Soviet Twenty Years Ago

[Ed_Haynes]

A reminder.

Edited April 22, 2006 by Ed_Haynes

[Guest Darrell]

I second that

[Guest Darrell]

..

[Riley1965]

I'll add my sentiments on the anniversary of this never ending tragedy.

Doc

[Christophe]

I have no Tchernobyl Medal immediately available to post, but I am with you on this one.

Ch.

[Chuck In Oregon]

I am a great fan of the mystery writer Martin Cruz Smith and his worn-out Moscow investigator Arkady Renko. His Wolves Eat Dogs is a first-rate mystery set largely in Chernobyl and Pripyat. It includes some chilling descriptions of life in and near The Zone today. It is a continuing nightmare with every possibility of getting worse, not better. His description of the sequence leading to the catastrophe, if accurate, is beyond all understanding.

I know a Georgian who was sent to the disaster back then. According to him, each man was given a liter of vodka daily to ward off the effects of the radiation. I didn't really believe him until I saw that same thing in print elsewhere and Smith alludes to it in his novel. Teams were sent from every region so as to minimize the losses from any one region and thus hide the total number of deaths from the nation.

Как жаль.

[Stogieman]

A horrible, tragic event that the people of Russia & the other former republics will suffer with well into the future. Very sad.

[Alfred]

Here is a picture of the nuclear power plant with the name "Lenin" in Tchernobyl.

I thought it was the 26. April 1986 when the accident occured.

[Dolf]

Here is a picture of the nuclear power plant with the name "Lenin" in Tchernobyl.

I thought it was the 26. April 1986 when the accident occured.

Right, April 26 1986 is indeed the day the reactor #4 exploded.

Here too the media started talking about the 20th anniversary yesterday (April 21) and before yesterday (April 20), not sure why!

But the events took indeed place during the night of April 25 to April 26 1986.

Anyway, a very sad tragedy! How many have died and keep dying from that incident? Greenpeace says about 100.000, but I guess it's almost impossible to know exactly the dimension of this tragic event!

Dolf

Edited April 22, 2006 by Dolf

[Bob]

A little bit over a half a year ago I was on vacation in Ukraine and visited Tschernobyl and Pripyat. Within 100m of the reactor. A bit of a weird place.

Got smuggled into the area (didn't want to pay several hundred USD for an official tour) by the local maffia boss who - by sheer luck - I got to know while in Ukraine. The guy was in charge of all transportation within the exclusion zone, smuggling gasoline in and smuggling metals out (he had a large group of people working for him on dismantling old reactors in the exclusion zone). Had a blast... making pictures, drinking cognac in the local Tschernobyl bar, etc.

Still - there is clearly some fear... and "do not walk on the grass" was a pretty clear message from our guy that things were NOT ok in that area.

Bob

[Ed_Haynes]

I thought it was the 26. April 1986 when the accident occured.

Oh, yes, of course. Thread heading suitably altered.

Still . . . .

[Ed_Haynes]

How many have died and keep dying from that incident? Greenpeace says about 100.000, but I guess it's almost impossible to know exactly the dimension of this tragic event!

Hard to say. Like Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we'll be counting for number of generations, including some yet to come.

[Koj]

Did an award document/case exist to this medal? Any photos of somebody who is wearing this award.

Attached mine.

Regards

Florian