Ukraine's Radioactive City: The Next Chernobyl? (Disaster Documentary) | Real Stories

[Music] there's a way to make an entrance my destiny it was now a conspiracy of witches download veeli today [Music] a city in the middle of the ukraine its main purpose was to supply the soviet union with uranium for its nuclear weapons arsenal i know i grew up in a radioactive city here just outside of the city top specialists mined the uranium that was needed their children and grandchildren continue to pay for the soviet legacy children often get sick here that's just how it is in our city it doesn't surprise anyone my name this is my homeland as a journalist i'm endeavoring to gain insight into the city secret this is the second chernobyl [Music] oh [Music] you vagabond yes i'm a vagabond i haven't been here for a month my neighbor he's so sweet i haven't been here for a long time i bought them and he planted them here i went to moscow to have bone marrow taken out they break this bone in your chest and take it from here in the ukraine this time they took it from my spine that's easier for me because none of this is intact anymore i've had bone marrow taken from here at least 10 times and i let them take blood from my veins so i can get reliable results i hope i get good results my children my dogs my husband and my parents need me suffers from a very aggressive form of leukemia she is one of the some fifty thousand residents of the city of geovody according to unofficial statistics the majority of them are seriously ill [Music] this was once a village like so many others in the ukraine then discovery of rich uranium ore deposits nearby turned this sleepy village into a very elitist neat and very secretive city [Music] the city was not open to visitors until the end of the 1980s prior to that it didn't appear on a single map cities like jof de vodi made the soviet union a global leader in uranium production the new nuclear power plants and an ever-expanding weapons arsenal required a vast supply so the government ensured the locals did not want for anything [Music] the shrinking demand for uranium after the collapse of the soviet union and resulting nuclear disarmament led to closure of the last big uranium mine due to economic and viability according to official records radioactive waste and debris were disposed of properly [Music] the state-run company vostgok used to deal primarily with uranium today it runs several iron ore mines and the hydrochloric acid plant here vostcock is now the city's biggest employer and strives to present itself as a modern forward-looking operation this newfound openness becomes apparent when my camera team and i are stopped on a public road by the company's armed security staff these men do not wish to be filmed but my cameraman keeps filming without them noticing to keep the situation from escalating i try to remain calm so as not to antagonize the already nervous men to no avail i ask where we're being detained they give only evasive replies they get orders on what action to take via telephone apparently filming is not allowed here because these building material combine ruins are secret property we're just doing our job we have to we have to act i understand i saw you filming at headquarters what your car was there you were spotted there if we chose to disobey their orders they would use force they assure us that we would not like that we bow to this pressure and follow them to vostgorg headquarters the state-run company was founded in 1951 for the sole purpose of mining uranium according to the company itself most of the people in top posts here are still holdovers from before in my talks with company management i learned that the city is teaming with secret properties but their exact location is secret what we need is an official filming permit they say acquiring one is quick and simple the next day i personally deliver the request to the main office when i receive no reply i inquire at company headquarters we need at least five days to submit it to ukrainian security permission won't be granted without sufficient time look i wasn't there and i don't know anything about it to be honest i'm surprised would tell you that but even my new request that allowed for the five days was denied the rejection letter came a month later it said they hadn't had enough time to make the decision [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] is is [Music] a few hundred meters from the town center i meet evgen the crater ridden landscape looks harmless only the older residents can remember how truly dangerous this place is he has spent most of his time researching the zone of chernobyl he looks completely out of place in this idyllic landscape with his work gear and professional geiger counters it's hard to believe that the soil underfoot is totally contaminated basically we found what we expected to find nothing surprising nothing industrial we are dealing with naturally occurring uranium-238 although in a very high concentration that's also understandable uranium was mined here and the waste was simply dumped here on the tips this site holds the waste from over 50 years of uranium mining this way still contains up to 85 percent of its original radioactivity [Music] none of this should be deposited here especially since you can see that something has been dug up here and i suspect they haven't carried everything away everything is just lying around in the open there is no fence here no guards there aren't even any warning signs around here one shouldn't stay in this place for too long according to eyewitnesses they buried old machinery here to avoid paying for proper disposal today junk hoarders come here to look for scrap metal the heedlessly disposed scraps remain dangerously radioactive do people know the danger they're exposing themselves to don't they check for radiation in scrap in the ukraine to find out the answer to these questions i travel 150 kilometers to the regional capital of nepal petrovsk [Music] one of the few independent labs in the country is here vladimir goncharenko heads the lab he has been battling the government for years he's had highs and lows in his war with ukraine's mafia-like structures he has had his successes but has also received numerous threats when the threats were unsuccessful authorities tried to revoke his lab's license yet their efforts have been to no avail here in the ukraine 10 million tons of scrap metal are processed each year there are 3000 official recycling centers but there are really 30 000 collection points here this business is not and cannot be monitored by the government that's why local police supervise scrap metal collection in some cities nearly every police officer every public attorney and every police chief runs their own illegal scrap metal network they need no licenses to do that they need nothing some time ago we managed to get centers to ask the origin of the metal but when political changes occurred in the ministries the lobby decided and now no one asks where the metal comes from there is lots of radioactive metal here the danger is these collection points are found in private homes and garages those who take the metal don't fathom the danger and contaminate themselves and their neighbours when it rains radiation is carried away in effluents vladimir isn't merely concerned with his hometown nearpor petrovsk he knows very well what is going on in jof devordi too i said to you earlier and i'll say it again there's a problem with radon in shafti vodi the number of cancer cases there has exploded we took measurements there a lot of them only five percent of the measurements we took were below a non-hazardous level all others exceeded what is considered safe you can combat radon but it's up to people to do that [Music] in order to combat a danger people must be informed of that danger radon is a heavy noble gas and collects in the lower floors of residences people who lived at the time report that nearly all foundations and roads were built with the spoils from uranium mining is now full of abandoned ground floor apartments with boarded up windows [Music] the who says that long-term inhalation of radon causes cancer i make an appointment to meet a young man who nearly lost his life due to the indifference of authorities the apartment complex is being built on the edge of the city are far too few to meet the demand of residents the birth rate in this city is high yet incomes are low despite the low housing prices young families are still unable to buy their own apartment this is one reason why oleg dick must postpone having a family especially now that he spends nearly all of his money [Music] i couldn't work for almost a year because i constantly had aching bones in the hospital they said it was a pinched nerve and then when it spread to my legs i wasn't even able to get out of bed anymore in the last phase i started to get bruises everywhere lots of bruises if someone touched me i'd get them if i lay on my back i'd get a bruise at my annual checkup they told me everything was fine the phrase leukemia alone all my relatives knew that was a bad thing we didn't know the exact name we learned the exact term later we did some research in the internet and learned the chances if you stop taking the medication there's a chance your body may recover was i scared yes because i hadn't achieved anything in life i'm still young i could have so much time left but this disease oleg was 22 years old when he was diagnosed with a very rare form of leukemia he gets his medication for free and must only pay for his examinations those examination costs eat up nearly his entire monthly income one cause of this type of cancer is ionizing radiation the people in power in this city refuse to accept that he has been studying the problems in and around his city for years i studied and it's clear to me that there is a serious problem with radiation sources here i want to pinpoint just where these sources of radioactivity are not the ones that are contained but the freely accessible ones those are the ones that pose a danger to residents children might play near these areas getting information about these areas is very difficult nearly impossible when i began investigating this topic i found the authorities were dismissive and reserved in their attitude towards me as a journalist did you have a different experience unfortunately the tendency in the ukraine is to close off access to government offices especially for journalists and ecologists they even go so far as to deny the public access the authorities and city officials of varying rank told me that there's a state-funded programme in javodi aimed at gradually removing sources or radioactivity there are state grants earmarked for that but the funding for this program is not sufficient those same people say that if all the grant money had been used as planned then the problem would be more or less solved already the next day alexa wants to show me a perfect example of the cooperation between ecologists and city government not far from the town centre is one of the pit head buildings that was backfilled after mining stopped the city residents use it as a garbage dump the ruins are full of stone chips the radioactivity levels here are ten times the permissible level the road that leads here is also paved with large grey stones like these alexei and evgen recognize it as uranium ore the geiger counter sounds the alarm the whole time we're here i think all of this waste comes from uranium mining the radioactivity level is far too high for this area to be without a fence and to be without any kind of warning signs at all it is far too easy for people to access this area should definitely be fenced off and then they should clean it all up it wouldn't be too difficult to do that this area is not too big it can be cleaned up have you told that to city officials i told the mayor himself what did he say he said we'll solve the problem when was that that was about a year and a half ago now has anything changed since then new garbage has been brought here such as bottles of medical waste the roof caved in beside that nothing's changed when seldom comes out victorious in the battle with ukrainian officials her house is on the ground floor of a soviet era her family has lived here from the very start her son vasily is visiting at the moment he is studying in a different city i thought i could move to kiev or even somewhere abroad i wanted to apply for dual citizenship in israel medical care is free he wanted to take me there and i said no our doctors are useless specialists only if you can get the right diagnosis of course i'm furious if i had less self-control or more influence i would do something to hurt them [Music] scores of people in javafodi have had similar experiences with the ukrainian medical systems has been deaf since birth treating his condition is too costly his young grandmother natalia is on a desperate search for help this apartment has become a kind of drop-in center for victims they prefer to come here to ask nelia for advice [Music] my second child is always sick he's so sick he doesn't go to daycare he spends two days in daycare and a month in the hospital children often get sick here that's just how it is in our city it doesn't surprise anyone sure everything's free here you go in the doctor opens a drawer and tells you to put 50 70 or 100 harifa on the pile when nelia learned alexey was in the city again she asked him for advice a few months ago the city performed a raid on measurement in her home the levels were deemed normal but her next-door neighbor was moved to a new home due to high radon levels and detects high radiation levels in her kitchen this is an initial sign radon is a product of uranium decay i think that has to do with the fact that this is the ground floor radon collects in the basement and rises up here through the cracks in the foundation alexey advises nelia to request new examinations but for them to be meaningful they must go on for several weeks alone is not the only danger here we've often found building rubble here that was highly radioactive maybe it was used to build your housing block local authorities deny any link between the widespread illness and the building materials that were used earlier only the residents see what happens behind walls like these in my house it's me with leukemia next door two previous owners died in quick succession the elderly woman who lives there now is suffering from uterine cancer the woman in the next apartment has skin cancer her son came and picked her up i don't know if she's still alive he's not usually one eileen yet the neighbor across the way has a thyroid disease there's a man on the second floor with lymphoid cancer there's a woman who lives on the fourth floor who has breast cancer i saw her today she has no money to pay for treatment so she's waiting to die um there's a woman who is still working despite the fact that she has uterine cancer [Music] power games corruption and indifference cost additional human lives every day the city cemetery is as big as one in a major city already two-thirds of the graves here are from 2000 or later [Music] [Music] during the soviet era no one thought much about the health of the uranium miners and their families the powerful beast demanded cheap energy at an unfathomable cost no one considered the long-term consequences they didn't even require us to wear face masks back then we had normal dust masks and no other sort of protection our tools are spades and axes mirail kulpanov retired early and has to work as a salesman he had worked in a uranium mine for only five years when he was diagnosed with lymphoid cancer we kind of knew what it was back then there was no cancer awareness effort back then for example no one told us what not to touch where not to go and what not to do because of radiation on the contrary they tried to hide it so everything would be done in quiet you worked and went home and nothing has changed since then there are still no safety measures they still wear dust masks in the mines that's how it is with this city too there are places here that are as radioactive as the mines i worked what are we to do go onto the road with a geiger counter and it'll go crazy what can you do nothing people just go on living lost his pension because he has fully healed for a 50 year old man in the ukraine it is nearly impossible to find a new job growing up in this city appears to be a health risk in itself what about when prevention fails too ludmilla coroll had exactly that happened to her doctors told her she was in the best of health but she received a big shock only 11 months later nowadays people tell you everything to your face they used to tell your family first i didn't get why it happened to me the diagnosis an extremely advanced lung carcinoma doctors in jeff de vodi had overlooked the then 30 year old's tumor the findings were even signed by two different specialists this is the first image it's from october 30th when apparently nothing was visible but by november 30th the cancer had grown a lot the white sections on both images show the tumor a year after radiation therapy and chemotherapy my hair grew back that is something that's very important to a woman when i was released my doctor indicated to me that i should have come in early i went to our hospital and the doctor who looked at that image in 2002 asked me if she could see the x-ray she said she heard they had overlooked something i said sure she looked at the image and said yes we overlooked that then she asked me if i was fine and said everything's okay only someone who has experienced it can imagine how painful that was for me she acted as if i'd gotten over a case of the flu or something at that moment ludmila decided to fight she filed a lawsuit and won although it took nearly 10 years if you're sure you're right you have to prove it even against the state even if you get in trouble with the state as a result you have to believe and fight for justice and it will be okay according to the who's latest findings radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking ludmila never smoked the court granted her 150 dollars for her physical and mental anguish the responsible doctor still works in the city hospital and now heads the x-ray department the many complaints from locals have brought me to the hospital i arranged to meet the head physician to shed light on the situation on the telephone he laughs merrily and promises a candid interview i go to the agreed meeting place with alex say and wait for him in vain the head physician is a no-show apparently he is at a conference today we are told his substitution is on vacation and no one else with the proper authority is around i try to engage the resident personnel in conversation but they say they need the boss's permission before they'll answer a single question head nurse to no avail finally someone from management answers the phone i have four journalists with the camera down here i just talked to the people in charge please understand you can't film here without my boss's permission we don't have any secrets here but we do have a command structure when we get orders from the boss we have to follow them if we'd been expecting you if we'd known you were coming we would have prepared as we normally do we'd have picked you up here and given you a tour with no okay from our boss we can't help you here i spoke to the head physician a few days ago if he knew he was leaving why couldn't he arrange that i can't imagine you have any terrible secrets here either of course not we have to leave the hospital no one may say a word when the head physician is gone that is his order public health information cannot be kept secret that's against ukrainian law and international treaties it must be disclosed random secretiveness is no good at all especially when it comes from state authorities they wouldn't even let us film in the halls you have to be allowed to film on public premises if it is public property and you can simply walk in it doesn't matter if you have a camera or not it seems no one wants to or can say anything about this topic especially in public institutions this is why i'm astonished about my next meeting place the national mining university of ukraine months ago i got into contact with an extraordinary woman professor alagorova has chaired the ecology department since 1998 some years ago this department developed a way to bolster residents immune systems in places like de vodi research was stopped due to a lack of funding but professor gorova is not giving up [Music] a colleague from her department insists on sitting in on our talk he asks me what the precise aim of the interview is professor gorova is also on the national radiation committee at a conference i said i was from a region where uranium was mined enriched and transported and that meant that radioactive waste collects here and i asked how a specialist would assess our situation with regard to radiation there was a pause and they said it was a second chernobyl it was viewed as a second chernobyl but people live work and give birth to sick children there the radiation cuts into the dna molecules like an invisible scalpel and the chemical contamination does not allow the strands of dna to regenerate that causes mutations when mutated cells develop when there are lots this causes a whole range of oncological illnesses she is all too familiar with the meddling ukrainian authorities when we worked in we were accompanied by the city environmental department we took measurements in the places they took us to when i went to a meeting in kiev and ran into the specialists when i heard their reports i knew that they hadn't taken me to the most dangerous places in the area back then i tried to find statistics for disease in jeopardy and failed right you'll never find them why because if they publish them in the regional statistics our region wouldn't be placed where it is in the state statistics i've asked that questions at many conferences [Music] why is the line for the statistics in javadi always empty that data is always sent to the regional statistics office so those statistics aren't listed elsewhere no no no they're just left blank do you have those statistics may i see them of course i do i have that thesis from one of my students she did a very good job of it i'll show you she analyzed statistics from the last five or six years these statistics existed up to a certain year but then that data just vanishes they send the data to the region but then it disappears [Music] so they are playing some kind of game with them they play statistical games with them they mess with the statistics in some way so the regional statistics look better careful this will leak to the press and you'll be held responsible i stand by my word here you are here is the statistical proof the statistics for devotee have not been published in official records since 2004. all the data that is given prior to 2004 looks especially low in professor gorova's opinion her own research indicates that the health of the city's residents is disastrously poor i'm on my way to see a physician who runs a private clinic she's prepared to share the results of her own research with me she herself says i can expect them to confirm my fears and hunches i need to talk to you about the interview i have some bad news what happened i received a call from a government office they warned me against passing on the data we discussed what exactly did they say well they made it clear to me that i'm not julia timochenko and that if i'd vanished no one would look for me yeah you could put it that way shortly after our call i heard the young physician was admitted to a clinic with a nervous breakdown carries out his own analyses in peaceful backyards in the middle of the city he works methodically and scrupulously he starts measuring and cannot believe his devices he has only seen levels so high in the zone around chernobyl we are an attraction to the children who live here do you know what we're measuring [Music] we just measured a very high level of radiation did you know it's dangerous to play here [Music] didn't your parents tell you that no no ten years ago they measured high levels in that school here on these streets too they tore up some streets they demolished a corner of our house and the school was do you closed the kids it's dangerous to play here where else can they play there's nowhere to go according to unofficial statistics over 5000 spots in the city are this contaminated something has to be done here one must repave the old streets and remove the old surfaces this problem must be solved there is no minimal level under which ionizing radiation is harmless on the other side of the city life appears utterly untainted [Music] these children can play on a lovingly set up playground anatoli schinoff lives here with his family he's one of the biggest fans of her city they located highly contaminated spots and they removed bits of asphalt and paved things anew to me the word radioactive is a normal word and nothing bad if i were to get the chance to move to another city to another city that was cleaner then why wouldn't i do that if you have the wherewithal then you solve the problems if not you learn to live with them very few people get such a chance the average income in the city is around 200 a month the money anatoly would get for selling his apartment would allow his family of six to live in a city like kiev for only three months they like living here and try to blend out the consequences nelia is visiting her mother today in the ukraine family ties cannot be severed without their children's help elderly people here would not be able to survive nelia gets medication for her mother and brings gifts i wouldn't everyone wonders how she manages to help everyone how she can tell everyone where they should turn for help a large family always means good fortune when the government and medical system betray you you still have someone around to help when i fell ill she was the first to come and she went with my husband to the doctor at the time she asked the doctor how long her sister could live with the illness the doctor told her maybe a month two months or a year and then she passed out and collapsed against the wall it was a terrible thing to hear but nelia and her family never gave up they heard about a research program from a western drug company she attained a spot in it and won the right to keep living woman i have a goal i have the strength and courage to survive and i will help those people [Music] is [Music] continues to advise ill people in the city unfortunately the results of her last examinations weren't as good as she hoped oleg dick must travel to it neapo petrovsk each month to pick up medication that keeps him alive another 30 days ludmilla coroll is still unemployed her daughter is looking for a job far away from the city the afghan charingal was questioned by the secret police during our shoot [Music] only a few weeks after our interview vladimir goncharenko was beaten to death by two unknown men on the street his murderers are still at large [Music] do [Music] be is [Music]

Channel: Real Stories

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Keywords: Real Stories, Real Stories Full Documentary, Real Stories Documentary, Full length Documentaries, Documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentary Movies - Topic, full documentary, full episode, embittered city ukraine, embittered city trailer, embittered city documentary, A Second Chernobyl, chernobyl documentary, chernobyl explosion, pripyat chernobyl, pripyat ukraine, chernobyl-2 radar duga, chernobyl 2021, 4k documentary, ukraine

Id: Ov1rSmwpfeU

Length: 52min 18sec (3138 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 29 2022