By nightfall on Saturday, the telephone lines and the hardwired radio speaker boxes in every apartment in Pripyat had fallen silent. The boxes—radio-tochki, or “radio points”—hung on the walls of homes throughout the Soviet Union, piping in propaganda just like gas and electricity, over three channels: all-Union, republic, and city. Broadcasts began every morning at six with the Soviet anthem and the cheerless greeting Govorit Moskva—“Moscow speaking.” Many people left the radio on constantly—at one time, switching it off was regarded with suspicion—a susurrating trickle of Party enlightenment
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