Beggar heroes

Liquidators for 25 years are beating for compensation

Chernobyl liquidators who risked their lives in 1986, should now sue the state for compensation, laid down by the law

Beggar heroes. 25 years after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it is still unknown how many residents died in infected territories, how many liquidators of the accident died. Different numbers are called: from several thousand to several tens of thousands. Those who survived, as a rule, are seriously ill and recognized by disabled. Most of them have been upholstered by the thresholds of ships for many years to get compensation from the state under the law. How they live - I recognized The New Times
Mechanical engineer Dmitry Gorokhov in April 1986 was 36 years old. He was summoned to the military enlistment office and offered in a “voluntary-compulsory” order to go to Chernobyl, to eliminate a nuclear disaster. They put a choice: Chernobyl or one of the African countries, and there is some terrible epidemic. Then Dmitry did not even assume that this accident would change his life so cool and then he would retrain as a lawyer and would defend the rights of his comrades in misfortune in the courts.

“Today I have a picture before my eyes: what I saw in the alienation zone when I got there in April 1986. The most struck the silence, ”he recalls. - You can not hear the singing of birds, no insects are visible. Around anyone: no people, no animals, empty houses. And at the same time, an amazing violent flowering: fruits, berries were so huge that I really wanted to try them. We were told that they cannot be eaten. I remember a terrible metal taste in the tongue. Limitation, headaches. No medicines helped. ”

Building football in 1995 Gorokhov was given disability. And in the early 2000s, the trials initiated by Chernobyls began throughout Russia, which were dissatisfied with the fact that the payments due to them were not indexed in connection with inflation. In 2002, desperate to achieve compliance with the law, Gorokhov reached the Constitutional Court. He was one of the applicants who objected to the fact that the amount of compensation was legally limited by the “ceiling” of 10 thousand rubles and were not associated with their earnings during the stay in the infection zone. KS took his side. And in 2005, the Strasbourg court granted his new complaint. Gorokhov complained that for a year and a half he could not receive money in the Nikulinsky court of Moscow in the claim: it was about 11,568 rubles 98 kopecks about 11,568 rubles, which the district social security body owed him. Inspired by success, the newly made lawyer began to help dozens of other Chernobyls, who through the courts sought to index the payments laid down by him. They did not lag behind Moscow in the regions: over the past 10 years, former liquidators have succeeded in the state millions of rubles in Russian courts, filed dozens of complaints to Strasbourg.

“Social protection authorities everywhere violate the law, and as a rule, it is possible to solve the problem only through a court,” explains Vladimir Bondarenko, legal consultant of the Chernobyl Union. “In the laws, everything is written correctly, but in practice the“ Chernobyls ”constantly“ catch ”the state on mistakes in arithmetic calculations.”

The radiologist Nikolai Dondik arrived in Chernobyl with chemical troops in May 1986. His duty was to measure the level of radiation. Now Dondik is a disabled person of the group II. He suits the district military registration and enlistment office. Already lost several ships. Dondik shows a piece of paper with numbers printed on a typewriter - these are arithmetic calculations that he himself did. In his opinion, over seven years, the state underwent 1 thousand rubles per month for him. But the court sided with the military enlistment office. “I am sure that they incorrectly set me an indexation coefficient,” says Dondik. - He wrote to the Ministry of Justice, asked to clarify the action of the government’s decree on indexation. My letter is football: first to the Ministry of Health and Social Development, then to the Ministry of Defense, and even the Ministry of Defense - to the financial department of the Moscow Military District with whom I sued. I waited five months, hoped that they would figure it out, and I got a zilch ... "

Stalin would have shot you his own story. Adolf Leider, another liquidator, tells a terrible story that happened with his subordinate - an accountant, the widow of the Chernobyl liquidator. “Her husband worked in Chernobyl an installer. He died five to six years ago. They said that the cause of death is the decomposition of the liver from alcohol abuse, that is, from booze. And the widow was left without money, without compensation. Immediately deprived of all benefits - 50% for housing and communal services, free travel in transport. On her behalf, I filed a lawsuit against Pervomaisky District Court. We made an exhumation of the corpse of her husband. Doctors gave the conclusion that the cause of death is associated with participation in the elimination of the Chernobyl accident. All benefits were restored to the widow, and now she receives 50% of the amount of compensation that her husband was paid during his lifetime. ”

“Of course, we risked everything then,” Lider The New Times admits. - I was in Chernobyl a total of five months. But unlike the military, we had no dosimeters. And when we left, they wrote to us “from the lantern” how much we received the radiation. The enterprise, where I was the deputy director, belonged to the Ministry of Energy, and we knew very well that the explosion on the reactor occurred due to the negligence of the station duty engineers. As a leader, I had to distribute dosimeters to measure how much an X -ray grabbed. The first days did not give them to us. I then came to Major General and say: "Give dosimeters." And he to me: "What ministry are you from?" - "From the Ministry of Energy." And he to me: “If Stalin was alive now, I would put you all to the wall and shot you what you did?” When we handed over dosimeters and asked the results, the general said that they were lit. So, I think, the dose that we received a day specially underestimated to keep us longer at the station. ”

Nikolai Shelyakov was saved by moonshine almost in disputes of his comrades: “We all knew that it was very dangerous to be there. Therefore, they drank moonshine and vodka. It was forbidden, but we still drank. It was believed that this could help. " Nikolai says that when at the end of April 1986 he was called to the military enlistment office and said that he had to go to Chernobyl, he was frightened. He worked in the system of the Ministry of Medium Engineering, but he had an officer rank and he was afraid that he could be sent to Chernobyl as a military man and there he would have to lead a company and “rake everything with his hands”. He was sent as civil, but he was enough for two months: he worked in the construction of the sarcophagus. In 1993, he was given the II group of disability, and in 1997 he had to leave work: there was no strength. Now Nikolai walks with a wand, lies twice a year in the hospital.

In 2007, Nikolai filed a lawsuit in the Zyuzinsky district court, demanding to index compensation for harm to health. The court recognized his requirements legal. It turned out that over seven years, the debt of social security agencies in relation to Shelyakov amounted to, scary to say, 196 719 rubles. However, Dmitry Gorokhov says that this is a common situation: people win and large amounts.

For a disabled person who suffered from radiation, what Nikolai receives is a penny. To the question of The New Times, as former liquidators will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, they answer in chorus: "We will remember those who did not live."