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The Chernobyl Tragedy – From the Memoirs of Nikolai Ryzhkov

106 points by dkarras 5y ago

gerdesj 5y ago
The translation into english is pretty decent but a bit rough in places, which is understandable. Russian and english are quite different. "I am ashamed to even remember how the well-known “Warrior with privileges” at the Supreme Council of the USSR mocked this old man, a participant in the Patriotic War,[WW2] Hero of the Soviet Union. Was it only she, mocked only him?" and this: "All these notorious activities with trying on gas masks and regarding the poorly drawn posters turned out to be unnecessary." ... stand out to me for various reasons. This is history told by a participant first hand from a particular place and point in time with a local point of view but with some of the original shackles removed. It is a bit retrospective though.
gambiting 5y ago
Incredible read. I find this paragraph in particular to be very powerful: "The time had come to reward the heroes. There were many of them in Chernobyl, as in every war. Helicopter pilots, chemists, firefighters, nuclear scientists, workers, scientists. I do not know what will become of our orders and medals, whether it will be honorable or shameful to bear the title of Hero of Socialist Labor tomorrow and whether the authorities will replace it with the title of Hero of Capitalist Labor. And with the Order of the October Revolution, everything is clear: It will become the Order of the August or December Counter-Revolution, or even the Devil’s October. I am sure that someday such awards will not be a sign of honor and heroism, but a symbol of betrayal and shame."
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  Chernobyl is one of the main reasons the USSR collapsed. Communist parties, as always, cover up disasters to maintain "stability" (ie. credibility as the only governing party.) The Chernobyl coverup became public, discrediting the party as incompetent at governing. (At the moment the CCP is attempting to coverup a flood that entered a subway system and a major vehicle tunnel, possibly drowning 1,000 people. Witnesses are being warned to maintain the "local image.") "Cars trapped in tunnel amid floods in China; Family washed away by mudslides | China in Focus" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjTMfgGlUcE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjTMfgGlUcE Let this be a lesson to US Marxists and their useful idiots.
  - peakaboo 5y ago
    America is following the same path. Massive censorship on all social platforms about vaccine damage, and only positive information about the vaccine in the mass media. I think this vaccination will be similar to chernobyl when looking back. People will be wondering why everyone went along with it.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      >>Massive censorship on all social platforms about vaccine damage, I know this is just a low-tier trolling attempt, but sure, let me take the bait this one time - what damage exactly?
  - Arech 5y ago
    You obviously know close to nothing about real USSR. There were HUGE amount of very different (and quite known to citizens) disasters before Chernobyl and Chernobyl by itself added almost nothing to what people already knew about their country and regime. Moreover handling of Chernobyl consequences was a much better than handling of other disasters of the past. So you point about Chernobyl being at least somewhat visible reason in USSR collapse is totally invalid. It may have played some role, but no bigger than minuscule comparing to other reasons.
    - drran 5y ago
      Chornobyl was very different from any previous disaster or mass murdering. For many decades, USSR propaganda pictured nuclear as the solution for all future problems. «Nuclear energy + intelligent robots = communism». And then you have nuclear disaster and no robots.
      - Arech 5y ago
        Not very much different, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak for a list of issues with only one nuclear related facility for example. Regarding the else you have just written about... It's just so minuscule comparing to the real issues USSR and it's citizens had that I don't even know what to say about it. Just read some trustworthy books or even wikipedia about economics situation in late USSR and forget all you've just said. You literally don't give a shit about some fancy robots and nuclear disasters in some distant places when you have close to nothing to eat and nothing to put on.
danielodievich 5y ago
A great - and chilling - read is Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl). It had a very strong impact when read in original Russian. Couple vignettes from my memories of this disaster. My physicist grandfather lived in Gomel during this time and when this happened during all the May holidays, he barricaded his entire family in his apartment for a month, sealing all the cracks around the windows My parents skipped sending us from Moscow to Grodno, Belarus for the usual summer holidays because of the direction of the plume (NE) which I remember not liking one little bit. They and grandparents also forbade collection of any morel mushrooms which we used to pick in the forests all the time. I think the mushrooms also became considerably fewer in years past.
kiryin 5y ago
Not great, not terrible
- canjobear 5y ago
  No more than 3.6 roentgen
  - cratermoon 5y ago
    Equivalent of a chest x-ray
    - trhway 5y ago
      you're about 3 orders of magnitude off.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - irthomasthomas 5y ago
        Those are all quotes from the Soviets during the event.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        Quote from the TV drama script being referenced: Valery Legasov : Yes, 3.6 roentgen, which, by the way, is not the equivalent of one chest X-ray, but rather 400 chest X-rays. That number has been bothering me for a different reason, though. It's also the maximum reading on low-limit dosimeters. They gave us the number they had. I think the true number is much, much higher. If I'm right, this fireman was holding the equivalent of 4 million chest X-rays in his hand.
      - cratermoon 5y ago
        It's not 3 roentgen. It's 15,000. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGdKJWflEms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGdKJWflEms reply
      - deleted 5y ago
john-doe 5y ago
“I was oppressed and resented by the overt cynicism of the Western “civilized” society. Not only did they not provide material support, but they did not even express sympathy. At that time they treated us like lepers. And only individual organizations, specialists and entrepreneurs offered their help.”
- viktorcode 5y ago
  Being a party boss, he skips the part where the USSR chose not to inform its European neighbours about the catastrophe. They knew when the radiation traveled to Eastern and Northern Europe with the wind. After that European governments started with frantic measures to protect their citizens and ecology. Obviously, USSR citizens didn't know about it at all. But rumours persisted. I remember my mother listening to Turkish radio from a Black sea resort for the news on Chernobyl.
  - rixed 5y ago
    ... after that, at least some of European governments started with not informing their population about the catastrophe and lying frantically about the lack of risks, with full support from the TV stations. At least in France, where the tradition to infantilise the citizens was apparently as strong back then as it is today.
- sto_hristo 5y ago
  Apart from the fact that the USSR hid the disaster to save their ugly face and them being communists hellbent on conquering everything, the Western civilization don't owe them a thing. It's really the other way around - the USSR should compensate Western civilizations who suffered from USSR complete and total inadequacy. But USSR being piss poor and miserable, they hardly have anything of value.
alexandrerond 5y ago
Very interesting but I don't know if I'd hire this person: "How did you handle the meltdown situation in your production infrastructure?" "We did everything that needed to be done, nothing wrong, all taken care of, dropped no ball at all, amazing job, all heroes. If there was anything, it was just other teams".
MontagFTB 5y ago
A fantastic first-person account of a disaster we have much to learn from. Thank you for sharing the link- it was an amazing read.

106 points by dkarras 5y ago

The translation into english is pretty decent but a bit rough in places, which is understandable. Russian and english are quite different. "I am ashamed to even remember how the well-known “Warrior with privileges” at the Supreme Council of the USSR mocked this old man, a participant in the Patriotic War,[WW2] Hero of the Soviet Union. Was it only she, mocked only him?" and this: "All these notorious activities with trying on gas masks and regarding the poorly drawn posters turned out to be unnecessary." ... stand out to me for various reasons. This is history told by a participant first hand from a particular place and point in time with a local point of view but with some of the original shackles removed. It is a bit retrospective though.

gambiting 5y ago

Incredible read. I find this paragraph in particular to be very powerful: "The time had come to reward the heroes. There were many of them in Chernobyl, as in every war. Helicopter pilots, chemists, firefighters, nuclear scientists, workers, scientists. I do not know what will become of our orders and medals, whether it will be honorable or shameful to bear the title of Hero of Socialist Labor tomorrow and whether the authorities will replace it with the title of Hero of Capitalist Labor. And with the Order of the October Revolution, everything is clear: It will become the Order of the August or December Counter-Revolution, or even the Devil’s October. I am sure that someday such awards will not be a sign of honor and heroism, but a symbol of betrayal and shame."

redis_mlc 5y ago
Chernobyl is one of the main reasons the USSR collapsed. Communist parties, as always, cover up disasters to maintain "stability" (ie. credibility as the only governing party.) The Chernobyl coverup became public, discrediting the party as incompetent at governing. (At the moment the CCP is attempting to coverup a flood that entered a subway system and a major vehicle tunnel, possibly drowning 1,000 people. Witnesses are being warned to maintain the "local image.") "Cars trapped in tunnel amid floods in China; Family washed away by mudslides | China in Focus" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjTMfgGlUcE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjTMfgGlUcE Let this be a lesson to US Marxists and their useful idiots.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  America is following the same path. Massive censorship on all social platforms about vaccine damage, and only positive information about the vaccine in the mass media. I think this vaccination will be similar to chernobyl when looking back. People will be wondering why everyone went along with it.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    >>Massive censorship on all social platforms about vaccine damage, I know this is just a low-tier trolling attempt, but sure, let me take the bait this one time - what damage exactly?
- Arech 5y ago
  You obviously know close to nothing about real USSR. There were HUGE amount of very different (and quite known to citizens) disasters before Chernobyl and Chernobyl by itself added almost nothing to what people already knew about their country and regime. Moreover handling of Chernobyl consequences was a much better than handling of other disasters of the past. So you point about Chernobyl being at least somewhat visible reason in USSR collapse is totally invalid. It may have played some role, but no bigger than minuscule comparing to other reasons.
  - drran 5y ago
    Chornobyl was very different from any previous disaster or mass murdering. For many decades, USSR propaganda pictured nuclear as the solution for all future problems. «Nuclear energy + intelligent robots = communism». And then you have nuclear disaster and no robots.
    - Arech 5y ago
      Not very much different, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayak for a list of issues with only one nuclear related facility for example. Regarding the else you have just written about... It's just so minuscule comparing to the real issues USSR and it's citizens had that I don't even know what to say about it. Just read some trustworthy books or even wikipedia about economics situation in late USSR and forget all you've just said. You literally don't give a shit about some fancy robots and nuclear disasters in some distant places when you have close to nothing to eat and nothing to put on.

danielodievich 5y ago

A great - and chilling - read is Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voices_from_Chernobyl). It had a very strong impact when read in original Russian. Couple vignettes from my memories of this disaster. My physicist grandfather lived in Gomel during this time and when this happened during all the May holidays, he barricaded his entire family in his apartment for a month, sealing all the cracks around the windows My parents skipped sending us from Moscow to Grodno, Belarus for the usual summer holidays because of the direction of the plume (NE) which I remember not liking one little bit. They and grandparents also forbade collection of any morel mushrooms which we used to pick in the forests all the time. I think the mushrooms also became considerably fewer in years past.

kiryin 5y ago

Not great, not terrible

canjobear 5y ago
No more than 3.6 roentgen
- cratermoon 5y ago
  Equivalent of a chest x-ray
  - trhway 5y ago
    you're about 3 orders of magnitude off.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - irthomasthomas 5y ago
      Those are all quotes from the Soviets during the event.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Quote from the TV drama script being referenced: Valery Legasov : Yes, 3.6 roentgen, which, by the way, is not the equivalent of one chest X-ray, but rather 400 chest X-rays. That number has been bothering me for a different reason, though. It's also the maximum reading on low-limit dosimeters. They gave us the number they had. I think the true number is much, much higher. If I'm right, this fireman was holding the equivalent of 4 million chest X-rays in his hand.
    - cratermoon 5y ago
      It's not 3 roentgen. It's 15,000. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGdKJWflEms https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGdKJWflEms reply
    - deleted 5y ago

john-doe 5y ago

“I was oppressed and resented by the overt cynicism of the Western “civilized” society. Not only did they not provide material support, but they did not even express sympathy. At that time they treated us like lepers. And only individual organizations, specialists and entrepreneurs offered their help.”

viktorcode 5y ago
Being a party boss, he skips the part where the USSR chose not to inform its European neighbours about the catastrophe. They knew when the radiation traveled to Eastern and Northern Europe with the wind. After that European governments started with frantic measures to protect their citizens and ecology. Obviously, USSR citizens didn't know about it at all. But rumours persisted. I remember my mother listening to Turkish radio from a Black sea resort for the news on Chernobyl.
- rixed 5y ago
  ... after that, at least some of European governments started with not informing their population about the catastrophe and lying frantically about the lack of risks, with full support from the TV stations. At least in France, where the tradition to infantilise the citizens was apparently as strong back then as it is today.
sto_hristo 5y ago
Apart from the fact that the USSR hid the disaster to save their ugly face and them being communists hellbent on conquering everything, the Western civilization don't owe them a thing. It's really the other way around - the USSR should compensate Western civilizations who suffered from USSR complete and total inadequacy. But USSR being piss poor and miserable, they hardly have anything of value.

alexandrerond 5y ago

Very interesting but I don't know if I'd hire this person: "How did you handle the meltdown situation in your production infrastructure?" "We did everything that needed to be done, nothing wrong, all taken care of, dropped no ball at all, amazing job, all heroes. If there was anything, it was just other teams".

MontagFTB 5y ago

A fantastic first-person account of a disaster we have much to learn from. Thank you for sharing the link- it was an amazing read.