The crime of Chernobyl : the nuclear Gulag

Hundreds of books, long and short, have been written about the Chernobyl tragedy. Few people are left indifferent once they understand a little about the biggest technological catastrophe in history. Wladimir Tchertkoff’s book “The Crime of Chernobyl - the Nuclear Gulag” occupies a central place in this library aboutChernobyl. Many journalists, like Wladimir Tchertkoff, a documentary film maker for Swiss television”, were shocked by what they saw in the areas affected by the radioactive emissions following the explosion at Reactor 4 of the Lenin nuclear power plant in Chernobyl (Ukraine). Many witnesses, like Tchertkoff, were revolted by the events that followed in the scientific and political world after the Catastrophe. But very few were able to gather together all the facts to back up these feelings of indignation in a formidable work of documentation. Tchertkoff’s book does not limit itself to remembering the events. It demands of each of us that we grasp the fact that following the Chernobyl catastrophe, the damage to human health and to the natural environment will be felt for hundreds of years over immense areas of the northern hemisphere contaminated by strontium-90 and caesium-137, and for tens of thousands of years by plutonium in a number of areas of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Tchertkoff’s book is reminiscent of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous book “The Gulag Archipelago”, not simply in its title but in the method used to select and reveal the facts: it is a documentary (supplying names, titles and dates), it is encyclopaedic (the destinies and actions of individuals are accompanied by medical, historical, physical, biological, legal and political documentation) and it is passionate (the author is not a foreign observer but an active participant in events). The bringing together of all this information, combined with the author’s obvious talent as a writer, makes the publication of Wladimir Tchertkoff’s book an important event for thousands and thousands of people in different countries. For those living in the contaminated territories, or those who have been exposed in any way to dangerous levels of artificial radionuclides, this book will help them towards a better understanding of how to deal with the dangers posed by radiation to themselves and to those closest to them. For those who are trying, in spite of the reaction to the consequences of Chernobyl from governments and international organisations, which was muted, to say the least, to understand more fully and to reduce to a minimum the uncontrolled effects of “Atoms for Peace” – the chronic exposure to low level ionising radiation, the effects of artificial radiation on health - this book will provide great moral support. This is an important book for the history of contemporary society: it documents the way in which, during the last quarter of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, political statements diverged, sometimes diametrically, from the real action taken. The corporate interests of the nuclear industry and short-term "political expediency" took precedence over safety considerations and over the lives of millions of people. Finally, the book contains many striking descriptions of human behaviour: cowardice and heroism, baseness and self-sacrifice, selflessness and villainy, a sense of duty and irresponsibility. This book is a revised and fuller version of the 2006 French edition. It is based on documents from the hundreds of hours of film footage used in the seven documentary films made about the Chernobyl catastrophe by the inseparable team, Wladimir Tchertkoff - Emanuela Andreoli. \*\*\* This title has been realised by a team of the following dedicated professionals: Translated by Susie Greaves, Edited by Susie Greaves and David Greaves, Maxim Hodak - Максим Ходак (Publisher), Max Mendor - Макс Мендор (Director) and Ksenia Papazova - Ксения Папазова. The real authors of this book are the victims of the disaster at Chernobyl that occurred on the 26thApril 1986. Wladimir Tchertkoff recorded their voices in the villages of the north of Ukraine and in the forests in the south of Belarus. They are the millions of peasant farmers who consume food containing caesium 137 on a daily basis: the young pregnant mothers, themselves contaminated, who are unknowingly poisoning the life developing within them: the children whose lives are condemned, even if they are born apparently healthy, because they will become ill as a consequence of consuming radionuclides, morning, noon and night. Then there are the "liquidators," the unsung heroes of Europe who were sacrificed in order to extinguish the fire at the power station. They suffer any number of unknown "atomic" illnesses. Hundreds of thousands of them are ill, tens of thousands have already died prematurely, and continue to die in unimaginable suffering....And finally there are the doctors and physicists, at least the few of them who have not submitted to the will of the nuclear lobby. This book also tells the story of the struggle undertaken by two Belarusian scientists who risked their careers, their health and their personal safety to come to the aid of the contaminated populations.Forced into the role of dissidents by the refusal of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna to recognise the harmful effects of low dose radiation on health, the physicist Vassili Nesterenko, and the doctor and pathologist Yury Bandazhevsky, were persecuted in their own country for their opposition to the official dogma. Vassili Nesterenko died in 2008, having suffered innumerable health problems following his exposure to high levels of radiation in April 1986, when he flew over the exploded reactor in a helicopter. This book was first published in 2006 in France. Despite the biblical proportions of the disaster that could have rendered the whole of Europe uninhabitable, the world has still not learnt its lesson. The real health effects from the accident at Chernobyl continue to be covered up by governments, by the nuclear industry and by the international institutions that support them. This cover-up has made certain that sooner or later, another catastrophe would arise. In 2011, following an earthquake and tsunami, three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant experienced a nuclear meltdown. The health effects there are just beginning."