On September 29, 1957, the world's first radiation catastrophe took place in the closed city of nuclear scientists Chelyabinsk-40 (now Ozersk). A container with radioactive waste exploded at the Mayak plant, an enterprise that produces components for nuclear weapons. As a result of the explosion, about 20 million curies of radioactive substances were thrown into the air, which, picked up by a strong southwestern wind, scattered across the surrounding forests, fields and lakes. The total area of contamination was almost 20 thousand square kilometers and is known as EURT - East Ural radioactive trace …
KYSHTYM-57
Until recently, outrageously little was known about the explosion at the Mayak plant. Information was hidden from the population. The very fact of the accident in the USSR was recognized only in July 1989 at a session of the Supreme Soviet. The reasons for the silence are understandable: the government tried to prevent panic among the civilian population and, which is probably more important for the top, to avoid resonance in the world and a blow to the image of the then superpower.
For many years, the incident at Mayak was generally called the "Kyshtym accident" or simply "Kyshtym-57", because this city was the closest neighbor of the secret and closed "atomic heart of the Union".
Chelyabinsk-40 was not marked on the maps, since plutonium for our atomic bombs was being developed here since the 1950s. The conditions in which these works were carried out, imperfection of technologies and lack of experience significantly increased the risks of emergency situations, but there was no choice. The United States already possessed nuclear weapons and, after "human tests" in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, calculated how many bombs would be required to destroy the USSR.
It was impossible to hesitate. By order of Stalin on August 20, 1945, a committee on atomic energy was created, headed by L. Beria. Enormous human resources were devoted to the creation of the Soviet nuclear shield - thousands of scientists and engineers, tens of thousands of soldiers, workers and prisoners. According to Western experts, the Soviet Union could have developed its own nuclear weapons no earlier than 1956. But, fortunately for us, it appeared much faster, mixing up plans for a preemptive nuclear strike against the USSR. On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet nuclear explosion was carried out at the Semipalatinsk test site, confirming the unconditional success of all Soviet science.
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"RESERVED" LAND
Few people know, but the East Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT) is actually correctly called … the East Ural State Reserve. VUGZ was founded in 1966. It is located in the most contaminated areas after the explosion at the "Mayak" and covers an area of 16 616 hectares. From north to south, the reserve stretches for 24 km, and from west to east for 9 km. The total length along the perimeter is 90 km.
At present, the reserve is under the control of the Rosatom Corporation, whose employees regularly conduct radiation and radioecological monitoring. The main interest of scientists is the effect of radiation on living organisms, the environment and the process of adaptation in conditions of high contamination of the area. Surprisingly, the representatives of the animal world quickly enough adapted to the level of radiation that is dangerous even for humans and now live freely in this closed zone isolated from people.
Yes, you won't be able to enter the reserve without hindrance. Administratively, VUGZ belongs to the Mayak plant and is regularly patrolled by the police in Ozersk and the village of Metlino. There are four stationary round-the-clock security posts along the perimeter of the reserve, and all “nature lovers” detained on the territory and not having a special permit are mercilessly fined.
However, there are still enough people who want to tickle their nerves, finding themselves in this kind of "exclusion zone". Corroded signs with a radioactive shamrock and warning inscriptions only spur the interest of extreme people who, for example, want to go fishing on "dirty" lakes. There are two of the latter on the territory of the reserve - Berdenish and Uruskul, as well as the radioactive river Karabolka and the legendary Techa, into which all the liquid radioactive waste of the Mayak plant was originally dumped. Fishing in the mentioned reservoirs is prohibited, swimming is also prohibited, but for some citizens, the prohibitions seem to be created in order to break them …
MUSLUMOVO
The territory of VUGZ, although it is indicated on the maps in green, is certainly not the best place for recreation and picnic in nature. However, the real cancerous tumor of these places is located at some distance, in the southeast of Ozersk and the Mayak plant. We are talking about the village of Muslyumovo, located on the banks of the Techa River.
Muslyumovo is also a kind of protected area, fenced with barbed wire and under the supervision of scientists for a long time. But it is not animals who live there, but people, over whom, most likely, a long-term medical experiment is being conducted.
As mentioned above, initially the liquid waste of the Mayak plant was discharged into the nearby Techa river, the waters of which were supposed to carry the radioactive rubbish far and for a long time. The idea itself is dubious, but whether it was before - the world was on the verge of a new war. The latter, fortunately, was avoided, but for those who lived downstream of the now radioactive river, the future became a chronic radiation nightmare.
Most of the people, of course, were evicted - sent to a safe distance from the infected places. They left only Muslyumovo and its inhabitants, left for fifty years, knowing full well about the effect of radiation on the human body. The wildness lies in the fact that all these years the villagers have been drinking water from Techa (for there is no other alternative), eating locally produced food, and every year they undergo medical examinations, where no one really says what they are sick with. The most common diagnosis that is made here is a general illness of the body of varying degrees.
In reality, Muslyumovo is the only place on our planet where people with chronic radiation sickness live. In terms of the percentage of patients with leukemia (blood cancer) per capita, the village ranks third in the world, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Over the past decades, almost every child in Muslyumovo was born with some kind of genetic pathology, and 70% of schoolchildren had mental defects. Without exaggeration, since 1960, an epidemic of cancer of all forms and varieties known to medicine has been raging in the village, and by and large, nothing has been done to treat and relocate people. The Muslyumov experiment continues, and the words of a young resident of the village that flashed across the Internet come to mind: "We are not afraid of death, we are afraid of torment and terrible suffering from cancer … But it was possible to live life so beautifully" …
POLESIE
Another curious reserve - PSRER (Polesie State Radiation and Ecological Reserve) - was formed in 1988 after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It is located on the border of Belarus and Ukraine and includes the territories of three districts of the Gomel region that were most affected by the explosion in Chernobyl. The distance from the border of the Polesie SDEZ to the administrative center of the exclusion zone - the city of Chernobyl - is 26 km to the north and 14 km to the east. The level of contamination of the area with cesium, strontium, isotopes of plutonium and americium is very high here. However, this does not interfere with 120 species of birds, 54 species of mammals, including bears, lynxes, badgers and even bison, settle here.
Every year, about 4 million dollars are allocated from the Belarusian budget to PSRER, which allows maintaining a staff of 700 employees who serve 215 thousand hectares of territory. The perimeter is patrolled by security guards, and there are checkpoints on the roads, where all cars entering the territory are carefully inspected. Penalties for unauthorized entry are applied, communication with the Belarusian police or KGB officers too. Definitely, getting to the lands contaminated by Chernobyl is much easier from the Ukrainian side, but is it worth it? Unless only in order to remember and realize the scale of the tragedy …
Andrey Rukhlov