All photographs and text by Mstyslav Chernov - Mandatory Credit: Mstyslav Chernov / UnFrame.
Project 'Descendants'
Our trip starts from Gomel, Belarus and goes through the exclusion zone, through half-empty cities, forests, broken roads and abandoned villages. We visit few old people who survived life in the 'Death Valley'. They are silent and very touching. They drink a lot.
As we leave the Zone, villages pass by the windows of the car - all with...
more »All photographs and text by Mstyslav Chernov - Mandatory Credit: Mstyslav Chernov / UnFrame.
Project 'Descendants'
Our trip starts from Gomel, Belarus and goes through the exclusion zone, through half-empty cities, forests, broken roads and abandoned villages. We visit few old people who survived life in the 'Death Valley'. They are silent and very touching. They drink a lot.
As we leave the Zone, villages pass by the windows of the car - all with irreparable signs of decline: only the elderly live here, and it is just matter of time until they disappear from the map. What haven't been destroyed by radiation and fear, will be destroyed by time.
We visit orphanages where abandoned children with congenital deceases live, we see families where parents still struggle with poverty, unfairness and violent common sense to keep their terminally children alive until the last minute of hope.
Chernobyl catastrophe is a time bomb. Some people might think it's over long time ago. Some wouldn't already even know, what that the word Chernobyl word stands for.
Still, it does not change the fact that plutonium has a half-life of 24,400 years. Still the burning reactor number four of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the small Ukrainian town on the Prypyat river remains the biggest technological catastrophe in world's history.
But The legacy of Chernobyl not only lies in the earth, but also in the blood and cells of descendants of the atomic age. Ukraine, Belarus and Russia suffered from the most severe impact and at least fourteen other countries in Europe (Austria, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Slovenia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Italy, Bulgaria, Republic of Moldova and Greece) were contaminated by radiation levels above the 1 Ci/km2 (or 37 kBq/m2), limit used to define areas as 'contaminated'. Lower, but nonetheless substantial quantities of radioactivity linked to the Chernobyl accident were detected all over the European continent, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, and in Asia.
The major impact of the catastrophe on human genetics takes approximately 20 years to reach it's maximum scale. Now it is year 26th and it is getting worst. Children's congenital birth deformities has increased by 250 percent. In birth defects, including congenital heart deseases - by 200 percent. 85 percent of Belarusian children carry 'genetic markers' of Chernobyl victims. More than a million children continue to live in the contaminated zone.
Ukraine and Belarus are economically unstable countries. Genetic damage is permanent. Medical assistance and social care programs for affected children are unprecedentedly low funded. However ultimate impact of lower levels of radiation on human health are still not well understood, and so the models used for predicting the future are open to question. This is a source of scientific and political controversy.
Belarus. May 2013
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