Nine interesting facts about Chernobyl

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9 interesting facts about Chernobyl

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After the interview with ex-Chernobyl tour guide Natasha Tereshchenko ( interview download link here) about her experience of escaping the War in Ukraine I was re-listening to some of the other Chernobyl episodes on the pod including the one with two urban explorers Alex Ioannou and his Italian counterpart Sat a.k.a forgottenwonders. Since I am sitting at home in Beijing under the lockdown I tasked myself with trying to figure out if I can find online evidence for the 9 facts brought up in the original podcast recording. I’m assuming finding back the 3 stories I myself mentioned on the pod shouldn’t be too tricky, right? Let’s see.

 

FACT 1: Power plant is alive and active daily (by @forgottenwonders)

First fact was brought up by Italian urban explorer Sat who mentioned his surprise that power plant is very much operational and there are people still working over there every day. And this is very much true. According to the Daily Mail article every day almost 7,000 workers come there to help decommission the plant. The article says “Some workers live inside the irradiated zone for up to 14 days at a time, while others commute in from towns just outside the quarantined area.” Around 3,000 live inside the exclusion zone for up to 14 days at a time carrying out their dangerous work, while another 3,800 live on the borders of the exclusion zone and commute in.

 

Another article, this one by National Geographic, highlights how the workers have shifts of either 15 days a month or work on four days a week rota that has been scheduled to minimize exposure to radiation. Some are the security guards, firefighters, scientists, or some simply maintain the infrastructure of the plant. Currently the power plant doesn’t produce any electricity ⚡️ and the crew is working on decommissioning three remaining reactors. It is estimated that those jobs are secured (were* Russian invasion) until 2065.

 

They work there even during the WAR! On top of everything, even in the recent situation – the war in Ukraine – we had reports of around 100 workers being stuck inside for more than 12 days due to Russian invasion (according to this BBC article). Most of the workers live in the town Slavutych (aka Pripyat 2.0) which was built to for that exact purpose, to house the power plant workers and during the time where the Russian forces seized the compound, they were basically kept hostage. “They can take a shower, but with no soap, no shampoo, they can’t brush their teeth. They can’t change their clothes or wash them. There is no supply of medicines. They are sleeping on the floor, on some desks or on chairs.” – is the quote taken from france24.com article that demonstrates the realities of what those poor people found themselves in.

 

Alright, so what else did Sat mention in the episode about the fact that workers still carry on working daily in Chernobyl power plant? He said “Workers do 12h shifts for some days and then the go back home for a week/10days. There is a bus service that takes the workers to the plant and back. Work is being done at the plant every day because power grid, the electrical grid, the cables, all the network its huge and they use it to re-direct energy that is generated from power plants. On one hand, you have people decommissioning the plant, on the other there are people for whom it is a normal working day. They work in the office, there are engineers working in the control rooms, there is a canteen where the workers can have lunch which is cooked on site.” I never had the pleasure to experience the Chernobyl buffet but according to Sat it was “not bad”. He even enjoyed, previously not known to many Italians, a beverage called kompot, which is served over there at the canteen. What a lucky chap! I haven’t had kompot since leaving Poland 20 years ago.

 

Sat’s meal at the Chernobyl power plant canteen. Yummy 😋

I found that workers in the exclusion zone are restricted to a cycle of 15 work days in the zone followed by 15 days outside and there are around 2000 people working in other areas of the exclusion zone. However, another article mentioned it all depends on your shift schedule. You can be working different shifts, for example: four days on the ground with the next three days off.

 

 

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FACT 2: There is one of the world's largest solar farms in Chernobyl (by @al3xisdead)

The sun is always shining and the soil is unusable since it makes perfect sense to take advantage of the inhabited vast land. Why not go green and use the land productively? Alex was absolutely right is saying that it was Ukrainian-German company that installed the panels. Global Resilience Institute reports the solar power plant was built. 3800 solar panels produce energy that is used to power over 2,000 apartments. This power plant was built in Chernobyl because of incentives put in place by the Ukrainian Government. These incentives include extremely inexpensive land and a paid premium for power generated there. The Ukrainian Government is taking measures to rebuild with sustainable energy instead of nuclear energy. This proactive approach indicates that sustainable and resilient practices will play a part in the future rebuilding Chernobyl.

 

The solar farm was placed around 100 meters away from the dome that covers nuclear power plant’s reactor. Construction begun in 2017 and it finished following year. According to the treehugger.com Ukrainian government identified 6000 hectares (roughly 15000 acres) within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone that can be used to produce electricity again. Since Ukraine aims to reduce the import of natural gas from Russia the idea of installing vast amount of solar panels makes a lot of sense. Go green Ukraine!

 

Website solarchernobyl.com would be my guess to find out more about the solar project in Chernobyl.

 

 

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FACT 3: The eyes of firefighter Volodymyr Pravyk changed colour due to astronomical amounts of radiation endured

This was the one the one I brought up. Volodymyr Pravyk who was born on June 13, 1962 in Chernobyl enjoyed photography, drawing and poetry but his day-job was being a firefighter. 🔥 On the night of the disaster he switched shifts with his friend, Piotr Khmel and ended up being the on the watch when the first call that came after the explosion. During the disaster Pravyk was one of the first responders at the site of the fire and it is said that due to being exposed to massive amounts of radiation his eyes changed color from brown to blue (!) Following the disaster he was taken to hospital in Moscow where he later died on May 11, 1986 from radiation poisoning. I am aware this one would be a tricky one to confirm.

Firefighter Volodymyr Pravyk

 

He was awarded an Order of Lenin and his name is immortalized on the marble slab of the memorial “Chernobyl Heroes” in Kyiv and there is a street in the city of Cherkasy named after him. You can find out more by looking up this page and translating it from Russian to English.

FACT 4: Duga Radar never worked and no body knew it was there and it was only discovered after the accident (by @forgottenwonders)

I watched the movie The Russian Woodpecker to try to find the answers to Sat’s claims. That was fun. In the movie you follow a quirky artist Fedor Alexandrovich who is trying to find out if there was connection between Duga radar and what happened in Chernobyl in 1986. Fedor has an emotional and personal connection to Chernobyl, since his parents lived there and he was separated from them in the aftermath of the accident. At around 23rd minute of the documentary Fedor plays the “woodpecker transmission” sound recorded on the cassette tape to retired Col. Vadim Prokofiev (former Soviet weapon designer) and says “The whole world knows this sound as the “Russian Woodpecker”. Most people connect this to an over-the-horizon antenna. Namely the Duga next to the Chernobyl station. And then he ask the old man if that was possible? That the transmission came from the Duga radar. The man replies “No, it’s not possible, for several reasons. The fact of the mater is, the Chernobyl radar didn’t work, so it couldn’t make any interference. Second, this antenna was built to look in a narrow range to the south. Not towards America or Europe.

 

At this stage, I was happy to hear the confirmation that Duga radar was not working but than the Col. Vadim Prokofiev went into a tirade about Stalin: First, everything people say about his brutality is simply impossible. Because Stalin graduated from a seminary and he was meant to take Holy Orders. The old man than makes a point and emphasized one more time: Holy Orders! followed by He was [Stalin] such an outstanding person that he saw injustice and he decided to become revolutionary. – at this stage I stopped taking seriously what Col. Vadim Prokofiev said anymore.

So? Did Duga ever work? Also was Fedor onto something? I remember reading Annie Jacobsen’s book Phenomena where she mentioned how Russians during the Cold War send low frequency, monotonous buzz tone broadcasting directed at American embassy in Moscow personnel (I believe it was called UVB-76). American government didn’t even informed the ambassador nor the workers and later conducted tests on them. By the way that book is extraordinary! Work checking out.

 

Back to Duga. Further interviews with Duga Data Commander Lt. Col. Fedor Chebanenko is where we hear confirmation that the woodpecker signal in fact came from Duga Radar. Duga Commander Vladimir Musiets mentioned Our object was a system for missile warning and in 10 years we detected every Shuttle launch. And during that time, every country in the world heard the Woodpecker. On top of that Duga Deputy Commander Col. Nikolai Shkurat revealed that Duga caused a lot of problems not only in Europe but also in USSR. The radar interfered with SOS signals. Hence, the head technician had to change the frequency of the signal emitted from the station. However, the new frequency was ineffective as it couldn’t overcome the Northern Lights. How is that important, you may ask? The Aurora Borealis protected USA from the rays of the Duga. And because of that the antenna was useless as it couldn’t fulfill its mission. Hence, in that sense, Sat was right – it didn’t work (as it was intended to work).

 

Wow!

 

It failed! That sounds so Soviet to me… What about the documentary “The Russian Woodpecker”? I must admit it was a fascinating viewing that exposes some uncomfortable questions worth investigating. Was there someone who benefited from the Chernobyl disaster? How about the builders behind the failure of the Duga? After all, there was a scheduled commission to inspect the radar on 1st September 1986. It never happened. Chernobyl disaster occurred on 26th April 1986. Hmm…

 

 

 

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FACT 5: Birds around Chernobyl have significantly smaller brains then those living in non-radiation poised areas (by @al3xisdead)

Yes! It is true. Well, almost. This study shows that “birds living in areas with high levels of background radiation around Chernobyl have smaller brains as reflected by head volume. This effect was specific for brain mass, and it was not confounded by differences in structural body size or body mass” – is a direct quote from the journal. The conclusion was that birds (ps. birds are real) living around Chernobyl have 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation. The finding comes from a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region. I think we can forgive Alex for saying “significantly”.

FACT 6: Natalia Manzurova claims that Soviet authorities forced thousands of pregnant women to abort during the Chernobyl evacuations

I came across the article on womensenews.org that reveals shocking claims of former Russian nuclear engineer who was assigned to be part of the clean-up crew at the Chernobyl power plant. This is the exact quote from the article: “Next to the operation theater in the gynecology department, we saw a big can that is usually used in villages to carry milk. I opened the lid of this can and saw that there were fetuses that were from about the seventh to eighth months of pregnancy.” Then she continues “There was a secret order by the government that all the pregnant women inside the 30-kilometer exclusion zone were to undergo either a Cesarean operation or were to be induced so that they would give birth prematurely. Only later the question came to my mind: What happened? Were these small children still alive when they were put into these big cans? It was evident they were forgotten in haste.”

 

I understand that those claims seems quite shocking. However, the Pulitzer Center also featured this interview. Would that be enough for credibility or was it just a made up story by Chernobyl survival? What would be her motivation to do so I wonder?

FACT 7: Chernobyl plant was producing power until the year 2000 and no one knows what to do with the original sarcophagus (by @forgottenwonders)

Part 1 about the power plant working until December 2000. Again, Sat is very much right. The officials kept the power plant operational for 14 years after the disaster. To decommission a power plant is not an easy task. It’s not like a light switch. You can’t just turn it off. The last reactor of the Chernobyl power plant was shut down in 2000. The Businessinsider article says it nicely: “Even in the contemporary world, nothing about nuclear is cheap: Not the labor or materials needed to build a plant, not the uranium, and certainly not the expense of decommissioning a multi-unit power producer.”

 

Second part of Sat’s statement is regarding the original “sarcophagus”. Originally it was built to keep radioactive materials like corium, uranium, and plutonium contained. It was a truly heroic achievement and many liquidators lost their lifes because of it. The “sarcophagus” was build in 6 months and it was meant to last between 20-30 years. With time the structure deteriorated and since 1997 there were active efforts to fix the looming problem. New Safe Confinement, led by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was proposed – a new arch that would cover the old one. To give you an idea of how massive this structure is, it could house the Statue of Liberty!

Video source: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development

 

 

The new structure covering the old “sarcophagus” is designed to last 100 years. What about the old one? The livescience.com article claims “The plan is to take apart the sarcophagus piece by piece — all the while reinforcing the pieces that are left so that they won’t collapse.” Afterwards, the disassembled parts are supposed to be cut into smaller pieces, decontaminated and transported in shipping casks to be processed or thrown away. There is a good timeline of events documented in this businessinsider article but I couldn’t find any information about the old “sarcophagus” being dismantled and transported. We know the huge chimney from the old plant was dismantled in order to fit the new arch but that is all. Am I missing something here? What happened to the old “sarcophagus”? Did they leave it there, under the new arch? Is this why Sat claimed “they don’t know what to do with it”? And for now, since there is no news about dismantling and transporting the old sarcophagus I’m going to agree with my Italian urban explorer friend and move on to FACT 8.

FACT 8: Pink Floyd had a music video set in Chernobyl (by @al3xisdead)

I must admit, I like Alex’s facts as they are very straightforward to check. Pink Floyd’s fourteenth and last studio album “The Division Bell”, dedicated to its 20th anniversary featured a song called Marooned and the music video for the song was shot in the abandoned city of Pripyat.

Music video: Pink Floyd – Marooned.

FACT 9: Four Ukrainians found guilty of trying to remove 15 tons of contaminated, radioactive scrap metal from Chernobyl

And the last one is something I found while looking at the Chernobyl events timeline. I came across a section about looting and this is what it said: “On October 31, 2008, four residents of the Kyiv region were found guilty of trying to removed 15 tons of contaminated, radioactive scrap metal from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. A judge in the Ivankov District Court of Kyiv found the individuals in violation of the requirements of radiation safety. Radiation from this scrap was found to be hundreds of times higher than permissible limits.Prosecutors in the Kyiv region and the General Directorate had begun investigating organised crime and corruption in the Ukrainian Security Service. The task force found that two of the people involved in the crime were members of the police force. The verdict, announced on October 31, found all four guilty of the crimes and imprisoned. Around that time two residents of the Ivankiv District were also arrested while trying to remove the metal from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone without proper documentation.”

 

15 tons… There is this article I would recommend to check out: 9 Things That Weigh About 15 Tons 🙂

 

At the end I would like to also recommend Sat’s documentary about visiting Chernobyl reactor 4 and control room. He told me about it in his original interview for Chasing Bandos and it blew my mind!

Sat’s Chernobyl documentary: Inside Chernobyl reactor 4 Control Room

 

Sat’s episode:

9 facts about Chernobyl original episode: