|
Editor’s note: In tandem with the popularity of the HBO miniseries Chernobyl, CR4 presents some special content to spark discussion about the infamous nuclear disaster. A related Guess the Architecture post will follow.
The Chernobyl nuclear accident is one of two events listed at Level 7 event classification on the International Nuclear Event Scale, the maximum on the nuclear energy disaster scale. The other is the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan.
On April 26th, 1986, an experiment that was intended to test the safety of the nuclear power plant went wrong. A fire started and radiation spread for days, sending toxic rain to parts of Europe, as far as Italy.
The neighboring town of Pripyat, Ukraine, was evacuated at the time of the accident and many residents thought they might return home someday. Most did not, as the area is still extremely radioactive, and will be for hundreds of more years. Chernobyl’s Exclusion Zone is a 1,000-square-mile area complete with border guards.
Today, the town sits as a time capsule of that tragic accident. The concrete and metal cover over Reactor No. 4 is cracked and rusty but still guards tons of radioactive material underneath. That problem won’t go away for thousands of years.
When the town was evacuated, about 1,200 people refused to leave. A little over 130 remain to this day, mostly women, and colloquially dubbed the “Babushkas of Chernobyl.”
Source: The Babushkas of Chernobyl/Facebook
Filmmaker and journalist Holly Morris discovered the community of elderly women while she was visiting Chernobyl for a 25th anniversary story. After capturing footage, with a Geiger counter going berserk, she saw in the distance what appeared to be a sign of life.
She was right. The community of people, she found, is mostly women now in their 70s and 80s, who defied government orders and returned to their homes. The men mostly have died off from health complications related to alcohol, tobacco and radiation exposure, Morris said in a 2013 TED Talk.
The women came back illegally, and the government has tried to remove them several times but they have a certain stubbornness and have stayed put. Many of the homes in the area were bulldozed years ago, but some remain. Some are vacant and overgrown but some are still home to these Babushkas, or “babas,” which is the Russian term for grandmother.
Morris visited them and found that their desire to stay doesn’t stem from unawareness of the radiation risks but a desire to be in the home they fought for over the years. They survived Stalin’s rule, the Nazi government and Chernobyl. But they’re happy in their contaminated home, happier than in an unknown city outside of Kiev. They grow potatoes, have found well water and generally make do with what they have.
They know the risks but they aren’t sick to the point of immobility or other ailments. One of the babas, Hanna Zavorotnya, told Morris that she’s not scared of radiation, but starvation. Many would rather risk dying from a lack of resources than be separated from their family homes. They hear of friends who evacuated and they are worse off now and suffer from mental health issues.
'You can’t take me from my mother; you can’t take me from my motherland. Motherland is motherland,’ Zavorotnya told Morris in an interview.
The women live simple, quiet lives. Most have electricity but no running water, some have farm animals like pigs and chickens. They pass the time with television and knitting or needlepoint. They visit one another and play cards or help one another when it’s time to slaughter an animal for food.
In 2017, Morris debuted a documentary about the women. It captures the resilience and solidarity of these women and illustrates the power of one’s roots.
The group shows an unexpected beacon of life among of the world’s worst nuclear tragedies. Even with a constantly ticking Geiger counter reminding them of what was, their existence shows the power of the human spirit and determination.
| 
Re: Women of the Week: The Babushkas of Chernobyl
Comments rated to be "almost" Good Answers: