Liquidator: Returning from Chernobyl, I was silent

In Cherikov (Belarus) lives a person who participated in the emergency response and worked in the reactor. Anatoly Belko was in Chernobyl in May 1986 and stayed there for six weeks. Its complicated history, which is not immediately possible to believe 73-year-old told the liquidator.

Anatoly Belko came in shortly after the Chernobyl explosion dug a burial ground and a tunnel under the reactor.

 - When taken in Chernobyl, have a subscription to disclose, - says Anatoly Pavlovich. - People generally think that we went to work. When he returned, I said nothing, while "crumble" is not started. This can not hide. His wife sleeping in the same bed with me did not want to say that I cry all night, and his hands Mahal. And now sometimes Chernobyl dreams, and even concentration camp, war, the sea. The bad - because it will never be forgotten.





How did you get to Chernobyl?

 - At the time I was working on the farm. I am lying under the tractor repaired. Look - four legs are in lacquered shoes. Call my name. We imagine KGB officers. You know, they say, the country is in danger, we ask you to help. I did not have time to say anything, led to the chairman of the collective farm. Tomorrow was in Mogilev, and there - by helicopter to Chernobyl. We did not say anything, but I knew as soon as got there. I'm in the naval aviation served was Semipalatinsk atomic bomb test seen know what radiation.

What were you doing there?

 - I was working on an excavator. Change for 4-5 hours. Digging mounds of garbage. And they dug a tunnel to the station. The reactor after the explosion could not extinguish. And next to the lake. Here and ordered to dig the road, what would the miners could break through the tunnel. Then a station planted and detonated the charge, the reactor and got deeper. Only then we were able to extinguish it. During operation of the protection was jumpsuit and mask. Comes with change - mask can not be removed, the entire body nabryakaet. After decontamination, in a special booth blew strong winds and showers. That's all.

And where do you live?

 - After the change we drove in Brovary, this summer camp near Kiev. There were doctors. We examined, but did not explain anything. Many guys do not even realize that the radiation - it is dangerous. I used to come to work, and in the cockpit window open, full of dust, and the changer is sitting without a mask. To learn a couple of years ago, so those boys - have long been dead.

What do you remember most of all?

 - The most terrible thing - it's panic. After all, the locals did not explain anything, just forced to leave. People threw all the yards were not closed, the dog whined tied. But looters also missing. As a local, so from the visitors. That sometimes I look on TV - congratulations, letters of offer Liquidators. And I sit and curse, because these police officers who leave and enter the Chernobyl guarded - they also searched the home and then drunk.

You're back in Cherikov, but there is also radiation ...

 - General experience in the area of ​​the doctors I counted six months. In Chernobyl was a month and a half. After working here in Cherikov area. And we do, too high level. As soon as a station jerked around a nearby village forest and yellowed grass. Apparently the band was radiation. I'm a tractor on the farm, and sow and plow. And no one gave protection. I remember working in the field, plowed peat. Look - the car arrived. Leave people like astronauts in spacesuits, measured radiation. We are told: "Do you work here, the level is exceeded several times?" And what are we? We ordered, and we execute. And sometimes you get home from the field, as much in the eyes of the fog is.

When did health problems?

 - 10 years later. Initially, the ulcer was opened. Had surgery, removed one-third of the stomach. Then they began to veins in the legs swell up and burst blood poured. Mogilev operated, first cut off the foot - not heal. Then they cut off below the knee - is not healing. There will come a nurse bandaging - calling surgeon. Reveal the seams. And all without the injection, take a blanket and lying in his teeth. Vskroyutsya, wash out the wound and nothing else can not do. And then gangrene began. The temperature rose. I woke up - no legs. A surgeon who cut his leg, I learned. We were together in Brovary. Then I danced well, I'll tap dancer, so he remembered me.

And how do you live, the state helps?

 - I have a pension of about 5 million ($ 575). Fine. And treated like free. However, the joy that now with the money? Anyway spend on pills. Just a little help grandchildren. I have in fact three sons, three grandsons and three granddaughters. They delight.

And how do you feel about the construction of a nuclear power plant in Belarus?

 - Just people do not know what it is. I personally - against the construction. After all, we have so many lakes and rivers - even produce energy. A nuclear power plant is not needed immediately for the Chernobyl even our grandchildren will have to pay. And the people we have and so shallow. Now that the young, the old, - all suffer. What's different, because the atmosphere is infected. Water contaminated drinking, eat all infected. Much more?

You often remember Chernobyl?

 - Yes, I have a whole life - one solid Chernobyl. Great-grandfather dispossessed and exiled to Siberia. Then the family came here. The war began, I was in a concentration camp was stolen, stayed there for 3 years. This passport I 1940, really to me for 3 years more. I remember well how to work drove as once a month to take the blood came, and we were happy because it was given a chocolate and a glass of milk. How to feed once a day a bowl of boiled turnips, and we ate the grass. After the war I lived in Odessa, there are also starving. The naval aviation 7 years served, the Hungarian operation was held in Cuba was. Then Chernobyl. I saw so much grief and remained alive. People say that I am enchanted. Maybe true. Since childhood, I had a little Silver icon. I wore it half my life. Looks like she kept. Or maybe just the fate of this.

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