Who will name the price of human life? 33 years have passed since the Chernobyl accident. The world watched the HBO “Chernobyl” series. Also, regular issues of the collection of the Chernobyl Dossier were published.
Every year we learn about the details of the Chernobyl disaster more and more archival facts, they provide an opportunity to sort out the course of events before the accident and after it — almost on the shelves. There is still not everything, but much can already be understood: who, why, and why decided to put not human life, but FALSE, in its most trivial sense, as a priority.
It is already known that they manage to slightly minimize the consequences of the tragedy only thanks to the heroism of the liquidators (firefighters, military, doctors, miners, metro builders, soldiers and volunteers). It cost life for some, for others – health. But it has not been finally disclosed so far – thanks to whom and why, the party leadership, together with the special services, tried in every possible way to hide the real facts about the cause of the Chernobyl tragedy and its consequences.
For what it was necessary to impose a security stamp on most of the then existing materials, reports, references, protocols, in which facts of gross violations of official and administrative documents were recorded . Who was behind all this, what is the price of a lie, and what truth remains to be learned by society?
Another presentation of the collection “Chernobyl dossier of the KGB. Public attitudes. Chernobyl NPP in the post-accident period” was held recently in Kiev.
Traditionally, experts from the SBU archive and the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory worked on its preparation. It is still not possible to collect the most complete picture of the events taking place around Chernobyl, because only the archives of the Ukrainian KGB and its structural divisions have been declassified.
To this day, a lot of documents are classified, they are stored in Moscow. Nevertheless, it is already possible to describe in more detail individual episodes that preceded the tragedy from more than 200 declassified archival references, dossiers, protocols, explanatory receipts of KGB agents.
The new collection allows to supplement the current picture of the events of the Chernobyl disaster with archival evidence, including those that the authors of the Chernobyl series could not fit into the television format.
Children’s costumes with a high radiation background
From the documents of the 6th department of the Ukrainian Office of the KGB in Kiev and Kiev region …
“Pupils in Kiev schools participating in the May Day demonstration were supposed to rehearse the festive program on April 27-29, 1986. To this end, they were given training suits. Costumes were transferred to schools after the festive performance on May 1. On May 5, when schoolchildren began talking about the Chernobyl accident, school representatives insisted that children’s costumes be handed over for decontamination”.
“Don`t say anything about suspicious comments about what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Don`t support the conversation. Do not raise or provoke a panic, pretending that everything is normal, nothing supernatural has happened”.
About tourists
As you know, tourists who were at the time of the disaster in Kiev became accidental victims of the Chernobyl disaster. A massive fact of panic among tourists staying at the Rus Hotel was categorical pressure on the hotel administration. On April 29, 1986, a group of thirty people, mainly tourists from the United States of America, began to demand early departure from Kiev.
They preferred Leningrad as an alternative to their location. The pressure on the hotel management was so strong that the KGB officers had to intervene. This softened the situation somewhat, the situation was normalized, and a group of American tourists left for a planned tour of Kiev.
From the reports of the employees of the second department of the KGB of the Ukrainian SSR …
“Numerous facts are recorded when foreign students massively try to leave Kiev. In particular, this was the case with students from Iraq, Sierra Leone, Kenya. While they were waiting for diplomatic assistance from their consular representatives, KGB agents worked with them in parallel. The latter tried to dispel the doubts of foreign youth, gave numerous examples – how Soviet youth behaves. In every possible way they tried to convince foreigners not to panic and not leave Kiev”.
It is clear from the archives of the KGB that the committee received information about numerous violations at the Chernobyl NPP long before the accident. It goes without saying that all the facts instantly laid down on the table of high-ranking party officials in the leading offices of the government. Such was the ideology in the state. Today, the so-called stop list is available to the public, related and classified in connection with the Chernobyl accident information. Here is just a small portion of the prohibition information:
• information revealing the real causes of the accident at the fourth Chernobyl power unit;
• information on the values and composition of the mixture ejected during the accident;
• information on the results of individual measurements of the radiation situation and the isotopic composition of soil, water, in the whole country, republic, region;
• information on new effective means and methods of decontamination;
• summary information on radioactive contamination of natural environments, food products and feed exceeding the maximum permissible concentrations;
summary information on the radiation situation, containing the characteristics of pollution in the premises of the nuclear power plant and in the 30-km zone;
• information on the degree of radiation damage to people at nuclear power plant;
• generalized information on the incidence of all forms of radiation sickness of people exposed during the accident and the elimination of its consequences;
• information on mass poisoning and epidemic diseases associated with the accident;
• information on the results of treatment with new methods or means of radiation sickness;
• information on the results of medical and preventive measures related to the accident;
• summary of environmental assessments of the consequences of the accident;
A complete list of information with a stamp classified top secret totals 26 points and was prepared by the “5” department of the sixth department of the KGB of the USSR.