Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

by Svetlana Alexievich

Chernobyl, while an accident in the sense that no one intentionally set it off, was also the deliberate product of a culture of cronyism, laziness, and a deep-seated indifference toward the general population.

There you are: a normal person. A little person. You’re just like everyone else—you go to work, you return from work. You get an average salary. Once a year you go on vacation. You’re a normal person! And then one day you’re suddenly turned into a Chernobyl person.

The Germans all went back to Germany, the Tatars to the Crimea, when they were allowed to, but no one needs Russians. What are we supposed to hope for? What do we wait for? Russia never saved its people, because it’s so big, it’s endless. And to be honest, I don’t feel like Russia is my homeland. We were raised differently, our homeland is the Soviet Union.

the Gulag, Auschwitz, Chernobyl. One generation saw it all.

It’s not just the land that’s contaminated, but our minds. And for many years, too.

Sometimes I think it’d be better if you didn’t write about us. Then people wouldn’t be so afraid. No one talks about cancer in the home of a person who’s sick with it. And if someone is in jail with a life sentence, no one mentions that, either. Nadezhda Afanasyevna Burakova, resident of the village of Khoyniki

You turned on the television, they were saying, “Don’t listen to the provocations of the West!” and that’s when you knew for sure.