Military people call such places "FRONTLINE", liquidators who worked at
the Chornobyl nuclear station called it "ROOF COATING". It was the most
contaminated, and therefore the most dangerous, place in the zone. The
remains of the roof coating of the 4th reactor. The operation on
decontaminating the roof lasted more than five months. We will tell
about only two days. About the most important two days in the life of an
explorer - dosimetrist Valeriy Starodumov. He participated in this
operation until it was over. He himself came out to the roof and led
people there. He himself planted the "victory banner" at the level of 75
meters, as the signal for the zone: the roof coating has been
decontaminated! Now, 25 years later, Valeriy Starodumov comes back to
the zone. Now Chernobyl is a tourist object. But not for him...
DAY ONE
On
September 1, 1986 a German robot "Joker" broke down. With a lot of
difficulties this robot was installed in the most dangerous zone "M".
Local robots were unable to work there. High hopes were placed on
"Joker". It was the last argument that people should not be used for
decontamination. But the robot "sat down" on the graphite block and was
stuck there. Our hero with two other subordinates came out to the roof
coating into the zone of high radioactivity to pull off "the Fritz" with
the help of winch. They managed to do this but...
Fragment of
the monologue: "It turned out that it was not just jammed track. Some
idiot, trying to prove to the world that there can be no global
catastrophes at the Soviet nuclear power stations, underrated by a
factor of ten the radiation levels in the application. Pedantic Germans
have programmed the robot in accordance with the order and "Joker"
suddenly died. The electronic brains of "the Fritz' burned out. So my
"heroic" escapade was a bust. And also we got the soldiers to the winch
for nothing. We just had to keep silent while their commander took it
out on us."
DAY TWO
September 19, 1986. The Governmental
commission "throws" soldiers and military students into decontamination
of the roof coating. Valeriy Starodumov trains and takes the first
"couple" of soldiers to the zone of the highest contamination of more
than 8000 Roentgen. After the successful experiment, the process "is
launched as conveyor".
Fragment of the monologue: "I will take a
few hundred people through the zone. I will not know who they are, I
will not see their faces behind protective masks and I will never know
what is going to happen to them afterwards. It was not me who had made a
decision to send these men to the zones of mortal danger, but each
night some inexplicable feeling of guilt brings me back to the past. To
that first two-minute shift, which has been continues for me for a
quarter of century..."
"...So, in the fall of 1986 3,828 people
would pass through the roof coating of the Chernobyl power station. The
heroes who saved the world вЂ" the newspapers would write in a pathetic
manner. A few years later the heroes would no longer be remembered, and
then they would be completely forgotten. That's really true: "life costs
a penny". However, it is much more important for a person what he
himself appreciates in this life, rather than for how much someone
evaluated it..."
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