Day Of Forgotten Heroes

April 26 is the day of heroic deed of thousands of troops, firefighters, Ministry of Emergency Situations officers, who were deployed to put out the reactor.

My father was among these people – a military of a helicopter regiment of the military unit 64683 in Kobryn. Three MI6 crews were raised by the alarm that night and sent to Chernobyl without adequate explanations.

Seven Days In Hell – the week spent at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant could be called that way. The pilots put out the reactor by dropping lead on top of it. They got up at 5 am and returned around midnight. They were given only gas masks and chemical protection suits (which no one put on because of the heat) to protect them from radiation, and also were recommended to wash thoroughly with soap and to drink wine. “They let us go, when we were already shining in the dark,” – my father is bitterly joking.

After 30 years only a few people among those young cheerful Kobryn helicopter regiment pilots survived. Someone was “burned out” a few years later, someone in process of time. But very few people managed to stay alive up to 60.

These people got no awards neither while alive, nor post-mortem. Their families do not receive any assistance. And those who survived were deprived of nearly all the benefits long ago. The authorities are busy with reclamation of land, contaminated for hundreds of years and refuse to recognize the link between radiation exposure and a monstrously large number of cancer patients.

By the way, do you know why on April 26, 1986 there were only three helicopters sent from Kobryn? Because the rest were in Afghanistan. Once I heard a phrase from my father: “I was lucky. They could have sent me to Afghanistan, but have sent to Chernobyl.”

O Lord, and after 30 years we also continue to live, considering that we are “lucky” if the execution is postponed for tomorrow ...

Natallia Radzina, the editor in chief of charter97.org