A few days later V.A. Sidorenko and I flew by helicopter to Kiev to pick up Blix and Rosen. In Kiev, we were met by Ukrainian colleagues who told a bunch of jokes to relax the tension. By now many of these jokes have become classics, but I apologize to the reader, I will repeat some of them. The first one is simple: «Finally, a peaceful atom went into every house.» And another one, prophetic: «A man from Kiev met in heaven a man from Chernobyl and asked him «How did you get here?» he replies «Too much radiation. And you?» the man from Kiev answers «Too much information.» Misinformation indeed has brought much harm to the health and welfare of citizens in the Ukraine, Belarus, and throughout Russia, as well as throughout the world. Many practiced in the composition and distribution of fables, making their names, political careers and money.
We took Blix and Rosen to the helicopter. Because of the summer heat, we were sweating in our cotton clothes, with patheticly primitive electrostatic dosimeters. They were wearing luxurious protective clothing, hung with trendy electronic toys. Rosen asked «What range should we set?» I answered «A hundred.» «Milliroentgen?» He asked. «No,» I said «Roentgen.» He was somewhat sour, and said «I do not have such a range.» «Well, no worries» we answered «we’ve got this range, and we know the rule of thumb, we are flying there every day.» In actuality we did not know all, and in particular, we did not immediately see why near the fourth unit the radiation level did not fall on the inverse square of the distance from the reactor, but considerably slower. It turns out that the radiation was coming from residues of fuel ejected during the steam explosion and burning of graphite. Those fuel residues were deposited on the construction of the smokestack.
But we were not going to over-expose our guests, and we were not in a hurry to get overexposed ourselves. We flew to the station. This picture is now widely known. I asked Rosen «Do you want to come closer?» «No,» he said «from here all is well in sight.» The station as a whole looked intact, people down there were working, and no tens of thousands of corpses anywhere. We landed on the outskirts of Chernobyl and returned to Kiev. We gave quite complete, truthful and accurate information.
TV reporters and filmmakers began to appear. With Y.D. Maslyukov a team of K.D. Sinelnikov arrived, and they wanted to get inside the station. I had just gone inside with B. D.Pismenny to check where the thermocouple cable was dropped. The thermocouple was manufactured at a factory in Tula by the lab of Academician A.G. Shipunov. It had to be dropped into a core of the former reactor, and the cable should have been dropped near the wall of the unit, so that one could jump out of the building and drag the cable into a more or less safe zone. Behind the wall the radiation level was about one hundred roentgen per hour. I suspected that the cable would drop somewhere in a wrong spot, and the task was not easy. The helicopter pilots, too, were exposed to radiation. Fortunately it did not happen. We were on the second floor, and through the hall we came to the end of the building and behind the window we saw the cable hanging from the roof. It was an incredible stroke of luck. We must thank Pismenny, for he, without hesitation, knocked the window out with his foot (the radiation behind the window was 100 roentgens per hour), and we took the cable and dragged it into the room. Sinelnikov filmed all this, and showed it in his remarkable documentary «The Bell of Chernobyl». The authenticity of the movie is confirmed by photo flashes, captured on film.
In fact, this was our main job, to make sense out of the chaos of radioactive dust, building structures, solidified radioactive lava, to understand where and in what condition the reactor fuel was, whether it could gather into a critical mass (as it occurred in natural conditions in Africa), and what was thrown from the reactor into the atmosphere. It was an odd combination of volcanology and nuclear physics. The usual scientific or industrial hierarchy did not exist, as M.M. Zoshchenko said «There are no tenors now! Let him sing with one hand, and work with the other.» I still remember the unforgettable feeling of brotherhood on the front lines.
We lived not in Chernobyl itself, but stayed about halfway to Kiev, in a country club. On the wall remained an advertisement from before the disaster of a movie «Servants of the devil on the devil’s mill». On the roof there was a stork nest, which was somewhat reassuring. We would rise early in the morning, come back late at night, and take a shower. We were fed superbly, and the composition of drinking was determined by the taste of our chairman, so that there was some diversity, not just the same legendary cabernet. We were haunted soundly: by the Moscow authorities, by the press, by heat outside and by cold air conditioning in the headquarters. Our indispensable facemasks were getting wet quickly. In addition, we were terrorized by «hot» particles. Indeed, such a particle could land on paper or on clothing, and you catch it like a flea. I cannot say what role the radiation played in our well-being. There were many different speculations. In fact, clearly something happened to our vocal cords. The magnificent bass of L.D. Ryabev turned into a falsetto. We were coughing. Upon my arrival to Moscow, my wife managed to put me in the Kremlin hospital for pneumonia, and there the doctors were trying to get the history of my medical condition from me, but then gave up. In general, more than 1000 men of the Institute passed through Chernobyl and in aggregate our health indicators and mortality rates were better than the Russian average. Of course, this was not due to the beneficial effect of radiation, there were other obvious positive factors. But I think we all do not accept the unbridled radiation phobia swelling in society. After coming back, I have been to Chernobyl a few times since I returned to other matters. The Institute, however, continues to bear their fearless watch. They carried out titanic work, which is described in the relevant literature.
I came home without any prior warning, and my wife was already desperate and suspected the worst. I brought a large basket of strawberries. She said «You’re crazy!» Fortunately, our great friend from Japan, Professor Husimi, gave us a very good radiometer. We measured the strawberries, and it gave a little ring. «Well, now» I said, «Measure me.» She measured, and there was continuous ringing! I asked her «Are you going to sleep with me?» She responded, «Well, what else can I do?» «Then» I said «let’s eat the strawberries.» So we ate them…
1. FIAN – the Lebedev Physics Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
2. Rosgidromet — Russia’s Federal Service on Hydrometeorology and Environment Monitoring.
3. In U.S.S.R. many scientists had military profession and officer’s rank in reserves.
4. Roadside Picnic is the well known science fiction book by the Strugatsky brothers, also known for the computer game “Stalker” and movie by the same name, both inspired by the book.
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