Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History Of A Nuclear Disaster Quotes
"Doctors and nurses rushed to their hospitals for extra shifts, and many individuals came to donate blood. These were touching acts of generosity and solidarity."
"But tens of thousands received extremely high doses of radiation—it was an accident that produced, in a way, more survivors than victims."
"Any little wrinkle, that was already a wound on him."
"It was still a world of people. The men drank vodka. They played cards, tried to get girls."
"When I die, sell the car and the spare tire. And don't marry Tolik."
"If I'd known he'd get sick I'd have closed all the doors, I'd have stood in the doorway. I'd have locked the doors with all the locks we had."
"The earth takes everyone—the kind, the cruel, the sinners. Aside from that, there's no justice on earth."
"Death is more just than anything else in the world: no one can escape it."
"I want to bear witness: my daughter died from Chernobyl. And they want us to forget about it."
"Our system, it's a military system, essentially, and it works great in emergencies. You're finally free there, and necessary."
"I’ve spent all day riding through all the villages, measuring the radiation. And not one of the women offers me an apple."
"But I felt this desire to be a hero, too. You were supposed to."
"That bitch lived with me fine. She wasn’t afraid. Then she took the kid. I’d have been better off dying in Afghanistan."
"I don’t judge them, I understand them. They were young guys. But I would have gone anyway. That’s definite."
"I wanted to get married right away. And suddenly here's this announcement with a red banner, 'Special Call-Up,' come to this address within the hour."
"Radiation: it scares people and it scares animals. And birds. And the trees are scared, too, but they're quiet. They won’t say anything."
"Before, we churned our butter ourselves, our cream, made cottage cheese, regular cheese. We boiled milk dough."
"I saw how they took out two men, one was so young, handsome, and he was yelling something at them. In Tajik, in Russian."
"I wanted—I should have been able to prove—so that—I wanted to get papers—so that she’d know—when she grew up—it wasn’t our fault, my husband and I, it wasn’t our love that was at fault."
"How do you explain to a child what they are when the world around them is falling apart?"
"The biggest country, my beloved country, now turned into a place where neighbor shoots neighbor."
"We still have relatives there. They’ll kill them."
"To be honest, I don’t feel like Russia is my homeland. Our homeland is the Soviet Union."
"I wanted to understand what was happening, so I went too."
"But how can they live with this in their thyroids? But has anyone ever run this sort of experiment before?"
"What’s the point of looking at evil? Evil is important, of course."
"I pray simply. I pray for myself. Oh Lord, call upon me! Hear me!"
"You can’t buy bread in Tajikistan. There’s a war."
"The life of man is like grass: it blossoms, dries out, and then goes into the fire."
"I’m afraid to love. I have a fiance, we already registered at the house of deeds."
"But there’s no smell! The garden is blooming, but there’s no smell!"
"I remember coming back one time from a business trip. There was a moonlit landscape."
"We lived through everything, survived everything..."
"This isn’t a collective farm anymore, it’s a commune."
"I’m not supposed to be talking about this … but I’ll tell you."
"We didn’t need a store, we didn’t need a bus. We walk to get our bread."
"We’re people who’ve served our time. I’m a partisan, I was with the partisans a year."
"I wonder about this—when death’s around it forces you to think."
"I remember those days. My throat burned, there was a heaviness in my whole body."
"They were given clothes: the girls got skins and blouses, the boys got suits."
"The forest is still pretty, there’re plenty of blueberries, but no one picks them anymore."
"But knowledge, knowledge by itself, can’t be criminal."
"We’re often silent. We don’t yell and we don’t complain. We’re patient, as always."
"No one could understand what had happened, they wanted to believe scientists, or any educated person, like they would a priest."
"Chernobyl is the catastrophe of the Russian mind-set."
"I don’t want to talk about this. I won’t. I know just one thing: that I’ll never be happy again."
"He gave himself his word that he would live only through kindness and love."
"Everyone should be able to live. The flies should be able to fly, and the wasps, the cockroaches should be able to crawl."
"The kids draw Chernobyl. The trees in the pictures grow upside-down. The water in the rivers is red or yellow."
"Sometimes I get strange thoughts, sometimes I think Chernobyl saved me, forced me to think. My soul expanded."
"If you don’t fall asleep, boys, I’ll sing to you all night."
"It’s impossible to suffer like this without any meaning."
"Man needs to be uplifted, inspired. He needs ideals."
"We live here, we survive here. No one’s guilty!"
"I want to understand … what? I don’t know myself."
"Life is such a surprising thing! I loved physics and thought that I wouldn’t ever do anything but physics. But now I want to write."