I wasn't going to watch it-it affected our lives enough, and I remember that April night and many many days and nights that followed, very vividly. It was one hell of a crazy summer. We happenned to know by pure chance before most others knew-our nice government kept silent as per their habit, until they couldn't anymore..So they still held the usual May First parade in Kiev, like nothing has happenned.

I wonder if my amazing friend whom I lost last year, and still can't accept her death, would still be here. If they'd tell the truth in these several first days. If they decided to evacuate kids couple weeks earlier. If...

I was 13 though, and I couldn't understand the full size of the catastrophe as did adults, and as I myself got to understand it later.

But now, after you posting about it-maybe I'll try and watch.

April, I did not know you grew up in the Ukraine/Russia. Wow, that must have been some experience to live through... truly horrifying.

I am so sorry to hear about your friend. My deepest sympathies.

Thank you dear aktillery

It was totally crazy. Not horrifying as it was for whoever lived right there-they did get evacuated right away, which didn't help as much from what I gather..

we still had 60 miles between us and Chernobyl

but it was chaos very soon, nevertheless. As soon as they told

everything was contaminated. and stayed contaminated for some years after, I must add.

they did decide to close schools and evacuate kids after long debates, i never travelled alone on overnight trains so much before that summer. They did request grade 8 and grade 10 (then a final one, senior year)students to come back for exams.

I must add that folks invented tons of dark jokes-humor helps..

We don't subscribe to HBO, but it is shows like this that tempt me. Three Mile Island was scary enough. I cannot imagine living near Chernobyl or Fukushima ( which may end up being worse as radiation getting into our oceans is horrifying). It is mesmerizing to see videos of what Chernobyl is like today.

Thank you for the heads-up about this show. I will make sure we all see it in my family.

Nuclear reactors going wrong make for very dramatic problems that affect people immediately and over their lifetimes. Accidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima are terrible. Some people would argue the release of carbon into the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels has already cost, and will cost in the future far more lives both directly and indirectly through climate change.

april, I am so very sorry for the loss of your friend. Death is hard enough to bear, feeling something could have been done to prevent it makes it so much worse.

I watched the first segment, and it brought back such horrifying memories of everything I read and heard about years ago, I found it hard to watch again. I read a lot about it afterward and couldn’t understand the decisions not to evacuate sooner rather than later. As a scientist and knowing the risks, I have been taught to err on the side of safety. To save reputation and not admit something was going wrong was just unconscionable in my view.

April I am very sorry about your friend. And for what you had to live through during that time.

cyn, I got a free subscription to HBO via Amazon. You can do that and then cancel just before the month is up and watch them. Just an FYI

I watched a bit last night while searching for the Beto O'Rourke documentary. The cinematography looked amazing and very real. My son asked about it, and I said I couldn't watch something so horrible that occurred in my lifetime. Knowing that people made those decisions sends me in a downward spiral about humanity, etc. But after reading what April has written here, perhaps I should watch it, and have my son watch it with me. Nothing is ever served by turning a blind eye to history.

April, I, too, am sorry that you're so close to that event.

Wow, April... that is rough. Thank you for sharing. What a wonderful man. I am so sorry you had to go through all of that. You are not rambling at all. I am so interested in knowing people's experiences both good and bad. The bad can be harrowing and horrific but often make us stronger. It is imperative to pay attention to historical tragedies to learn something from them... in hopes of avoiding the same mistakes made in the past.

April that is some story you tell...I understand your need for poetry, now.

I have tried to watch it. I watched a couple of episodes, but I'm not strong enough to watch more. And I feel weak saying that because it SHOULD be watched. Perhaps I will be able to in some future.

I hesitated to click on this thread, but so glad I did. April, I always enjoy reading your posts. I am sorry for the loss of your dear friend, and for what you all went through. Thank you for sharing your story. I hope you continue to do so.

Last night I kept thinking about how families managed sending their children away back then. Communication was so different. Resources must have been much scarcer. And yet, I could not have imagined what you described traveling the way you did, under those circumstances.

The man at the resort in Crimea refused to deny the truth and retained his humanity and dignity, incomprehensibly sad how easily some people will trade the truth and humanity for their comfort and power.

I should not hijack the tread..but I still was young, very young you could say. I was a responsible kid, a lot was expected of me-but it's a different weight, different reponsibility. I didn't organize everything, i wasn't scared -really, really scared-because it's someting that's hard to grasp..something invisible yet lethal. I can tell so much more, luckily (for the purpose of not usurpating the thread)) I have some errands..

just to add very briefly..you're very kind. All of you.

April, you are not hijacking this thread. We appreciate hearing from you and your account of the effects it had on your life and the people you know and knew. That is what is amazing about this site. We come from all walks of life. We all have our own experiences to share. Thank you for sharing and please continue to do so ... if you feel like it.

April you aren't hijacking at all. Your stories are fascinating and quite relevant. I too would love to hear more if you are able to share.

I only just managed to make it through this thread. Started it yesterday and read it in three parts. A harrowing reality that makes my bones shiver. I'm so sorry you lived through that, April, but I'm so glad you're here and able to share with us.

I'll find a way to watch this series.

I don't know..It's like this thread brought it all up, and I remember more and more, and one part is a memory of just some long weird summer adventure..beautiful, tender lilies on the river where that village was..a funny sign put on the road from seaside to the resort in Crimea which was pretty high up-it said "Movement is life!" right when you were cursing everything on that long way from the beach.. movie "A Cruel Romance" that we saw together in the small cinema..my aunt and uncle's stubborn Siamese cat-quite a character....a book I found in my uncle's study-he was a well-known neurologist..actually, several books on medicine, all fascinating..St Petersburg that I saw for the first time in my life-and how kindly people there said "I hope you'll come and visit again, under better circumstances" when they asked where we from..

and another part is my Mom asking other folks on the train in that begging voice, you know.."can you please keep an eye on the girl?", and my wonderful, always anxious father telling me beforehand to kindly ask people on the train not to open the window, will be drafty, I'll get sick..It was not cold, but I was a very honest kid back then,and I promised my father, so when a woman opened the window I said, feeling very stupid at the same time:

-you know, maybe we can ride with the window closed? My Dad asked me to..

and the woman, quite reasonably but pretty rudely said:

-Are you crazy, kid? I'm not going to die from heat here. Tell that later to your precious Dad.

(my need for poetry came much earlier. I was taught to read very early-but a child still craves a luxury of his parents reading to him sometimes. Just because. I rarely got that luxury-but when I did, and when it was my father reading to me-he always would read poems.)

Back to that train, first of several. It was not drafty. But I somehow got very sick anyway when I got to my aunt and uncle in another city. I had a very high fever. Unfortunately my poor cousin sister had to share the bed with me, that was the only spare bed in the house.

we'd be always accusing each other on who steals the blanket at night)) But she is a very kind girl, my sis..i think she heroically spent several nights next to boiling me without complaining once about the blanket.

My aunt brought a Geiger counter from her work (she was microbiologist. I don't know why they'd have one in her lab but they did. or maybe they asked somebody in some other lab.)-and the moment I stepped in the door they put this borrowed Geiger counter next to me. And it went off scale, just like that. The radiation level was so high it couldn't be measured by that simple counter. They told me to immediately go and take a bath, scrub myself, wash my hair, all my clothes had to be laundered. I didn't quite get the fuss, but I complied.

I remember when still in Kiev, I went out to our yard, to sit on a swing set. I took my favorite teddy bear with me(I always had a streak of idiocy to me. I was 13-why the hell I suddenly took with me the teddy bear? ) in short the bear fell on the ground. In the dust. I, in my stupid honesty, informed my parents the bear fell. They told me they're throwing it out. I threw such a tantrum, goodness! You see, it was my oldest, favorite toy, I screamed that I'll never, never let them throw out my Winnie, that he's like a person, my friend-would they throw out a person?

Okay. They took mercy on me and the bear. They wrapped it in, like, ten feet of cellophane. And put it in a small storage space above the apartment.

Many years later, when we were about to leave for Israel, I insisted on taking this mummy of the bear to Israel with us. Believe it or not-it's still somewhere there. went from one attic to another attic..still wrapped..waiting for the Kingdom come, or how much is that half-life period..no one dares to unwrap it, no one dares to throw it out. Until I die, that is.

I remember another train, that time, the grandfather of my cousin sis was seeing me off. It was very chaotic on the station, crowds, the train was late, they changed platforms-he was very pale and stressed, he was an old man, he felt such responsibility-he'd be repeating "What a horrible nonsense, unbeliavable! What a horrible nonsense!" I loved him so much, I was worried more about him than the train.

Finally the train arrived, and he also took me to my place, said to adults sitting there "would you be so kind as to keep an eye on the girl? " and I waved at him, at his pale worried face, from inside the train, leaving him floating away on the platform, and a strange thought suddenly came to me "it's the last time you see him", and I chased that thought away.

But i never saw him again. He died that very summer.

...We knew about that reactor the very next morning..you see my brother, he was in university far away, in Tartu-and he had a flight back home, for a spring break. That very day. It's an hour between the city and the airport-but my brother didn't arrive. We went crazy. he ringed at the door 14 hours after he was supposed to come home. They were 14 hours on that road. in some taxi he picked up from airport.

That's when the driver told him:

-You know, lad, they say something happenned in Chernobyl..some hell is going on...will take some time, in all that mess, there are fire trucks and whatnot, everything's jammed

that's how we knew. Before many many others.

also my Grandpa, he was a rebel type..he joined Communist party young, when he was in France-he spent several years abroad,-well they didn't like anybody from France or from abroad at all . So before the war they kicked him out of the party.

The next step, in these times, was usually GULAG-but the war started, and they forgot about him, let it slide.

So. My Grandpa, he tried to listen to "enemy radio". The news of the world . whatever he could hear.

Each day, 6 pm. his evening ritual.

Probably other countries -that were close enough to get real worried-they started saying stuff, about the explosion..so I guess at some point it became uncomfortable and maybe even impossible to keep silent anymore.

April, thank you for opening up your memory and your heart with these stories. Remembering what you went through during that time is very interesting to hear and only complements what we see in a movie show. The personal stories make us further understand in detail what the bigger picture can never truly portray, and that is the impact this can have on individual citizens like you and their families and friends. For every one like you there are thousands of others with similar yet different perspectives, each unique. Again, thank you.

..I'm probably upsetting you, since I for sure upset myself. i truly didn't know I'd get immersed in all so deeply when I started. I'm sorry. i did hijack the thread.

I can share some dark jokes:)

Like, "Don't cry, my little one"-said mother, and tenderly patted Vovochka's second head"

There were plenty, and we laughed, believe me.

it wasn't like that of course, not where we lived. About two heads. And if it was somewhere, I didn't know

I just know that too many people died. Or got sick. Or got sick, and then died.

It's always like that. People get sick, people die. But now I'm comparing the dates..too much cancer. Too much of everything. There was a feeling of curse, in our family. The following years. Who knows. Who can say.

But there were tales of strange animals, born with all sorts of mutations-I used to read LifeJournal(back when it was readable), a journal of some guy,he was a teacher in some college, closer to Chernobyl than us, he was a very ironic type, a linguist as far as I remember-but I don't think he was joking that time-he was writing how him and his students would try to guess what this or that animal that they happenned to see, actually is..because they didn't look like any animal identifiable anymore. They looked like some strange mix of species..

There is a book by Tatyana Tolstaya. It's called "The Slynx". It's a dystopia. It's a lot about this version of the "after".

Anyway. Don't feel sorry for me. True, I went through some things.

But frankly, it so much pales in comparison to all that damn 20 century and what other people went through.

I'm one of the lucky ones

I wonder how they mostly grew up, you know, into decent and sane people. my relatives. and many others.

My Grandma told me that when they were kids-they'd go climb on the roof to see fights over their town. Civil war. That was when she already started loosing memory. And letting out too much.

all their life was survival. Non-stop.

Maybe it's easier, in a way, to go through things together, as generation?

You pay for that dearly of course.

So do your kids, in a way. 'Cause you-you're busy with surviving.

But in comparison to that-really, what's taking the train alone?

I was looked after, I was taken care of. Sure, I was expected to act like a grown up. When we were in Crimea(that time, not with other relatives, with my Mom. Was her turn) she told me

-listen, your brother, he's in this age, you know. And your cousin, it'll be hard for her. I rely on you.

So I woke up each morning and I cleaned the room, (I'm the tidiest anyway) and I went to iron everyone's stuff for the day, and I never defied her.

But the trains.., they weren't to Aushwitz. Or to Siberia. To Kazachstan steppes. With armed convoy and dogs and all.

It was difficult on grown ups. They went crazy with worry and stress, they understood what things mean, they did everything to shelter us as much as they could, they stood in those endles lines to get tickets, they brought a bunch of kids with them-that nobody was supposed to find out about..and with all that, they tried to keep us happy..

I cried for the first time about Chernobyl when I was tellling about it to my teenage son..because it was then, when it finally sank. Years after.

Maybe that what happens again now.

April, your capacity to not allow such horrendous experiences and memories turn you into a defeatist cynic is just extraordinary. You have such depth and humanity that reflects profound world knowledge and such sweetness that belies the dark source of the knowledge.

You're too kind dear nutsaboutplants. I don't even know what to say.

(I am cynic of course, most of people I grew up with, are, to a degree. Those were the times. And such was the place. Couldn't but shape us a bit. In different ways of course, since yes, everyone is unique and his circumstances are too, even when similar; yet still. I'm just a cynic idealist.)

I don't have cable here, so I can't watch it.

April, I am so sorry you (and so many others) had to go through this on all or any levels of the trauma.

I have been watching the series. It has been hard and some of it I have turned away. Aprilneverends, your story has made this so real for me. Thank you so much for sharing with us here.

april, thank you so much for telling us your story. I can't get it out of my mind. As always, you have enriched my understanding.

Thank you everyboy, you're incredibly kind and sweet. I feel undeserving

I want to clear something, regarding evacuation of schools..I don't know/remember about pre-schools, I suppose would be similar?

me and my cousin, we left a bit earlier..they decided finally to evacuate the same evening I was on that first train

and then took them some time to organize it of course

as my school was creme de la creme, they secured a sweet spot for the camp, in Crimea too -I bet other schools went wherever, and wasn't as enviable. Students would be accompanied by teachers.

but I'm not sure it covered the whole late spring and summer, that stay. maybe a month or maximum two? I'm afraid to be mistaken, I forgot many details

I was asked by my parents, when my classmates were already in Crimea, whether I want to join them? Not everybody went but many did

I kinda wanted to, I was a bit jealous now I'm on a separate track so to say-but then I thought " All these plans my family made, and now I'd be causing all that headache, with switching gears and all, and it'd be logistically hard", and I said that it's already easier to stay put where they put me, and go with the flow (that my family so painstainkingly created)

It's only now when I describe this, it landed on me-it'd be probably easier on them if I let them breathe you know, and go to that camp, for a while..)) Instead of camping with them (each month was a different version of "them") in cramped rooms and adding another person to feed etc

I don't know

They seemed pleased with my answer though. Or at least they're seemed fine, not disappointed.

Maybe in the end was easier on them to know I'm with family?

The best way to know would be to ask my Mom:) I guess..

I also bet many grown ups-they didn't realize the gravity of everything happenning, There's something horrible everywhere. Air, water, grass...But you can't see it, feel it, smell it. Especially many old people who for example just didn't know enough. weren't educated enough-they'd be, like, "I can't see anything". Or they'd be the opposite..also source of endless jokes.." Went today to the lake-and saw how radiation there floats and floats!"

So I think I was a lucky kid..in terms of having a family that were engineers and scientists and doctors and such. And being very tight knit family too

Actually I was a lucky kid because I had such big loving family

My kids, they also have loving family.

But it's already not the same, not the same at all, and the family's allover, and trains won't do. Now we need to take a plane to get to the closest relatives.

It was breathtakingly beautiful land, you know? ,,,everything was blooming , especially that summer, everything was growing like crazy..the soil in Ukraine is famous for being a very rich soil..

(why'd they always have "deficits", and always lacked hands on farms, and my parents as many others would go minimum twice a year to help, to farms and all etc, -is a separate mind boggling issue))

So it was beautiful- and nothing could be touched...gathered..eaten...

It was right next to you, it looked the same, even better-and it was very hard to grasp that now all that life carries promise of death in it...

every life does; but not like that. Not like then.

Thank you so much for listening to my ramblings. I'm always surprised when somebody actually reads it all..

April, I can't begin to imagine the choices your parents had to make. However, based on what you have described here, they must have appreciated knowing you were with family. It may have involved more planning and work on their part, but probably gave them more peace of mind.

As someone who was born here in the U.S. (and we have our own issues), I can't understand how that was all allowed to play out as it did. It's a much different culture of how a government functions. That's putting it rather simply, but I find it hard to wrap my mind around how it occurred.

A few questions for you:

Do you ever return to visit? What's it like for you, now that you live here in the U.S.?

Have you thought about writing more about your experiences?

I just watched the first episode last night, and it is truly mind-boggling. April, your courage in sharing is very enlightening and allows me to better appreciate the atrocity of that time. We were in Lviv, Ukraine last year, and it was very beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you so much April for sharing with us. You have a wonderful way with words that makes me truly think and able to picture and understand everything you share. I hope my thread did not cause you to think back and get upset. Memories are strange things. You live through something and then do not think back to it until it is brought up in such a way as this thread. We love you dearly!!!

Thanks April for sharing your memories, it sounds like such a tragic and surreal time.

I finished the last episode last night. It was one of the best if not the best episode. It was an excellent series... one I will never forget.

Thank you so much, everyone

Yes, it made me remember. Some things though..it's painful, but they are worth remembering, so to say

Feathers, I visited Kiev only once, couple years after we left for Israel

(it went like that, in terms of my movements-Soviet(yet) Ukraine(USSR started breaking in pieces several days after we left)-Israel-US-Israel again-US again. I hope I'll have time to "next year in Jerusalem", and all that)

I was very nostalgic back then, I really missed it.

I loved the trip, seeing the city, friends-but I realized, no, I felt- that either the city floated away like a river, or I did, or maybe both me and the city, we now were two separate rivers, and there's nothing to be done about it, and it's fine.

I was never nostalgic again. It stayed a part of me, of course, and each time bad things happen there-it hurts. It hurts more than I expect. It throws you back in time. And of course you worry about everybody who stayed. Not many did. I mean many did, it's a very big city-I'm talking about people who were close to us, to me. Half of my grade lives abroad, I think. all my relatiives-not there anymore. Many of them are nowhere already. Nowhere I can geographically pinpoint..

I wanted to go for our school get together(20 years one, that was)-but all sorts of logistics were in my way, and I couldn't make it on time.

I wanted to take kids there(still want to)-but again, it's always some complicated logistics.

I've close family in Israel, family here on East Coast (I spent seven years on East Coast too mysef, before moving to CA)-so it always preceeds..and there is a bunch of us, and tickets are expensive, flights-long..

I did go to St Petersburg with my husband twice, this last decade. His mother was still there back then.

It was already very different St Petersburg from what I remembered. Still incredibly beautiful. Just different.

(but even little kids there know how to speak Russian:)))) Each time I have this initial shock..))

I'll continue in a new post (you're probably sick of me already. Maybe shorter posts are better?)

What it's like for me here..it's hard to write about it, I mean in this format of short(or even long, in my case) posts.

I grew up with this radar though..I sense things..I've a pretty good compass of good and evil.

It's hard to understand a country-any country-until you lived there. Books help of course. good books I mean. Yet still. Sometimes even physical presense is not enough-you need to really spend years somewhere. I'm afraid to count how many years I am here-and it's only now I feel that I'm closer to understanding all the complexity.

So no wonder people here can't wrap their mind about things that happenned ocean plus away.

I'll try to be brief..not about US for now, but about Chernobyl times..

They told only because they couldn't afford not to tell, at some point.

They always seem to feel they have a lot, a lot of disposable resources. Like people, for example.

I don't mean the country, there are good folks everywhere-I mean the state. the empire.

There were many things they never told about. Including catastrophes and accidents. Some things that they deemed not comme-il-faut, that hurt their image and their proclamations, simply didn't exist. They existed-but they were swept under the carpet with such efficiency one hardly had time to blink.

All the numbers of people they deliberately killed, repressed, deported, misplaced, etcetera-it all can be easily googled. And it's tens of millions.

all of it sounds surreal.

yet it was incredibly real.

Here they were just, well..they weren't even in an active mode of evil. They just kept silent because they could, and until they could not.

As for the writing..no..I didn't think about it, at least not in terms of describing big societal things like Chernobyl

There are many very fine writers.

And I just recently read some memoirs of different people who knew Leo Tolstoy-and it seems I share his opinion about writing. Which was approximately "don't write unless you feel you completely and utterly can't resist anymore"

(he also thought, like me, it should be "useful'. The whatever you write. For the mankind.

But we strongly disagree on poetry..me and Leo Tolstoy. lol)

also I do write, in a way..it's too much of me here even in this thread))

Re Tired, I've been to Lvov-yes, it's a very beautiful city. I was with my schoolmates, we had a class trip there. I remember it very fondly.

April, I love reading your posts. You have a way with words and expressing the things you saw and felt. Thank you for sharing so much with us!

I just saw this. Apparently Russia thinks Chernobyl is a terrible series. I copied this from an online article. It is interesting.

"Unsurprisingly, Putin’s Russia doesn’t like it. Not only that, but a Russian network is making its own Chernobyl, which will be a fictional story based on a conspiracy theory that claims the CIA — who else — sent an agent to the Chernobyl zone to carry out acts of sabotage."

April, I am usually just a lurker, but I feel compelled to post. After seeing the first episode of "Chernobyl", I thought about you. The series had me completely hooked, and I had to know more. Of course, I knew about Chernobyl at the time, but really didn't know that much. I started looking online and found there is a podcast for each episode. The writer for the series is interviewed in each one, and he is very informative and interesting. He mentioned a couple of books, "Chernobyl 01:23:40" by Andrew Leatherbarrow and "Voices of Chernobyl" by Svetlana Alexievich, translated by Keith Gesson. I have read the first book, and am in the process of reading the second.

I looked on GW today to see if anyone on here was discussing the series, and I hoped you would comment. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us. I had been wanting to hear your personal insights into what happened. You are such an interesting person, and I have always looked forward to and admired your writings on any subject. Don't ever think you write too much on here!

Aktillery, I agree about the last episode. It blew me away. I just sat in silence all through the credits, and I can't stop thinking about it.

P.S. I know that names of books should be underlined and not put in quotation marks, but I don't know how to do that on this device, nor do I know how to do them in bold.

I’m coming back to this thread because the series is now on DVD at my library. We watched the first two episodes tonight, and I have April’s memories open on my tablet. “Knowing” someone who was there, makes it even more bone-chilling. April, thank you for sharing. I’m so glad you’re in this forum. Your heart always comes through in your words.

I would not ever watch. These sorts of disasters of human proportion are too raw. April God Bless you and your history. What a story. Sadly the world has too many of these human tragedies--where governments and ignorant people have failed their own or others. The inhumanity of men to men is beyond my comprehension.

April, I just want to say that I am so happy you are here, a lovely and kind and beautiful friend to us all. You have inspired and given love among us more than you can possibly know.

I feel so bad liking your posts like a parrot..but I don't know what to say beyond that you're just too kind..

The show was both great and horrifying at the same time.