There, they were shunned by their new neighbors, who both resented the refugees and feared the invisible contagion of radioactivity. At school, other children were forbidden by their parents from sharing desks with pupils evacuated from Pripyat—and not without good reason. The radiation readings in the stairwells and hallways of the new apartment blocks in Troieshchyna were soon found to be hundreds of times higher than elsewhere in Kiev.
