve been there, you’ll miss it.

Chernobyl—we won’t have another world now. At first, it tore the ground from under our feet, and it flung pain at us for real, but now we realize that there won’t be another world, and there’s nowhere to turn to. The sense of having settled, tragically, on this land—it’s a completely different worldview. People returning from the war were called a “lost” generation. We’re also lost. The only thing that hasn’t changed is human suffering. It’s our only capital. It’s invaluable!

That great empire crumbled and fell apart. First, Afghanistan, then Chernobyl. When it fell apart, we found ourselves all alone. I’m afraid to say it, but we love Chernobyl. It’s become the meaning of our lives. The meaning of our suffering. Like a war. The world found out about our existence after Chernobyl. It was our window to Europe. We’re its victims, but also its priests. I’m afraid to say it, but there it is.