At lunchtime the next day, Legasov’s son, Alexey, returned from work to the family home at Pekhotnaya 26 and discovered his father’s body hanging in the stairwell, a noose around his neck. He had left no note. When a colleague from the Kurchatov Institute checked Legasov’s office for radioactivity, he found every one of his belongings too contaminated to be returned to his family. Gathered into a series of large plastic bags, they were buried instead. Soon afterward, when an official visited Anatoly Aleksandrov in his office to discuss candidates to assume some of Legasov’s duties, the
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