"People were not notified 36 hours": General Tarakanov - about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and the series "Chernobyl"

- You led the military units at the scene of the accident. Very quickly, the operation that took place at the Chernobyl NPP after the explosion became a military ...

- The operation in question was my last business trip. I was in Chernobyl for three months, and this happened during the third month of my trip.

By decision of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the CPSU, a scientific center of the Ministry of Defense was created - 500 scientists, from major to general. Everything that was done there and in the district, we had to know, study and give recommendations and methods for the work of soldiers and civilians.

The hard work that has fallen to my lot began when, upon arrival at Chernobyl, I hovered over the reactor by helicopter. It was a terrible sight, of course. I could not even imagine what it was: either a nuclear bomb, or such a catastrophe occurred, which ruined such a powerful structure of reinforced concrete and heavy structures. And all this as a result of the explosion thrown into the street.

“It was a thermal explosion, not a nuclear one ...”

- When I lectured in America, I said that if it were a nuclear explosion, there would be no one to lecture and no one would listen ...

300 thousand cubic meters of soil around the station was removed, collected on dump trucks and taken to the burial grounds. Instead, 300 thousand cubic meters of gravel were delivered, they were poured with concrete, then slabs were placed on top of the concrete. Then the radiation level at the station itself and in the district decreased hundreds of times. And we could allow to go to the station and deal directly with the decontamination of all equipment.

• Nikolai Tarakanov
• © RTD

This was done by the soldiers. The soldier is the main character. Always - I remember the war - there were marshals, great generals like Zhukov, Voroshilov. But who did the dirty work? Soldier.

- What is the radiation received by the soldiers?

- In wartime, the commission set the dose - 20. Units could step over this dose: due to an oversight of the commanders, or a careless attitude to the work of the soldier himself.

- That is, they, in fact, received a dose of wartime in peacetime?

- Yes. First, under this sarcophagus, under the block of miners, who were gathered from all over Russia, including from Tula, from Donetsk. They manually dug a hole, pulled out hundreds of cubic meters of land, and took it to burial grounds.

- In the film, they work naked ...

- I did not see them naked. This is too much, I will say. It was necessary to dig a hole, bring a concrete slab under the block, arrange cooling from nitrogen, like a refrigerator. That is, the idea is correct, and of course it helped. But it was September ...

- At that time there were very serious courses, lessons in civil defense. Still , the population was aware of what radiation is and how to behave in conditions of radiation contamination ...

- The next day, in the morning after the explosion, a commission headed by Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina (deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, one of the leaders of the liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl NPP accident - RT ) flew in, whom I knew very well. He was with Valery Legasov (a chemist, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, was on the commission to investigate the causes and liquidation of the consequences of the Chernobyl NPP accident - RT ), doctors and generals. And instead of understanding and understanding what the consequences might be, they forgot about the people, about everything that was in the district.

Exactly 36 hours did not notify the people. And people, of course, worked as you say. Schoolchildren - all in schools. There were weddings, tuples of all kinds ... Fishermen went fishing.

I think this is personal fault - even though I knew him closely - Boris Evdokimovich.

At first, he was recommended to fill it with water. They thought it was vaporization, and the radiation went for a walk in the white light. Then they recommended him to throw sand. Helicopters summoned from Kiev, the whole brigade of the Air Force. The helicopter pilots who were engaged in sand dumping had no lead under their feet, no other protection. Direct impact. They went from a shaving flight, dumped sand. No effect. Then they began to dump the lead pigs, boron. They dumped about a week. There was no effect either.

As I understand it, the entire government commission that flew with him (Shcherbina. - RT ), - Legasov, Vorobyov (radiobiologist, chemist, deputy minister of health. - RT ) and others - thought that as soon as the reactor was silenced, then the world will report everything. And no problems.

- Gorbachev is shown in the film as half-worn, insecure ... Was it really so? He really could not take responsibility for what happened?

- If we talk about the nature of a person whom I did know well (let him listen to me now), then there was no male core in him, like, say, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin.

• © Shot from the TV series "Chernobyl"

When he was told, he himself did not fly. He sent Nikolai Ryzhkov (Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers - RT ) there, Shcherbina, who were engaged in this. He, not knowing the situation, not knowing what it is, tried to somehow minimize the danger to the population.

He thought that the commission was about to report that everything was over. And they called it not a disaster, but an accident. Only the military insisted that it was a disaster, and no accident. The large-scale disaster of the century.

- In the series, the character whose prototype you are is saying that the true radiation figures, the true scale of the tragedy, are hidden even from the military ...

- No, he is talking nonsense. At the state commission, which was headed by Shcherbina, the deputy chief engineer Samoilenko (at the Chernobyl NPP - RT ) reported on the model that the robots did not work and that the strongest points remained on the roofs of the first and third blocks and around the nuclear power plant.

Shcherbina, frankly, was so disheartened: “And what to do if the robots did not work, what to do?” Then, I don’t remember now who said that the only option is biorobots. It was about soldiers.

- In the film, it says Legasov.

“He wasn’t close there.”

- But the phrase is really sounded - "bioroboty"?

- Yes. It seems that it was imposed by Yura Samoilenko (the chief of staff for eliminating the consequences of the Chernobyl NPP accident - RT ), who was received by Hero of Social Work, or Hero even. And Shcherbina himself, continuing the topic of biorobots, said to go to the military.

- Then Gorbachev flew to Chernobyl?

- Not. Defense Minister Sokolov creates a commission. About ten generals fly from Moscow. There is a chemist, a doctor, an operator ... right down to the TV people. I say Scherbine: “Before the commission starts working, I will conduct an experiment. I need to know what levels of radiation are on the roofs. I can’t let the soldiers do that to burn them. ”

I returned by helicopter to my district and selected five people. Colonel Saley, a medic who went to the zone, Colonel Kuznetsov, Colonel Savushkin and Shein's press photographer (civilian guy).

We arrive there, moving forward to the roof of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. There were three security officers there - you will not pass there, it’s at the nuclear power plant. Gone is all. We rise. We dress Sasha Saleya in all protection, we hang a lot of sensors. And together with him we are the first to go out onto the roof of the N, on which there was 800 X-rays per hour.

Naturally, we did not enter there, only we stood on the roof itself. Sasha Salei took the nuclear fuel, graphite, dropped it and left it. The sensors were immediately taken away from him for decoding, and after two hours the picture was clear - there is 800 x-rays per hour on this roof.

Here, together with Army General Ivan Gerasimov, a commission comes from Moscow. I report the results. Then Gerasimov ordered all the generals to put me in a helicopter ... By helicopter, we hung over this reactor. Then they hovered over the roof of the third, second. The picture that was before was not distorted - a lot of graphite lies. A myriad of turned out - 200 tons. This is graphite mixed with pieces of nuclear fuel.

• © Shot from the TV series "Chernobyl"

Meeting on the commission. The only solution is to persuade General Tarakanov (but not by order) to head the operation to remove nuclear fuel. And the soldiers must be drawn from the Armed Forces. The regiments stationed in the district were dark. I set the conditions for me to select five thousand people.

- What does "take away" mean? It was voluntary-compulsory, or like ...

- In principle, voluntary-compulsory. But there was no failure, can you imagine?

- You yourself went there too?

- Everyday. Every day I flew around by helicopter and went, of course, to the roof. It was impossible to trust only those intelligence officers who went into the zone.

- So you were in the first batch of people who agreed to go to the roof. And did you say exactly what is in the movie?

- One to one. I liked the actor (Ralph Aineson. - RT ) even - I fell in love with him. Directly one to one general, even nothing to complain about. Naturally, the ending was shown a little bit differently. There I award letters, awards, and so on.

After the call, the following was done: the battalion was divided into five to ten people. Each soldier was carried out in points. The first point is putting on a lead shield. The protection is three millimeters. On the chest and back on the bone marrow.

Then the bandage for the "economy" (the soldiers conditionally called it "a basket for eggs"). Now the insoles of lead, shoe covers. Then polukasochka on the head, on the back of the head, the brain. After that, they wore an apron on the front and back. Next - leaded mittens, and then simple. The weight of this protection was 25-30 kg. But the most important thing is that this protection reduced the level of radiation exposure of a person 1.6 times. This is all we considered.

The task is to beat off graphite with sledgehammers. This is 50 kg of graphite. Each one had a white number on his back — first, second, third, fourth — so as not to lose.

There was also a difficult exit system: first my scouts, civilians, took the commanders, showed the route. We then called them route officers. After the briefing, the hatchery officer takes this group of soldiers and leads along the routes. Then they go down, they give up their dosimeter. ... The device shows what level of radiation.

- The main thing is not to pass for 20, right?

- Of course. This was the units only. We selected soldiers of such powerful, physically healthy, who would be guided, not lost.

- How many times could one soldier get on the roof?

- All laid once and all. But I had soldiers who went out two or three times.

- At that moment, when only everything happened, people were actively taken for treatment in different countries. Then it all faded away, stopped helping with the treatment?

- Yes, they stopped ... I was in a hospital bed for two years. And I was left still in the army. Yazov (Marshal of the Soviet Union, Minister of Defense of the USSR. - RT ) sent me as a doctor of science to Armenia (liquidation of the consequences of a devastating earthquake on December 7, 1988. - RT ). For six months I was in charge of rescue operations. In two weeks my soldiers dragged out 25 thousand living and 19 thousand corpses, and we buried everyone. I have an honorary citizen there.

Received for Chernobyl, for Armenia ... that's not the point. Then again this disease befell me. As Chazov (Minister of Health of the USSR. - RT ) said: “You will be tormented until you die, Chernobyl will not let you go”. And he told the truth. Although I was suing him. Chazov wrote an order for all governors not to recognize their stay in Chernobyl if someone became disabled. I sued him. He was making excuses. Then our Minister of Health, Colonel-General Shevchenko (surgeon, cardiac surgeon, Minister of Health of Russia. - RT ) came, and we returned everything to its place.

I shaved and a small scratch did not heal for two weeks. Blood from the gums. Blood diarrhea. It's scary to even think! My wife is a doctor of science. If it were not for her ... But she watched me a lot, and what medications I did not take. I now have eight types of medicine in the kitchen - I take it every day: in the morning, at lunch and in the evening.

When they brought me to the sixth hospital, I still found these guys alive, the firemen, who were dying.

They are delivering me - going to meet Major Telyatnikov (the head of the militarized fire unit No. 2 for the protection of the Chernobyl NPP. - RT ), their commander. He arrived from the wedding, succumbed like that. I say: "Major, if you were in my submission, I would now put you on trial by a military tribunal." He: “Why?” I say: “You knew. Why did your firefighters work for an hour, two at a time, they didn't get off the roof? ”

They put out the fire on the roof, in the mashale where the generators were burning. He set the task to put out the water. Madness! 800 degrees temperature in this collapse - they poured from the roofs, and even the shift did not do any. When they had already collapsed into corpses ...

Watch the full interview at RTD.