On the banks of the radioactive river: how people live in the area of ​​the Kyshtym nuclear disaster

What exploded on September 29, 1957

Information about the explosion at the chemical plant "Mayak" in the city of Chelyabinsk-40, now Ozersk, was declassified only under Gorbachev. After all, it exploded where atomic bombs were made. Even the name Chelyabinsk-40 officially did not exist. The nearest settlement to the accident site is the town of Kyshtym. Therefore, the disaster at “Mayak” was called the Kyshtym accident.

• Mayak Production Association, December 1948
• © po-mayak.ru

The explosion in 1957 occurred due to the imperfection of technology. Low radioactive waste was poured into water. However, waste with high radioactivity was placed in special concrete “cans of eternal storage”, where materials were to be kept until complete deactivation.

The tanks were cooled separately - the nuclear reaction in the waste was not fully completed and the materials were constantly heated. One of the "cans" with 70-80 tons of waste eventually exploded.

Why? Broken cooling. Waste in the container began to boil, warming up to +330 ºC. There was an explosion that knocked out a 160-ton cover. The shock wave damaged the neighboring “banks”. All doors and windows were knocked out within a radius of 200 meters.

90% of radioactive substances settled on the territory of the enterprise. Immediately after the explosion, liquidation of the consequences was led by Deputy Chief Engineer Nikolai Semyonov. A volunteer was sent for reconnaissance to the detonated vault. A dosimetric engineer was driving an all-terrain vehicle used in the enterprise. The cabin was protected by lead, outside devices were strengthened. The worker arrived at the most exploded "bank". He received a rather big dose, but he worked for many years at Mayak.

The liquidation involved the military and the police. On the territory of Chelyabinsk-40, almost the entire topsoil was removed. Special solutions washed everything: walls, locomotives, cars. At the same time, the work of the enterprise did not stop for a minute.

In the River Techa, the disposal of radioactive waste from Mayak began in the late 1940s. Then it was a normal world practice.

In the 1950s, geologists accidentally discovered radioactivity. The search party had dosimeters with them.

Only then did the authorities begin to take action. By the end of the 1950s, all the settlements that were considered unsafe were relocated. But the children continued to go fishing for a long time to the river - the authorities talked about the danger of water, but because of the secrecy they did not explain what exactly the harm was.

435 microroentgen per hour

Today, the radiation background in Ozersk (formerly Chelyabinsk-40) is no different from the natural one.

62 years ago, a radioactive cloud covered an area of ​​1000 square meters. km 22 villages were completely evacuated from the infected area. In the late 2000s, the regional authorities and Rosatom even relocated an entire village from Techa (in addition to what they evacuated during the Soviet era) in order to reduce the effects of radiation on people.

• Territory of pollution as a result of the 1957 Kyshtym accident
• RT

The federal highway “Ural”, connecting Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg, crosses the Techa River on a wide concrete bridge. There are no warnings of possible danger either at the entrance or at the water itself.

On the dashboard of our rental car lies a dosimeter. The general natural background is stable: 8-15 microroentgen per hour - it did not change all the way from Chelyabinsk. Approximately the same as in the kitchen at home in Moscow. But 50 meters before the river, the radiation level slowly begins to rise.

• Radiation background near the River Techa in the area of ​​the automobile bridge - 435 microroentgen per hour, most of all "fonet" silt
• RT
• © Oleg Adamovich

In the middle of the bridge, directly above the water, the dosimeter is already warningly cracking, on the reddened screen it says: “Danger”. The device shows an alarming 350 microroentgen per hour - 35 times more than in the vicinity.

I go down closer to the water, and the background rises to 435 micro X-rays. Now most of all in the river fonit silt. According to experts, its radioactivity will remain at least another several decades.

The Techa River is still not officially used. It is forbidden to take water, fish, swim. Previously, the riverbed was patrolled by a special river militia, but now you can safely approach the river - no one will stop you.

This quite suits the local wild animals: all the shores in the area of ​​the bridge are littered with traces of wild boars and deer - they come here for a watering place.

Oddly enough, the nearby residents of the river is also not very scared.

• Bridge over the River Techa, federal highway "Ural"
• RT
• © Alexander Fedorov

Two-headed cats were not

We are in the village Brodokalmak. Alexey Morozov lived here all his life. Other villages located near the river, the authorities settled. But it was left - it was decided that it was far enough from Ozyorsk (85 km).

Every weekend, Alex goes to the river to catch fish.

“You know that radioactive waste has been poured into this water for ten years?” We ask Morozov.

“Yes, everyone knows. But I'm not for myself - I'm for a pet. ”

"Not scary?"

“Two-headed cats have not been born yet. Like all the harmful substances are deposited in the bones - just do not eat fish bones. Authorities say water is safe. People in it and bathe in the summer, and take water for gardens. How else? Where have you seen that people in the village did not use the river. ”

The dosimeter does not react to fish in any way, 40 micro-roentgens per hour are periodically fixed to the water. The device squeaks that this is an elevated level, but not dangerous.

“Do the people often get sick?” We ask Morozov.

“Many are tormented by their feet. But doctors explain that it is not related to radiation. There is simply too much iron in the well water. ”

On the opposite shore, children jump into the water with a loud splash. +28 ° С - rural people spend all their free time near the water.

We go further. 28 kilometers from Brodokalmak in the direction of Ozersk on the bank of the River Techy there is a real ghost village. Called Muslyumovo. It exists on the maps: houses with numbers are marked, there is Lenin Street, a gas station. In reality, on the site of the village there is only a field, overgrown buildings of a post office, a shop and a destroyed war memorial.

• Ruined war memorial in the village ghost Muslyumovo
• RT
• © Oleg Adamovich

Gas station is not working for a long time. Filling guns with wire strapped to the columns of another Soviet-style. At the checkout window, the ad is “For sale” and a phone number.

In the house with the surviving sign "Hozmag" are piles of manure. This is from cows that are grazed on the site of the former village. In the corner under the garbage we find an office book with yellowed pages. The last purchases made in the store are marked there: someone bought a light bulb for 7 rubles, someone bought a pack of buckwheat for 12 rubles.

• Office book with the latest purchases made in the store before the resettlement of the village Muslyumovo
• RT
• © Oleg Adamovich

Muslyumovo is the same village that was moved about 10 years ago. In the late 2000s, the authorities suggested that the local people either take a million rubles for a house and leave, or move into new finished houses a couple of kilometers from Techa.

There are no more private wooden houses, because they were dismantled while moving and taken with them. Only the municipal brick buildings remained. Near the river are the ruins of the pre-revolutionary mill. Six-story walls with collapsed ceilings - the largest building in the vicinity.

The dosimeter at water showed 130 microroentgen. This is more than in Brodokalmak, but much less than the bridge of the federal highway.

• The ruins of the pre-revolutionary mill in the resettled village Muslyumovo
• RT
• © Alexander Fedorov

No money to move

After the explosion of 1957, the so-called East-Ural radioactive trace remained on the territory of the Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk regions. Locals simply call it EURT. These are the lands covered by a radioactive cloud.

Metlino is the only one left on the territory of the track. All other villages have moved. Here live the liquidators, their descendants, as well as people settled by the River Techi.

• The settlement Metlino - the only remaining on the territory of the East-Ural radioactive trace
• RT
• © Alexander Fedorov

“There are those in the village who have been exposed to radiation three times,” said Lyudmila Krestinina, head of the epidemiological laboratory at the Ural Scientific Practical Center for Radiation Medicine. “At first they lived in Metlino near the Techa River when radioactive waste fell into it.” In 1956, they were resettled from the river to a clean area, in New Metlino. A year later, the new settlement fell under a radioactive cloud, but the pollution was not hazardous to health, so its inhabitants were left. However, in 1967 the wind raised a cloud of radioactive dust from the Karachay bog, which had dried out due to the heat, into which Mayak’s radioactive waste merged. It once again polluted the territory of Metlino. Now the density of pollution of this territory has decreased several times, but remains above background values. ”

Externally, the village does not stand out. There is a private sector with wooden huts, there are three-storey "sockets". In the center - a draft beer store and a supermarket chain.

Metlino even develops. An elite Zavidovo cottage area is being built on the territory for Rosatom employees. The resort works. And this is all - on the ground, covered with a radioactive cloud.

“On the day of the accident, I was sitting at home,” says Lydmila Morozova, a resident of Metlino. - Suddenly the whole hut shook violently. There was a huge dark cloud in the sky. The neighboring village was covered with black flakes. Then my father and many locals were sent to eliminate the consequences. All free lands were plowed half a meter deep. People were evicted from the villages. Houses were demolished. Later, all the things and the remaining construction debris were buried in special burial grounds. ”

According to the pensioner, the authorities did not explain to anyone what had happened.

“People went to work to eliminate them in their usual clothes,” recalls Morozova. - In the evenings, father’s acquaintances came to us to bathe in the bath. Later, the military with a dosimeter measured the background radiation of the steam room. After that, the soldiers not only dismantled the bathhouse and took it away, but also removed the layer of earth on which it stood. ”

Now the young inhabitants of Metlino indifferently recall the past of their village.

“Anyway, there is no money to move somewhere. So it remains to live here, ”says kindergarten teacher Olga.

Village of the "Unaffected"

The village of Tatar Karabolka is located on the very border of EURT. In Soviet times, it was decided to leave. Local old people are still offended that the state did not recognize them as victims. After all, then the pensioners who caught the explosion of 1957 would have been entitled to a supplement to their pension.

“You understand: maybe the cloud didn’t cover our village directly. But it went through all our pastures! The grass pulled all this radiation out of the ground, greens ate cattle, and we received all this from animals, ”explains a resident of Tatar Karabolka, Marfuga Abdrahimova.

Villagers several times united in initiative groups in order to seek the status of liquidators or victims through court. There is a formal reason: current pensioners, who were then children, were sent to the collective farm fields to bury the crop of potatoes that fell under a cloud. The authorities did not want these vegetables on people on the table.

• Memorial to the liquidators of the Kyshtym accident of 1957
• RT
• © Alexander Fedorov

But units were able to get subsidies through the courts. In Soviet times, there was not even any talk about any additional payments - nothing was known about the explosion. And now on the territory of EURT the radiation background is already within the normal range - there is no danger.

Municipalities consider activists from Tatar Karabolka almost fraudsters.

“There is there (in the village - RT ) one very active woman,” says the head of the Kunashak district, Sibagatulla Aminov. - For herself, she achieved the certificate of the liquidator. But in 1957 she was not even ten years old. What is the liquidator?

But be that as it may, benefits are paid to someone. Only in the Kunashaksky district of the Chelyabinsk region, 3,647 people (two thirds of them are inhabitants of the resettled Muslyumovo) receive monthly surcharges for the effects of radiation. Every year, 28 million rubles are spent on all. On average, one goes to 649 rubles per month. In Kunashaksky district, there are many victims of the explosion at Mayak and discharges into Techa.

Anthropogenic factor

The old inhabitants of Tatar Karabolka, Metlino, of the resettled villages still believe that the authorities set an experiment over them. Of course, no one irradiated anyone on purpose. But it must be admitted that the accident at "Mayak" gave scientists a unique opportunity to study the effect of radiation on people and nature.

What happened over the past 60 years?

On the Internet you can read that the discharge of radioactive waste in Techa was a disaster for the local flora and fauna. Oddly enough, in fact it is not.

No three-eyed fish, giant mutant frogs appeared. The whole story of water pollution as a result of nature is not much damaged. Rather the opposite. The fact is that the main threat to the living world is not radiation, but man. The authorities removed all people from the water. Plants stopped trampling, deer, boars got their habitat back. Result: there are more animals on the banks of the Techa after pollution.

Scientists studying the nature of the polluted river, found mutations in fish. But it was before - the main harm came in the 1950-1970s.

A similar story happened with lands covered with a radioactive cloud. In place of EURT, an East-Ural radiation reserve was created. People were resettled, the territory was no longer used. Now plants and animals in the reserve feel better than in areas where there was no radiation exposure.

Radioactive village is safer than a city

Is there a risk for residents of the Chelyabinsk region? The authorities still separately monitor the health of people who lived on the banks of the Techa and fell under a radioactive cloud. And here are the results of the 60-year observation.

“The risk of cancer in people living on the banks of the River Techa and trapped under a radioactive cloud is 2.5% higher than people who are not exposed to additional radiation,” says Lyudmila Krestinina from the Ural Scientific and Practical Center for Radiation Medicine. - 92% of the dose was received by people in the first two years. Now most of EURT is safe for humans. Back in Soviet times, the territories covered by the atomic cloud gradually began to be returned to economic circulation. ”

“Radiation is not the main factor provoking cancer,” said Andrei Vazhenin, RT Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chief oncologist of the Chelyabinsk Region. - Smoking and alcohol are many times more dangerous. Residents of Chelyabinsk, Magnitogorsk, Karabash are more likely to develop cancer in the region ”.

Heavy industry turned out to be more harmful to humans than all the radioactive contamination from Mayak. According to the academician, if you now leave Chelyabinsk and settle on the banks of the River, then the chance to get cancer will decrease by one and a half times.

• Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chief oncologist of the Chelyabinsk region Andrei Vazhenin
• RT
• © Alexander Fedorov

The population has developed radiophobia. People are afraid of everything related to the nuclear industry. Because of this, in the 1980s, it was decided to abandon the construction of nuclear power plants in the Chelyabinsk region. Instead, there was a huge CHP, which today pollutes the air.

The resettlement of Muslyumovo was, in fact, a sedative measure. In Rosatom itself, which largely financed the project, they recognize that there was no real need for this.

“The harm from money that has fallen on people is much more than from the radiation that Muslyumovo residents would have accumulated in their entire life,” said academician Vazhenin. “Yet they began to vigorously celebrate the move.”

Household radiation: tales and reality

According to Yury Mokrov, an adviser to the general director of Mayak, the increased background radiation can be found anywhere.

“Natural granite also radiates, and the effect of a walk on Red Square in Moscow is the same as from gatherings on the banks of the Techy,” says Mokrov.

This turned out to be an exaggeration. We walked with the dosimeter in the center of the capital. 18-25 microroentgen per hour - the level of radiation at the Kremlin and the mausoleum. That is almost 20 times less than on the bank of a polluted river. The story of the elevated background in Red Square is apparently an old bike, which even the most enlightened experts believe.

Meanwhile, we recorded an increased background in the cabin of a flying passenger aircraft - 376 microroentgen per hour. In two hours of flight from Moscow to Chelyabinsk, we received a dose that a person normally receives in two days.

• In the plane, the dosimeter showed dangerous radiation background - 376 microroentgen per hour
• RT
• © Oleg Adamovich

Brazilian resorts, for example, can be dangerous to health. On the beach of Guarapari, due to the natural erosion of the natural radioactive element monazite, those who rest in an hour receive a daily rate of radiation.

Also, some people like to do positron emission tomography (PET-CT) for prophylaxis without a doctor's prescription. During one session in the apparatus, a person receives a year and a half dose of radiation.

Long-term studies have shown that small doses of radiation have virtually no effect on human health. Smoking, car emissions or industrial emissions are much more dangerous for the body - they are much more likely to cause cancer and other dangerous diseases.

By the way, even in the case of serious accidents (like Fukushima), people receive the maximum harm in the first hours or days. In Japan, the evacuation of the population could be carried out so quickly that the majority did not receive any harmful effect at all.

We emphasize that we are talking about small doses. Many liquidators of Chernobyl and Fukushima, who worked directly at nuclear power plants, received lethal doses. But they were close to the source of radiation and for a long time.