Talking about #Chernobyl with a witness of the disaster

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] I'm your host David and this is a special episode of the cold war I'm joined by our guest sir Gaius butakov who is the host of his own YouTube channel the ushanka show and Sergey has joined us today to discuss and talk about and share some stories about his life growing up in the Soviet Union Sergey was born in the Ukraine when it was a part of the Soviet Union and he's an American citizen now he lives in America full time he's I think do you consider yourself more an American or I goes almost so a hybrid hi okay so Sergei is here to talk to us about his recollections growing up and sort of reflections looking back on life in the Soviet Union today's topic we're going to be talking about actually a disaster that some of you may know a little bit about thanks to recent popularization as a result of the HBO show Chernobyl Sergey was living in Kiev at the time in April 1986 when the disaster happened so Sergei tell us a little bit about what that experience was like all right so April 26 1986 I was 14 going on 15 as there you mention 11 Kia which is capital of Ukraine and Chernobyl was about 70 kilometers north of Kiev and I would call originally they were talking about placing a nuclear power plant right next to Kiev like north of Kiev and then local party leadership Itsuki said he didn't think was a good idea that actually they moved it a little bit away which is turned out to be good idea and so yes instigate Union kids went to school on Saturdays in April 26 was Saturday so we went to school nothing was out of normal another day and the first sign that something was going on was next day so that'll be April 27th Sunday like every household in sight you know most households had radios and as a radio ditch like a phone line goes into your apartment but it's actual radio line then you have outlets almost in every room but you plug it in and the radio outlets it's enough power to power that unit nothing else you hear one channel maybe two channels so they start programming at 6:00 a.m. and it starts with an F in the Soviet Union very powerful strong the informational I think it's the most beautiful atom in the world still think that hybrid yes so and then at programming ends at midnight where's there and between there's the different news programs there will be some music whatever okay so on Sunday it was something weird going on because suddenly they started playing classical music and my first thought was there's something happen in Moscow probably Gorbachev died because my recollection of prior experiences with suddenly radios started playing classical music first time and happen thing was not 83 when he has near passed away okay so there would have been recent Yassen experiences well yeah well after brands now there was just like an avalanche or dead leaders so that was it's kind of like okay the classical music on the radio and another leader died and to be honest I kind of shamed a little bit of it I got a little bit excited because when Brezhnev died who had a day off in school so we went to Jayma watch the funeral and we had no school then on drop of death elect elected then he died like it for eighteen months later we had another day off like in Soviet Union I had no snow days nothing like I had to go to school every time I was school so first time was no school and we're another day off but you know it started as classical music on the radio and then we go to school then I'll see our great leader died tomorrow the funerals will gather in the gym watch TV then when they elected Chernenko and it's not the one that's kind of said can I find it so this is kid mentality right I see that he is very old and I was like have another day off diamond very soon but then when they elected and draw a chair now oh my goodness confusing names when they elected more but sure I look like man this guy's Jana has not been normal days off and then I hear classical music on April 27 I was like can't believe he was so young there's no way he would die but looks like he's dead now they playing classical music again so this is how it's all started this classical music on every radio and then they had like classical music on TV - just showing ballet running like that no news nothing no program entertainment just plain classical music and waiting for the government for the official message and so when when was that when was more information even limited information starting to be provided to yourselves into your family unfortunately you know at that time I didn't get like direct Diaries and rancors of it but I recall like first we heard rumors because you know Kiev pretty close then my dad went to work on Monday in a number when but he came home was like there's something really bad happened at Chernobyl and we even didn't know about Chernobyl power plant you know usually they're far away nobody knows about it this is it there and it said they took all our drivers like okay they said we need all the drivers and like they all volunteered people which is you have to go volunteer or voluntold whatever correct term but yeah so they this is it something going on so this is first we heard it would be actually rumors you know like drivers then we had a hard time moving around city because buses disappeared too and you know public transportation was a huge sin because hardly anyone had a car so we had fortunately my area we had tramways to the trams okay so okay there's people waiting for a bus so you just walk up as a side of the there's a tram and you hop on a tram those they couldn't evacuate people with trams because of course logistics not there and then we had subway so those remained but otherwise he is City was quite paralyzed because the bosses disappear drivers okay then I think it was a corporate show announcement that there's a accident happen at Chernobyl was a couple days later I believe he was night him you don't know nothing but he would be done right here in like it would be I can make a bit of penalty but nothing to worry about all good under control so this is Harnish so it's all started so classical music it's a fur ding ding ding then rumors then Gorbachev said it's cool but the real story was started learning and actually from the enemy voices so ok this is we're talking about the real radios ultra short waves right it was that like I would be Voice of America or rats forever you voice of America BBC Deutsche Welle which is German wave now radio freedom I believe that was one and free Europe so there was a quite a few enemy voices that were transmitting and allies and everything else of course yeah how difficult was it to receive those those radio program that was quite a challenge because the they jammed them really hard so I recall is one of my favorite Sunday mornings will be to spend with my dad he'll have like this yo like to so geologists to radio unit was bunch of frequencies you know your pool antenna as far as he could and I will catch for example Deutsche Bell will listen for a little bit and soundly be do this horrible noise come an aid and blocking it and so he kept constantly finely tuned because when I learned later when I started having my show I had an email from somebody from England I said My father extra worked at BBC he was a technician and they said there are monitor and jamming so jam our Soviet jammers were monitoring radio station while radio station people we're monitor jamón so they are constantly drifting the transmission frequency to avoid jamming while jammers were following so the listeners had to do the same thing and constantly adjust the frequency so I remember we listened and it becomes too noisy we got tuned up a little bit so second game can i was very very much yes they say lies our guys trying to jam the lies and you know they just work around it and then we tried to catch them so that was the first time we heard that actually there are serious problems that your novel they didn't specify like actually what happened because they don't know either but do you do you happen to recall if that was the BBC transmission or you know officially I don't think was BBC because it doesn't BBC usually kind of have this special the way they run the program I kind of remembered them maybe the way the accent was because a lot of us I think was like actual British people speaking Russian well other were just immigrants the trailers that we got the job at these voices of enemies and they were speaking male good Russian but they were saying okay you need to stay indoors as much as you can keep your windows closed preferably sealed don't buy any fresh milk couldn't buy any fresh eggs don't buy anything green stay was cans goods in whatever else so that's what was the first time what we kind of started like what is going on because and how seriously did you because obviously this is the voice of the enemy that's talking to you how seriously do you take those that advice that's coming from the West I know the streets were empty so people you know rumors voices and then you see trucks suddenly started spraying water washing the streets down so it kind of started clicking together but of course official government propaganda was still like it's fine on the consult don't worry about it it some more disdain yes dancing at VDC a groom resolution e network new malachite radius leads to mass wind permits a Zeppelin yet published don't welcome more sea breeze was to me passed away key sicinius Dania a poori Electra Peary - sailing I played outside soccer on the worst day possibly I could because the way the wind was first was blowing north towards the Belarus and that's why biller was got really like they say crap top like really bad polluted then we interned and went on Kiev and that was the day we were playing outside so I was still went to school people still have to go to work so yeah it's later done the lion story I'll tell you more how I found out that it's actually was bad day and then of course you know slowly they started meeting it serious and then kids were coming to school and requesting like my parents want me to leave and that's the teachers like sorry so another thing about Soviet schools decides going to school for six days a week beginning the fourth grade who had finals okay so fourth grade it started with math just one final so you study so called tickets you there okay we have 40 tickets ever has three questions so you need to know answers by heart or by your mind you just go to the blackboard and you answer eighth grade was important because it was the cutout time so smart kids continue into high school the ones that don't want to start any more and that don't have good grades they leave and they go to trade schools okay so that was a pretty important finals the four of them I believe physics math chemistry Russian literature so teachers pretty much like if you live now with failure and will have to fail you and you have to stay for another year and what grade were you in at this point eighth grade great that was eighth grade so yeah so I believe they let younger kids leave ok the ones that didn't have finals but we had to stay and I recall my teacher of chemistry she was pregnant at the time she just disappeared so like one day we just started having substitute chemistry teacher and we're like oh so ya gonna make sense so yeah we had to stay all the way to the end of May in school go to school and tell our finals then after that of course you could leave if you have somewhere to go now yourself did did you have anywhere to go after finals well I spend all my summers northern Ukraine in the village which was even closer to Chernobyl than Kiev so that was out my father's village was south-west so pretty much you have Chernobyl here Kiev down below one village here one village there but one friend of mine from school like he was Russian and his family was from Leningrad okay so he was living right away from Leningrad to stay with his grandma so my parents talked to his parents we made arrangements that I stay you know they'll pay expenses and I'll stay with them for months or two because the worst was was the iodine and as a 30 day half-life if I remember correctly so that was the word that affecting people there what is that word for that part of your body that the thyroid right Clara thank you so then I said it will be bad after 30 days cuz half-life it's only that radioactive and you can come back so I went actually to Leningrad and I stayed there for months with my friend okay so when you were like I guess through the month of May when you were still in school how how conscious and how where were you as as a student in grade 8 that what was sort of unfolding to the north was as were you aware that it was as serious as it actually was that we know of in retrospect not as much as the show like in Chernobyl HBO series I mean we you know it's like it's invisible right yeah and it doesn't affect you right away so now I started kind of digging into people recollecting events and some were complaining about headaches and nosebleeds I don't wanna bring it on that but it was a little bit strange life because treats were mostly empty then have constantly this water spraying Troggs running around but then the government tried really hard to make it look like it's all normal and the worst was in Kiev actual in the main holidays the May 1st like April 30th May 1st it was the highest level of pollution of radiation Kia and it just happened to be the International Workers solidarity which we need to have a parade and they Moscow pretty much forced Ukrainian communists to have a parade so they knew that contamination was really bad well pollution radiation was bad and they still forced people from a ship it's key and the Communist Party leader of Ukraine Gorbachev gave him a choice so you be at the parade or you can put your my ticket be left we call it right down so they had parade and make people march on the worst day possible in killed Wow now the information that was being given obviously like so much of it was coming the central party line coming from Moscow was do you recall there being a difference in the information that was being provided locally versus what was coming from the central authority not really because it's always you know top-down kind of trickle-down effect very much but Mosin trickle was just pushing down so everything's fine let down so they just in the form you know that everything was fine and like I'm short term of course no one saw it cuz radiation you never know I mean some people don't get affected at all some people do is older people get that last they get affected like a so my mother was pregnant with my brother at that time so we cannot have quite a bit of concerns yeah he was born premature he was born seven months old instead of nine but this has been a red hair he's fine so in that time before you left for Leningrad were there any precautions that were being given official versus what precautions were being taken unofficially I don't recall any it's just said they tried to make sure that live looks normal okay and people act normal and we said when I found out later many years later it's actually a lot of people questioning me on that statement one day many years later my father was still work in the factory he said so he came back from the funeral so one of the his co-workers a driver passed away so you know they'll get together had a funeral helped him out and then he came home and he's like you know we were drinking nothing inky you know after the funeral talking about and we realized he was the last driver there was still alive out of that volunteers sent to Chernobyl but it soon wasn't help didn't happen right away right talking ten years later maybe he said we right now there's only one driver still alive but he didn't go he was sick in hospital that time he had some issues so he couldn't go so he was still driving others died years later five years later four years later heart tags some weird cancers strokes so never look like it's maybe relate to Chernobyl I said they all passed away in their like early 60s 50s they never made the retirement age the only driver was fine the one that didn't go that's that's not it that may be not evidence per se but that's a damning it's just pretty damning state it's you know you can say maybe just kind of advanced you happen that way and I said a lot of people questioned me on that but if you curious you can google like Chernobyl car cemeteries or vehicle cemeteries and you'll see all those bosses they the ones that helped to evacuate people they had to abandon all the bosses in Park them because they were contaminated so what do you think would happen to a driver that drove the bus that was so contaminated they couldn't clean it and put it back in service I mean we didn't have air conditioning buses they didn't have any filtering systems pretty much he opened the windows you pop the leaves on the top of the bottom and it was a hot April hot May so they had a choice to have everything sealed up and died from overheating inside of the bus so they had their windows open so bad because they were dim weren't provided with proper information how to behave in the contaminated areas they still had windows open leaves open driving around picking up people the auto probably dirt roads in Chernobyl the 30 exclusion in a kilometer zone is a lots of deaths so bad so they got contaminated really bad like inside contamination and then from there on you just downhill from there so in the in the wake of so you spend a month in Leningrad right you come back what what's that what is that like well the most interesting part is this one I realized how bad a situation was it was actually Mangrum so we came by the train arrived too late and read and usually no train rides the train station you get off the train and you go to your business we get off the train and we like all trap the whole crowd just stays and we can't go and I see barriers I see cops well militia we call the militia so every train from Ukraine from South was cordoned off and on the way out they had actually monitors oh the setup radiation monitors and everyone had to go through them and I was like this is weird supposedly it's all over now it's you know not that bad so then everyone steps in it calculates your background and then of course it can alarm and no alarm so if you clear you got to go if you're not clear you go to different and then they do friskin the frisk your luggage the frisk you ready was yet hand tool right so on so we have to stay good an hour because it's all trained right and grandma my friends grandma create the alarm and I did so demo am to the different line for frisking so they frisk her and frisk of luggage and they found associated angora sweater okay so she was gone for walks every evening kir so that tells you how much information people had she is just every evening when it heat goes down she puts her sweater goes for walk so her sweater was way way too much and so do you recall what they did with the sweater yes so they told her you need to go to special cleaning service in Leningrad or just dig the hole you know they said like you know meter deep whatever bury it and forget about it then I was right next to my friends grandma and that's kind of stuck in my mind because their mama is going down with Frisco and he went down to my shoes they just packed hi and as the shoes I played soccer with on the day when I said was the worst day to do it so he looked and he's like okay if grandma decides to bury her sweater you put your shoes in the same all buried and forget about it so you like you can still like they don't tell you who go barefoot because I was on the pair of shoes ahead me so like you still can get to your destination but don't use those shoes so they like they still let you keep the items but just never advice to either clean or write improper disposal I didn't remember cleaning part until I was digging for my stuff many years later I found my letter that I sent to my parents from Leningrad and I described in detail this whole process have gone through monitors and I said today grandma went to Leningrad to clean her sweater so Wow and then also while we only going through this radiation checks I look back and they power wash the whole train like they go in each train car and they power wash it music it's really bad in Ukraine like this really bad but so they totally not expected in Leningrad but I think they all freaked out that we can spread contamination all the people that run in a wave there crane so I think it was not only laying grad it was all probably Moscow they have the same set up to monitor everyone comes from Ukraine now when you the month that you spent in Leningrad do you remember any conversations with non you couldn't like with people from Leningrad in from the area at that time I said 1986 there was a World Soccer Cup I think was in Mexico Mexico 1986 it sounds about right was the first that was the first World Cup I remember watching okay so everyone was we were in to you watching the soccer with it so that's my memories because I remember I kept like all the scores and that was I think sorry to you play there - I can't I don't know they did qualify they were in the same group as Canada I don't think they made it out of the group nor did cannabis that the whole Chernobyl think and it's just like Oh mom look it was really bad and then I got suckered well you know I was they said I was 15 14 going 15 that time so you don't really process that stuff if different priorities yes so when you you spent your month in Linda gray and you came back back home to give do you remember it feeling different do you remember it anything was just sort of was it picking life up as it was before very much is yeah they're just kind of like alright a little good now okay and in general where people's opinions of had people's opinions do recall people's opinions of the government of sort of left the Soviet Union that the state had that changed at all or was until later when much more detailed much more basking up I think later on when they actually started telling the truth and I mean it started trickling down when people are coming back the problem started talking but official theory and official message was we had 30 people heroes died they stopped the bad accident it's all good now Wow I mean they're power plant was open for how long after that I mean people were serial going back and running other units until there was this I think other unit remember the number but that unit had a small accident and after that is that okay we need to just stop it and stop and bury it all in itself thank you very much sorry this has been a fascinating and incredibly illuminating conversation certainly for myself no Sergei actually brought with him one of his school notebooks from April 1986 and he's been kind enough to let us take a look at it we're pretty sure that it's not going crazy on the Geiger counter yeah so check it before burying him but they let it cross the water and oh yeah what I was able to hit him if they had any hit him equipment there to check for radiation or bombs that didn't pick up this guy's is probably clear but it makes lights flicker if you get it too close to the bulbs so yeah this is my they call it unique is that and we kept every day scheduled here and you guys can make a closer shots to show so go on through the pages so you have your subjects and you have your months there's the week and May April so yeah this is a April 26 1986 actually got two excellent grades on algebra and on the Russian literature well that's it so here we are sitting in school while world is on fire it's absolutely incredible I'm your host David this has been a very special episode of the cold war I want to thank my guests Sergey splitting off from the ANCA show who's been kind enough to lend us some of his time and please make sure to stay tuned to the cold war channel for further episodes and interviews featuring Sergey and his recollections of our life in the Soviet Union

Channel: The Cold War

Views: 80,579

Keywords: Ushanka Show, Chernobyl, Pripyat, Disaster, Cold War, Kings and Generals, Ukraine, RUssia, communists, capitalists

Id: Xwguk8poMNs

Length: 30min 7sec (1807 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 25 2019