"We will never know the whole truth about Chernobyl"

In May-June, the premiere of the series "Chernobyl" produced the American Channel HBO and the British television Sky. The film immediately reached the first places in the ratings of the best series according to the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) website, bypassing even the most popular "Game of Thrones". At the same time, in Russia, the series about the tragic events of 1986 caused polar reactions among the audience. Someone considers him absolutely true and is surprised why such a movie about the Chernobyl disaster was not shot in Russia. To someone, a lot of shown in the series seems at least an exaggeration. And some saw propaganda in the film, and some were pro -Soviet, while others were anti -Soviet ...

About how reliably the foreign filmmakers managed to tell about Chernobyl events, we are talking with Vladimir Mikhailov , chairman of the Krasnoyarsk Union "Chernobyl", the cavalier of the Order of Courage - he received this award for participating in the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident.

Vladimir Mikhailov was sent to eliminate the accident in December 1986-then he was 33 years old. Mikhailov had nothing to do with energy or any special forces. In his youth he served in the army, then studied at the Eastfacing. From time to time, he, like many, was called to fees and retraining-for some reason they re-mastered the chemist. Sent in the reserve with the rank of lieutenant. And in December of the 86th he received a summons.

- Where they send - they did not directly say, so, in semi -trees. Although it was clear where they rowed. Everyone generally knew what happened, several mobilizations from the Krasnoyarsk Territory were already there. I went through the medical board. They said - 100% suitable. Here you have uniforms, duffel bag, ticket, tomorrow you have to go. So I got to Chernobyl with the divisions of the Siberian regiment of chemical protection, ”says Vladimir Mikhailov.

The liquidation of the Chernobyl accident lasted from 1986 to 1990. In total, 2539 people were sent to Chernobyl from the Krasnoyarsk Territory during this time, the majority in the first two years, the most difficult and dangerous. Now 1324 people survived, more than half of them are disabled. The average age of the life of the liquidators of the accident is 42 years.

"The bus column stood along the nuclear power plant, and all this poured on them"

"The report of the Minister of Slavsky Efim Pavlovich began. He said that in Chernobyl they did something there, some kind of accident there, but it will not stop the development of atomic energy. Further a traditional report that lasted two hours," from the memoirs of academician Valery Legasov .

- Vladimir Alekseevich, how did the series “Chernobyl” seemed to you, how true he is?

- The film is good. Unlike many foreign films about us: “Red heat”, for example, you can’t watch without laughter. And here everything is done without blunders, without the exaggeration of some moments of our life. They very competently approached things that, as it were, pass and show real reality, life. Well, the kid goes to school with a satchel - that was the ordinary boy of that time. But, of course, there was no artistic fiction without art. I mean, for example, an episode when the miners are naked, in some caps, they work. Well, yes, they had to be hot, undressed, but not so.

But in general, the essence is captured as it should. I don’t know how a meeting of the Politburo took place there, but time was given correctly: this is how people made decisions, that’s how they got away from responsibility. And they silented what had happened - after all, the country found out about everything only in May ...

- And the inhabitants of Pripyat are not immediately ...

There were really no powerful dosimeters: no one simply assumed that this could happen

- This is a very cool moment - when they showed how to evacuated Pripyat. So it was. But it was necessary to find and drive hundreds of buses and quietly, without panic, take 50 thousand people.

Despite the fact that in the city no one knew exactly what was happening. April 27, the day after the accident, was Sunday. People walked, mothers with strollers. The kids ran down the street. It really was impossible to even notify everyone, only at the level of "sundress radio". And they managed to collect and take everyone in just a few hours.

A long column of buses stood before entering Pripyat, along the destroyed nuclear power plant. And all this fell on buses ...

Pripyat is sorry, of course. The town was beautiful - and that’s all, in one day it became empty. People threw everything there. Cars, boats, there was a sea on the streets of boats. The river is such a fishing, everything was fishing there.

Many of the evacuated lost each other for a while. People in different areas were transported, some in one village, others in another. They did not say where they take it. And at that time it was not that there was no cellular connection - the usual telephone in the villages did not work everywhere.

"I understood that the city was evacuated forever. But psychologically I did not have the strength to declare this. Because if you announce it now, then the evacuation will delay, and activity at that time has already grown up by exponent. People will begin to gather for a very long time ... Therefore, I advised, and I agreed with Shcherbin, to announce that we can’t name this time. The evacuation was carried out quite carefully, quickly and accurately, although it took place in unusual conditions, ” from the memoirs of Valery Legasov .

- And how is the main inaccuracy in the film what would you note?

- This is the moment when a helicopter falls, a carrier mixture for filling a burning reactor. The fall of the helicopter was. But at a very different time. According to the film, it turns out that soon after the accident he entered the active zone and collapsed. It seems to be due to radiation. But in fact, it was already in October, when a sarcophagus was built over the station. The helicopter hooked on the cable of a hefty construction crane, the screw broke, the helicopter fell. The crew died, all four pilots. The moment of the fall managed to shoot our fellow countryman, an operator from Novosibirsk. Now he is no longer alive ...

"Just no one imagined that this could happen"

“In the first flight, it was clear that the reactor was completely destroyed. <...> The power of this explosion, as I could evaluate, from three to four tons of trinitrotolwallool in TNT equivalent,” - from the memoirs of Valery Legasov.

- Judging by the series, there was no even powerful dosimeters at the nuclear power plant. How could this be - and was it?

- The fact that there were no powerful dosimeters at the nuclear power plant is a fact. There were those that were designed for 3.6 x -rays, such radiation should be limit for these stations. Naturally, they all went off scale. Nobody counted on the fact that this could happen. And the one, according to the film, is the only powerful, stored somewhere in the safe, the key to which is hidden is apparently a military dosimeter of DP-5, designed for very large ranges. I myself walked with this, it is directly armor -piercing, in a plastic, strong box like that. Ronny, do not drop - nothing will happen to him. He has several scales - well, conditionally, from zero to 200 x -rays, then from 200 to 500, then to 1000 ... You switch these scales - he gives you the level of radiation. Such dosimeters appeared on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant only when firefighters arrived there.

-In the film, General Pikalov sets a dosimeter on the car, penetrates inside the destroyed power unit and says that the radiation level there is 15,000 x-rays ... How much did DP-5 showed in the territory near the station?

- About Pikalov - it is. And about the territory ... The fact is that all these infected fragments were scattered by such, so to speak, peas. Where this pea lay - there was a strong radiation. He moved away a few meters - it decreases. But since all this was scattered, finding all these elements or predicting, where and as a paste, it was very difficult, almost impossible. Remember the episode when the guy accidentally took a piece of graphite in his hand - and his palm was instantly burned down? And there were a huge number of such pieces everywhere. Well, the dust covered everything all the time. But she is less.

"I don't know if so many people had to send there"

"In total, more than 4,000 cubic meters of radioactive materials were buried. As a result of measures taken, the exposure dose of gamma radiation decreased by 40-50 times, and in the second half of 1987 (at the end of deactivation), the maximum dose power levels were 180 mr/h"-from the materials of the Virtual Museum "at the Chernobyl line". ​

- In the series, the liquidators of the accident are the personnel military, and former Afghans, and very young people. And everything is nearby. So it was?

- First of all, troops were thrown there. 840 people went from Krasnoyarsk to eliminate the accident, of which 570 were a little carrier and “partisans” from the reserve. Of the partisans, they were mainly called by family people who already have children (my daughter went to first grade that year). Many specialists in Chernobyl were thrown from our closed atomgrad - Zheleznogorsk and Zelenogorsk. The number of liquidators in the Krasnoyarsk Territory - 954 people went from Little Zheleznogorsk to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

- Where were you placed, how did you live? What is the task of you?

-The Siberian Chemical Protection Regiment stood in Cheremoshny, the village in the 30-kilometer zone of alienation. And the task was to maladactivation of hazardous objects. The Academician of Legasov in the film says that it is necessary to remove the layer of infected soil, cut down the trees and buried all this deeper. The red -haired forest is the most dangerous, it has become so, because the radiation burned the needles. After the explosion, the wind carried away a radioactive ejection in this direction. This is what we did: we scraped the earth, and the red forest fell, we sawed the infected trees. They made burial grounds - deep long ditches, the bottom was closed with a plastic film, it was also laid on top of the contents. They fell asleep with the earth. On the maps they marked: that, they say, the burial grounds are there and there. How much these mounds will stand - I don't know ...

- In what mode did your work go?

- We had the rise every day at five in the morning, about seven went to the place, returned late in the evening. Already after midnight the planning planner ended in headquarters. And the next day - everything is new.

- That is, actually worked around the clock?

- Yes, if they worked! You do not work for long, and then you wait all day while others work out. For example, they measured radiation in some territory-they considered that you can constantly be there for 30 minutes. One group goes there, and the whole column stands, people are sitting in cars, they wait for their turn. They will not carry small groups to the location of the regiment and back. Everyone arrived - everyone left. On the way back, sanitary processing points passed. There they measure the car - it is phonit. It is washed-can-phonit again. Wash the new one. And everyone else is waiting again ...

- It turns out that people were exposed even when this could actually be avoided?

- Inorganization was really enough. I then thought: my God, but what was it in the war if in peaceful conditions they treat people so stupidly? I don’t know, maybe somewhere it was not necessary to send them at all. Or - so much was not necessary. But what is done is done.

-Did you have any medicines?

- Yes, there were no special ones. So, tablets from a military set, nothing more. But they tried to not allow retraining, because the authorities beat the hat for this, and our commanders could not only not receive the money they promised - but they paid for this business trip at times more than in the usual service - but also to lose the title. The limit was considered a dose of 25 beads. Well, against this background, so that none of the superiors arrive, underestimation of doses in the reports took place everywhere.

- That is, real data were distorted?

So that the bosses do not fly on the hat, the understatement of doses in the reports was carried out everywhere

- Each of us had the so -called drives. In the morning they were given, in the evening they took them. The special secret part took the testimony, calculated who scored how much. And if the “overkill” came out, a comma in these indications can be moved to one digit to the left - and that’s all, the problem is solved. Well, or the next day they could not go to work the person once. But it was also so that the next day it was necessary to replace a certain number of people - but there is no one, everything is already "seriously wounded." Well, nowhere to go ... At that time it was an ordinary thing - it means it is necessary. And everything seemed not so terrible: radiation is not felt. The only thing who had iron teeth were, those like a sweetish taste felt on the crowns. Well, or if it began to fry in the throat, then the dust swallowed. And so - nothing ...

- How much did you stay there?

- Four months. By the last month, I already scored my maximum dose, I had to send me home. And I did not have a replacement, so they did not let me out.

- What does it mean - there was no replacement if people were called massively?

- A chemical protection officer was supposed to come to my place, I was obliged to transfer things to him. I don’t know why they could not find him for a long time. But I was not alone there. You are in uniform under the order. What are the conversations? Consider the war.

- How did this work affect your health?

- Here is the radiation since then inside me, in the bones, in the fabrics, I do not know where else. What processes do I have there - one God knows. When we all move, doctors will analyze the whole thing, draw conclusions. So partly we are experimental in this sense. In general, those who survived and did not become disabled, illness - like everyone else. Only more often and sharper. Young healthy men were selected there-and I was like that. A few years after returning, let's bend - either in one place, then in another. But this is the 90s, there is especially no time to be treated, the family must be fed. And then there was a mess in hospitals. In general, only those who became completely articated became into the state of their body.

"Technique could not replace people"

“I always want to tell you and I don’t know if I can do this, that the point is precisely in the security philosophy. If the security philosophy were correct, then the technical solutions for this philosophy, of course, would find our experts because they are competent specialists, sensible people, can consider and do other things. But the whole thing is that they put them in such conditions” - from Valery Legasov’s memoirs.

- The main characters of the series - scientists are discussing not only ways to eliminate the accident: it is very important for them to find out its causes in order to prevent a repetition of the tragedy ... And most importantly, to understand whether it was a station staff or error in the design of the reactor. Which version seems more believable to you?

- I can only judge by the materials that I read. Although there is still a lot of versions about how the fatal experiment passed. It is known that the staff at the station was quite young, and one of the most experienced specialists, the shift supervisor, to which this experiment was originally planned, refused to conduct it to his shift: he was not sure of this decision. And many people who, under the corresponding order, had to put their autographs, did not do this, because they saw that there was something wrong. But Anatoly Dyatlov, the deputy chief engineer for the operation of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant - also, by the way, to a native of the Krasnoyarsk Territory - it was most important to make the intended and get the result. And he still decided on the experiment ...

- There is an episode in the film when, without withstanding radiation, one by one, robots, sent to clear the upper site of the reactor, fail one by one, and as a result, people clear it manually ...

- So it was - neither the Japanese nor German electronics of this level of radiation could stand it, all died. People worked - their technique could not replace. But for ground work, the way out was found. And this is not a lunar rover, as one of the heroes of the film proposed. The Krasnoyarsk enterprise Sibtztetavtomatika has been developing radio-controlled bulldozers since the 1970s to work in difficult areas. After a few years, work turned off-for some reason the bulldozers were not needed. In 1983, the work on the project resumed-and in the same year I got up again. And when everything happened on the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, our designers were ordered to immediately raise all the drawings. On May 9, 1986, Krasnoyarsk experts were brought to the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant, where they tested their developments on heavy machines, and together with 10 bulldozers equipped with the radio control, they were sent to Pripyat. Bulldozers cleared the site near the station from the rubble and prepared it for the foundation for the sarcophagus. Then they - and another technique - were abandoned there: it was no longer possible to wash these machines.

- Have you found the construction of the sarcophagus?

- It was built from July to November, I was called up in December. Many of our fellow countrymen - Zheleznogorsk and Zelenogorsk residents were also busy with the construction. In Zheleznogorsk, by the way, in addition to the Chernobyl memory day - April 26 - traditionally celebrate on November 30 - the day of the official commissioning of the sarcophagus. And even sometimes they call him "Zheleznogorsk Victory Day." One of the leaders of the construction site, the head of the so-called construction district No. 2, was Vladimir Lebedev, before the accident-the chief engineer of the Zheleznogorsky SMU-3. Сейчас Владимира Александровича уже нет в живых – он умер в 2015 году. Ему было 66 лет.

​Знаю, как шла работа над этим проектом: там, на месте, рисовали чертежи – как говорится, на коленке. По этим чертежам отправляли задания на заводы. Все делалось внепланово, но быстро и без лишних вопросов – что называется, на телефонном звонке.

"Сколько было ликвидаторов – до сих пор неизвестно"

"Осенью 1987 года в зоне ликвидации произошло событие, объяснения которому найти невозможно. Это было одно из самых идиотских решений безвестного начальника. Троим ликвидаторам пришлось подняться наверх по винтовой лестнице, подвергаясь опасности, исходящей из разрушенного энергоблока, и водрузить красный флаг на вершине вентиляционной трубы ЧАЭС. Таким образом отметили окончание очистных работ на крыше энергоблоков. Поговаривали, что в качестве награды по окончании операции команда из трех человек, водрузившая флаг на трубу, получила по бутылке пепси-колы и одному выходному дню" , – из материалов виртуального музея "У Чернобыльской черты".

– Эпизод с водружением флага на реакторе, приведенный на сайте красноярского союза "Чернобыль", есть и в фильме. Про столь скромную награду, правда, в сериале не упомянуто… После аварии государство заботилось о ликвидаторах?

– В 1991 году был принят закон о социальной помощи гражданам, пострадавшим при аварии на ЧАЭС. По нему всех нас, и ликвидаторов, и жителей пострадавших территорий, разделили на несколько категорий, в зависимости от года участия в ликвидации, набранной дозы, инвалидности, от того, насколько близко от станции жили люди. Закон этот все хорошо прописал, только в 90-е денег не было на выплаты. Но если государство не хочет выполнять закон, надо заставить его это сделать. Были акции протеста – митинги, голодовки. Но не столь эффектной, зато эффективной мерой оказались суды. Мы сами изучали законодательство, учились себя защищать. Суды в 99% случаев вставали на нашу сторону, но государство не платило положенное даже по судебным решениям, и приставы заставить его не могли. Все более-менее стабильно стало уже в середине 2000-х. Долги погасили – тем, кто остался жив. К слову, с 1991 года в "наш" закон поправки вносились 64 раза, и каждая касалась нескольких пунктов. Так что даже не все специалисты, в том же ПФР например, знают, что чернобыльцам что-то там положено.

Что там у меня внутри происходит – одному богу известно. Мы все отчасти подопытные

А сейчас появилась и другая проблема. Люди уходят – и с тем, чтобы члены их семей получали льготы, большие сложности. Вот ко мне сегодня приходила женщина. Муж, ликвидатор аварии, умер в мае. Они состояли в официальном браке, но у них разные фамилии, прописаны были в разных местах. Сейчас у этой женщины требуют доказать, что брак не был фиктивным, что они действительно вместе жили и вели общее хозяйство, а не просто так она за льготами явилась…

– Владимир Алексеевич, как вы думаете, если бы, не дай бог, в наше время произошло нечто подобное – тоже были бы и "фигуры умолчания", и неоправданные жертвы?

– Скрыть такое, наверное, сегодня уже не получилось бы. Ну а собрать экстренно людей и отправить их на ликвидацию – в наше время, пожалуй, было бы проблематично. Тогда все просто было: есть закон о воинской обязанности, призвали – явись, так надо. Сейчас все же менталитет другой.

​– Сколько всего человек участвовало в ликвидации аварии на ЧАЭС –​ по крайней мере это известно?

– Точных данных и тут нет. Цифры "пляшут" от 600 тысяч до 800 тысяч человек – это на весь бывший СССР. Не так давно попытались пересчитать ликвидаторов только в России – насчитали 200 тысяч. Но есть и такая информация: когда нам, еще в советское время, выдавали удостоверения ликвидаторов, их изготовили вроде как 2 млн экземпляров, и все они разошлись. С другой стороны, знакомые украинцы – а там ликвидаторов было больше всего – рассказывали: не за пол-ящика, так за ящик водки такое удостоверение можно было купить… Не знаю, будет ли это число когда-нибудь точно названо. К тому же части архивов больше нет. У нас некоторые товарищи делали туда запросы и получали ответы: бумага была заражена, пришлось уничтожить. Так что вряд ли мы когда-нибудь узнаем об этом всю правду.