My Memories of the Events of 1986. Part 2 of 3.

My Memories of the Events of 1986 ? Viktor Nemkov, 2006. Part 2

In the second half of the 1980s, I was the vice principal of one of the schools in Gogachov, in the Gomel province. Among the school staff, a group of young teachers emerged, seeking new methods of working, studying, and educating children. This led us to the idea of creating the International Friendship Club. We established contacts with schools in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, and Latvia. Every year, friendship festivals were held in these schools in turn. The program of each festival included cultural and sports activities, as well as exchanges of work experiences among the teachers. It was easy to organise these festivals because we lived in a country called the Soviet Union, and we had no borders between our republics, much like the European Union today.

In 1986, it was our Lithuanian friends' turn to host. My wife Gala, who also worked at the same school as an English teacher, and I prepared our delegation and set off for Lithuania early in the morning on April 27. The next day, we arrived in the city of Kretinga, Lithuania. The festival turned out to be lively and interesting. Our children participated in various competitions, won prizes and diplomas, went to the disco, and visited the Amber Museum in Palanga on the Baltic Sea coast. Everything was very engaging for both the children and us. We joyfully took part in the May Day parade. In the Soviet Union, there was a tradition of organising parades on May 1 and November 7. This was also a part of our programme.

We, from other Soviet republics, marched on the street in our national costumes, parading with our school group and singing our national songs. Our presence made the parade much livelier and more colourful.

It was then that my Lithuanian colleagues informed me that something had happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, but there was no official information. My first thought was about my son. Our eldest daughter was with us, but our five-year-old son had stayed with his grandparents, spending those days playing outside in the fine weather. Those days were the most dangerous because the air was filled with radioactive iodine. Naturally, the grandparents knew nothing about it.

It's worth noting that I had served in the missile troops and was well-informed about military atomic explosions. Without going into detail, I will just say that one of the first measures to take is to leave the affected area as quickly as possible using personal protective equipment. But evacuating such a large number of civilians? There was no experience of this in the entire world. Perhaps that's why the cities remained "clean" or had "permissible levels"?

I didn't tell my wife anything, but I couldn't sleep during the entire trip back. At home and in the city, no one knew anything. There were rumours that an explosion had occurred in Chernobyl. At night, I turned on the radio and found the Voice of America station (this was prohibited in the Soviet Union and classified as "anti-Soviet activity"). I learned that there had been an explosion at the fourth unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and that it was completely destroyed. Specialists from Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Poland reported increased radiation levels in the air. It felt like the hair on my head started to move. What to do?

At news time on television, we were all in front of the set. And what do we see? Footage of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant shot from a helicopter, I don't know in which year. At least back then, everything was fine. They explained that nothing had happened, that the plant was functioning perfectly, and that the alarm in the foreign press was just enemy propaganda.

May 3. The national holiday "Victory Day" on May 9 was approaching. Our school had to prepare the sports part of the celebration at the municipal stadium. Students aged 10 to 16 participated. Approximately 1,200 children. It was very hot. We trained the students during physical education classes and rehearsed every day after classes at two in the afternoon when the temperature was at its peak. The schoolyard was surrounded by buildings, the air was still, and the asphalt softened from the heat. It was unbearable. Many children felt unwell; some fainted. The nurse took care of them, and we continued rehearsing. You have to be born in the Soviet Union to understand what we were doing. When I recall those days, my cheeks burn with shame every time.

On May 4, when 5 or 6 children fainted during rehearsal, I couldn't take it anymore and called the regional party committee (the principal had refused to call). I was bluntly told that the issue was not my concern, that I had to follow orders without question, and that I should not forget about party discipline. Then, I understood why the principal didn't want to make the phone call.

On either May 4th or 5th (I don't remember well), Gorbachev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, appeared on television. He was not the president, and there were no presidents in any of the republics of the USSR. Gorbachev declared that a breakdown had occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, that necessary measures were being taken, that the plant was still operational, and that there was no danger. He again repeated accusations that journalists were seeking sensationalism, etc. However, he did not mention that the population within a 30 km radius of Chernobyl had already been evacuated, nor did he mention that firefighters who had arrived first at the site of the explosion were already beginning to die.

I think it is necessary to explain that the Soviet Union was a state with a totalitarian regime, and information from state bodies was the only information available at that time. Neither television nor private nor non-state newspapers existed then, as they do now in Belarus. The state provided us with the information that it deemed appropriate for us.

Meanwhile, we continued training and rehearsing in the schoolyard despite these issues. Parents began to call the principal; some did not allow their children to attend school in order to minimise their time spent outdoors. On May 6th, we finally received a telephone message from the city council ordering us to seal the windows in the classrooms and hallways and to not allow students to go outside during breaks. However, we had already received [radioactive] iodine in its highest concentrations during the first 7 days after the explosion. Thus, locked in our classrooms, we continued the lessons for two more weeks.