Chelyabinsk region commemorates the Kyshtym disaster, Chernobyl’s secret older brother
At sunset on September 29, 217 boats each containing 217 candles were launched onto the waters of the irradiated Techa River near Muslyumovo. Exactly 217 villages were wiped off the map by the 1957 explosion of radioactive waste at the Mayak Chemical Combine, contaminating the Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and the Tyumen Regions.
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But this was no Chernobyl. This disaster took place deep in the belly of Russia’s atomic beast in 1957, and there was no one from within the country or abroad to sound the alarm. Instead, the location of the accident, the secret city of Ozersk, was wiped out in government official-ese and re-dubbed official memory as Kyshtym accident after a small village nearby the catastrophe.
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| Chelyabinsk’s Ministry of Social Relations is under apparent orders from above to deny the claims of Kyshtym victims. |
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Meanwhile, the thousands of military and civilians alike – many of them children – worked to mop up the residue of the disaster with rags and buckets, knowing neither the dangers of the substance they were cleaning up, nor the impact it would have on future generations.
What happened that day, and how it effected the 270,000 people - and their children and grandchildren – that fell in its wake was a story the government would not fully tell Russia until the early 1990s, in the post Glasnost era. But the damage had been done.
President Dmirty Medvedev, Vladimir Putin’s hand-chosen successor, used some of his pre-election cache to make promises to the residents of the affected area. They too, he said, would receive government benefits, just like the more highly acknowledged victims of Chernobyl. A law would be passed, he said, and more money would come.
A year and a half later, a bill for such a law has yet to even be introduced into the Duma. And Chelyabinsk’s Ministry on Social Relations continues to write denials to the claims of “mayakovsti” – Russian for victims of Mayak – for reasonable financial compensation.
Monday’s protest was organised by the local environmental and human rights groups Civil Society, The Movement for Nuclear Safety, Techa, and the For Nature charitable organisation. The participants added their signatures to a letter to the Russian Government and the Duma.
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| Some 300 people attended the rally for more equitable compensation for victims of the Kyshtym disaster. |
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More than a thousand residents of the Southern Urals signed it. The letter will be open for signing for another week and then it will be sent to authorities.
The protestors are trying to achieve adjustments, or indexation, of payments for the injuries they have, and continue, to suffer as a result of the 1957 explosion.
“The 200-300 roubles received by Mayak victims is viewed as a sad pittance,” said Alexei Sevastyanov, lead of the local chapter of Civil Society.
“The lawyers with our civil society organisation has filed suits for indexing the payments for more than 600 victims. A fraction of them have achieved indexation in court, however at the beginning of this year, the courts stopped ruling in favor of citizens, apparently by orders from above,” Sevastyanov said.
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| Over a thousand people signed an open letter to the Government and the Duma requesting more help for Kyshtym victims. |
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Local authorities reacted to Monday’s protests with irritation and tried to stall it, according to organisers. At first, the authorities would not accept the official notification of the coming protest, saying the lawyer whose job it was to accept it was unavailable and no one knew when he would be. His secretary, too, had for some reason left work two hours early that day. It was later announced that the entire office would be closed the next day for repairs.
In the end, the notification was passed through the secretariat. Then began, according to organisers, telephoned admonishment from the administration to hold the demonstration in a different place, as the chosen point would block pedestrian traffic. The administration then sent a fax to organisers, saying “(the Chelyabinsk Regional Governor) considers that notification has not bee given.” An official refusal prohibiting the demonstration from taking place did not follow.
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| A banner reading: “The Peaceful Atom is a Terrible Daemon. We Don’t Need the SUNPP.” |
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It is remarkable, said organisers, that people who came to the meeting were approached by ministry workers drumming up a concert in one of the ministry’s halls. Ministry workers said the demonstration was taking place there. But the vast majority didn’t take this bait, and returned to the square in front of the ministry building.
The foul weather failed to deter the some 300 demonstrators, many of who held signs protesting plans by Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom to build he Southern Urals Nuclear Power Plant (SUNPP). Among the signs were slogans such as “The Peaceful Atom is a Terrible Daemon,.We Don’t Need the SUNPP,” “Down With Proclamations, Give Us Indexation,” and, “Paradise is Near: Signed Minatom (the precursor to Rosatom).”
Participants in demonstration demanded adequate compensation for health damages, that the government adopt fairer laws in that regard and the it refuse to build the SUNPP.
“As all of the problems that have come about as a result of he 1957 accident have not been solved, as long as Mayak continues to experience accidents, as long as children suffer and their children and their children are ill, it is nor even worth thinking about the construction of a new radioactively dangerous installation,” Mayak victims said in their statement at the demonstration.
According to the Movement for Nuclear Safety’s director, Natalya Mironova, Rosatom is less interested in building a nuclear power plant in the Southern Urals than they are in the regional authorities.
“The new management of Rosatom is practical, they don’t need a Southern Urals nuclear electric station,” she said.
The demonstration was also attended by surviving liquidators - veterans of the 1957 clean up effort. The government for some reason does not see a point in associating these individuals with the impact of radiation.
“They are paying us huge,” said on liquidator in his appearance. “We receive a rouble daily allowance. At a security firm, a guard dog can count on 80 roubes a day.”
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| A sign indicating the Techa River – but not the radioactivity that it contains. |
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Those gathered at the demonstration paid reverence to victims of the Kyshtym catastrophe with a moment of silence, which was followed by a meeting of mourning in the village of Muslyumovo on the banks of the Techa River, into which Mayak has been dumping liquid nuclear waste for decades. Yet there is very little note made of this fact The one remaining sign of warning, which reads “Careful. Radiation,” has become so overgrown with grass that if on does not know where the sign itself stands, it will most likely go unnoticed. Geese and duck ply the waters of the river, and cattle graze its banks and drink from it. Local children tell a visitor a secret that they, too, swim in the river when their parents aren’t paying attention.
Muslyumovo residents received assistance from the government to move from their contaminated village in the 1990s. For two years, Rosatom has been effecting the migration of its citizens to New Muslyumovo, which is not far away, and is buying up their old homes.
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| Mourners gather on the banks of the Techa. |
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But when environmentalists and Muslyumovo residents themselves are asked, the advertised move has been nothing but window dressing. New Muslyumovo is a mere two kilometers from the same radioactive river they were trying to escape. The houses themselves are small and cold, and only 12 families from Muslyumovo have taken up residence in the village’s new namesake.
Nevertheless, residents of neighboring villages far from the contaminated Techa River – villages such as Bradokalmak, Russkaa Techa, and Nizhnypetropavlovsk – envy Muslyumovo residents: they at least have some chance to escape the contaminated region.
Many children fro Muslyumovo and surrounding areas attended the meeting of mourning, and, despite their young age, they clearly understand they live in a wasteland.
“We don’t know one family where somebody doesn’t have cancer. And many of my classmates have bronchial asthma,” said one 12-year-old.
Those at the meeting had unkind words when recalling hoq Russian Minister of Health and Social Development Mikhail Zubarev who, with the sweep of a pen in 2006, annulled the list of those suffering from illnesses connected with radiation. Those at the meeting said that now it is nearly impossible to prove that any illness one may suffer from is connected to radiation.
When dusk began to settle over the countryside, 217 little boats, each bearing a candle, were launched onto the water. Exactly 217 villages disappeared from the face of the map after the 1957 tragedy.
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