Nikolai, where were you on April 26, 1986?
-In my country house. The place is called Nikolskoe; it is not far from Moscow. On April 27, I was taken to Chernobyl.

When did you first find out about the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant?
-April 27th.

At what time?
-Some time, between one o'clock and one thirty p.m. A car came and picked me up […] and then we flew to Chernobyl.

The accident took place on April 26, at two o'clock in the morning. Which means, you only found out about one and a half day later.
-Yes.

How did you learn about it?
-A car came for me.

Why for you?
-The thing is, that at the USSR Department of Energy there were only a few nuclear specialists. I was the only one working with that particular type of explosion. At that time all the power plants were under the control of the State Department of Energy. Of course everybody knew me. In addition, my responsibilities since 1974 had included handling emergencies.

So the Chernobyl explosion wasn't the first nuclear explosion you were involved with, was it?
-Accidents, which had happened before this one, weren't as damaging as Chernobyl. [His story about the explosion on Armenian Nuclear Plant in 1977-1978 tells about a leakage of nuclear waste to the grape vineyards]

I can see that you had had great experience prior to the Chernobyl accident, and we could meet again and talk more about that. But for now, let's come back to two o'clock the afternoon of April 27. Who came for you?
-A car from the State Department of Energy.

What did they tell you?
-They told me to get ready for the trip to Chernobyl. They told me that an accident had happened there. I flew there. A physicist from SredMash [one of the Soviet State Departments responsible for industrial development] was sitting next to me in the plane. He had his DRG [radiation detector, available only for experts] with him.

At first, what did you feel when you found out about the accident? Were you told about the size of the explosion?
-On the way there, nobody on the plane could imagine its size. Everyone thought it was just a regular accident. All people on the plane were specializing in nuclear related accidents. It was just a regular flight - except that that was a Government plane.

Where were you flying?
-First to Kiev. We arrived in Kiev and were taken in a bus to Ivankov [a town 50 km from Chernobyl between Kiev and Chernobyl]. In Kiev we already realized that the explosion was huge - the DRG was going off the scale.

Where was it going off the scale?
-In Kiev, on the second level. It was a pretty big dose. When this kind of radiation exists, it is not safe to work in the area. We call it a half-service environment.

What does it mean?
-On nuclear plants and all other nuclear bases, there are three types of environments:
(1) Full-service environment (staff can be in that type of environment all the time).
(2) Half-service environment, where the radiation dose is above the norm. Staff can spend a limited time in this environment (take something, look at something) and then need to return to the full-service area.
(3) Non-service environment, where the radiation level is dangerously high.

When DRG is going off the scale, what does it mean?
-The higher scale can measure the non-service area.

What about Kiev?
-It was going off the scale on the second level, which is up to 10 milliroentgens.

So we can conclude that there was a half-service environment at that time in Kiev, thus it was not safe to be in the city. Is it so?
-Yes.

At the nuclear plant, staff members could only enter this kind of environment for a short time and then return to the full-service area. For how long is a staff member allowed to be in the half-service environment?
-The idea of keeping the staff not being affected by the radiation (which means a staff member is getting no more that 5 roentgens per year) is than the person can only spend a limited time in any of the high radiation environments.

For how long?
-All rooms of the half-service environment have different levels of radiation, but we still need to enter them. Therefore, in some room a person could spend a couple of hours - while doing some particular task. In some rooms, personnel are only allowed to spend not more than 5-10 min.

Could someone spend a day in that kind of environment?
-Some people, by accident, got locked up.

Is it legal?
-Of course not.

I understand that on April 27 the whole city of Kiev with 2.5 million population was in the condition of half-service environment. Is this correct?
-Yes

2,5 million people?
-Yes.

For how long do you think this radiation level stayed in the city?
-I think 3-4 days, maybe for a week. It was going down because of isotopes of iodine. But iodine has a short lifetime.

So, the city maintained this level of radiation all the time till May 4 or May 5.
-I could be wrong - I was not really focused on Kiev at that time. If you are interested in accurate information about Kiev - I have couple of friends, who are co-authors of my inventions. They work in the Kiev Institute of Nuclear Research and have all correct information about Kiev.

Ok, but you can say for sure that Kiev had this level of radiation for a least one day. Is this true?
-Yes.

What did you do when you found out that the DRG was going off the scale?
-We came to the conclusion that it was a strong explosion. When we checked the tires of our bus, we realized that the accident was followed by the outburst in the active zone.

What does it mean?
-The active zone of the reactor is the zone which contains and burns uranium. This part exploded.

Is it the base part of the reactor?
-Yes. In a regular explosion (which happened at nuclear plants all over the world), iodine and other gases are thrown into the atmosphere. But at that time, when we checked the tires of our bus (which came from the area of the explosion), we realized that not only those gases were thrown out; there was the outburst in the active zone.

What kind of bus was it?
-Regular "pazik", a very small bus, that came from Chernobyl nuclear plant.

Does it mean that you knew the size of the accident on the first day?
-We were guessing. We have learned about size later.

When?
-Approximately one day later. One day was very hard for us. The next day we took a helicopter and flew around the site. We saw pieces of graphite lying around on fire, and the damaged block that looked like… well, Hell. Witnessing a nuclear reactor on fire is terrible, especially for a physicist. You probably do not understand, but a reactor on fire is a very bad sign for a physicist.

Was it the first time in your life you saw it?
-Yes, because the Chernobyl accident was the first of that type of accident.

What was your impression of it?
-The scene that I was witnessing can change a person's state of mind.

How?
-Well, you probably know that one high-rank academician committed suicide.

Who was it?
-I don't want to mention his name. He was a good person.

Did it happen right after the accident?
-No, after some time.

Did he see everything too?
-Yes, he saw it.

How did you feel, when you were looking at it?
-When I saw that burning reactor I thought: "That is the end of industrial nuclear usage in the Soviet Union." That is, basically, what has since happened. After the Chernobyl explosion, none of the damaged reactor blocks (Smolenskiy, Kurskiy, 5th block in Chernobyl) were rebuilt.

Were they all constructed the same way as Chernobyl?
-Even if they were not, they were never finished. Do you remember the Volgo-Don explosion? It is a small city for staff members of the Volgo-Don nuclear plant. It was never finished. It was frozen.

And you think it is because of the Chernobyl explosion?
-Yes, only because of the Chernobyl explosion. All other projects were frozen. Only nuclear plants, which were built prior to the Chernobyl accident, are active now. New ones are not being built. Actually, even if we decide to build new nuclear stations now, we would have to design them differently. The reactor in Chernobyl plant was very primitive. It is an exact copy of the Fermi reactor (first nuclear reactor). The only difference is in the emergency and management system.

Are there any reactors, similar to the Chernobyl reactor in other countries?
-Yes, in the U.K. So called graphite-gas reactors. They are similar to the Chernobyl reactor, but safer.

And what about Cuba?
-WGRs were built in Cuba. WGR stands for water-graphite reactor. They were similar to the reactors in the Armyanskaya, Kostevaya and Voronezhskaya nuclear plants. They are safer - because they are frame type, and they cannot have anything like the Chernobyl explosion by definition.

Ok, let's come back to your story. You came to Kiev and DRG was showing a half-service environment. Who else, besides you, knew about it?
-All personnel in the bus.

How many people?
-There were a lot of experts, flying to the place of an accident, but our group had 9 to 11 members.

To whom did you pass on this information?
-There was no one to report it to. We just kept the information to ourselves. When we arrived at the site, the government committee was already there.

Did the government committee know about the level of radiation in Kiev?
-Yes, of course. You have to understand also that Kiev is a pretty big city. There is an Institute of Nuclear Research of the Academy of Sciences. There are very good and educated people working at that institution. From the first hour after the accident, they were checking the radiation level in Kiev. They also went to Chernobyl and were measuring the radiation there.

Looks like from the half-service environment, these people move to non-service environment.
-Yes. But you need to understand, that a very big dose of radiation occurs on the surface, when radioactive product falls on it. After the accident, we noticed a very patchy trace, which was mainly pointing toward Vilcha [a railroad station, located in the northwest of Ukraine]. The material was moved by the wind. Later, the trace changed its direction and was pointing toward Bragin [in the Republic of Belarus]. If you follow the dynamic of the trace, you can notice that first it was directed to Vilcha. Then you can notice a turn towards Bragin. Then it went to Briansk (and covered Mogilev also), then it went to Maloyaroslavec (Kaluzhskaya district), and then came Tulskiy district and finally, Slobodka (Tulskaya region) was hit by it.

Is there a trace in Moscow?
-No. Fortunately for Moscow, the wind was blowing in the opposite way. The same wind saved Kiev. Otherwise, we would have had to evacuate Kiev. Kiev was not strongly damaged. Chernobyl itself was not damaged dramatically. The city of Pripyat happened to be in the worst situation. It is 3 km from the nuclear plant.

I don't quite understand: On April 27th, Kiev was a half-service environment, and was continuing at this level for few more days. Why wasn't it evacuated?
-First of all, when something like this happens (and it is not usually publicized), a state of emergency (wartime norms) is declared. During the normal times a regular person can only get a 5 roentgen per year. During the state of emergency it is 25 roentgen. These were norms for the professional workers. For non-professional workers, the requirement is 10 times smaller […].

I understand, that in Kiev the state of emergency (wartime) was declared. Is this correct?
-Yes.

Declared by whom?
-By State Department of Health.

Was it ever announced to Kiev's residents?
-No. It is usually never announced.

And that allows avoiding evacuation?
-I am not sure about total dose that was received by residents of Kiev. Maybe there was a need for evacuation. However, evacuation would bring more damage to its residents.

Why?
-Do you understand what an evacuation means?

Yes I do - it's a high stress and huge amounts of money.
-Yes and huge amounts of money. Then, where to evacuate them? Where can we evacuate a city in which more than a million citizens live? Where - to Moscow?

Approximately how many roentgens did the residents of Kiev got in the first week?
-There we don't talk about roentgens, but milliroentgens. I don't think that they got a lot. In the first few days iodine was helping - they could have gotten a critical dosage in the thyroid, because no one provided iodized preventive treatment. Nobody mixed iodized products into the drinking water nor gave iodized products to the residents so that their thyroids wouldn't have to absorb radiation-infected iodine. Because none of that was done, their thyroid glands absorbed a lot of radiation and many people in Kiev were overexposed. The first side effects were in the throat area and overall there are pathological effects - thyroid cancer. But it's all in the future.

How many roentgens did you get?
-I counted 270 roentgens: roughly 120 before the Chernobyl accident and 150 after.

How long where you in the area of the Chernobyl accident?
-I left in January of 1989. That means that for 2 years and 8 months I was in Pripyat.

Where exactly were you?
-I was in Chernobyl. Imagine - my work place was in Pripyat, the most contaminated town.

How did you feel?
-Great. For the first time in my life I was in the field that I was trained for and was preparing for, all my life.

Did you find your vocation there?
-Yes. But psychologically it was extremely hard. I understood that after Chernobyl I would never work anywhere else again. I was disgusted with everything. I understood that I've chosen wrong profession.

What exactly were you doing in Chernobyl?
-I was Head of The Department of External Dosimetry of the complex.

What is a complex?
-It was necessary to combine together all the organizations that worked in that area. So combine was created based on SredMash. There were military and many civilian organizations (The military unit of Belarus was moved here). In total there were 462 organizations. And the Chernobyl nuclear plant also was in the complex. I was in charge of the office of external dosimetry. In that office we had 180 employees.140 of them had a high level of education and 40 were laboratory assistants. Our objective was to monitor the level of radiation and to point out areas where work could be done and those places where it could not. They couldn't send solders blindly to do work, so our first objective was to find and monitor the level of radiation in areas where soldiers were supposed to start working. Not only did we have to obtain the radiation level, but we also had to find out what kind of isotopes we were dealing with. Are they soluble or not? Besides, we were analyzing them in order to detect biologically active isotopes and the isotope produced by plutonium used for reactor fuel. We had a requirement for the plutonium. It is requires a lot of manpower to detect the isotope in the environment.

Almost three years you were doing it, what happened then?
-270 roentgens is almost a deadly dosage. And if I would have stayed there for another year I could …

Did you decide to leave on your own?
-No, I didn't have enough strength left. I came here (to the USA) fully handicapped - on crutches.

In 1989 you finished your work in Chernobyl and came here?
-No. I came here in 1992, in the beginning of the year.

Ok, we have some time between 1989 and 1992. So, on the 28th of April you were flying in the helicopter and saw that hell. And then for three years you had to live knowing that you saw it and were there. How did you feel?
-How can a human feel who works 14 hours a day? There in Chernobyl, everyone worked 12 hours a day and I worked 14, because before work I had to hold a briefing, and after work I had to go and have a meeting.

Go where?
-To Chernobyl, but I worked in Pripyat. So there were 14-hour working days with no weekends or vacations. The first vacation I got was after one-and-half years.

One-and-half years you were always in Chernobyl and Pripyat without leaving?
-There were times when I had to go to Moscow to report for a day or two.

For whom?
-The State Department of Energy, as usual.

To Velikhov?
-Velikhov was at the site till May 19th. I did not report to him, since he was working for SredMash and I worked for the Ministry of Energy.

When did you establish the Department of External Dosimetry?
-I was working on it since the first day after the accident. First, I put together staff members of the External Dosimetry Laboratory. Each nuclear station has this type of laboratory. The head of the department was still there at that time, but he did not trust any of Chernobyl people. I was working on organization of the department with him. A lot of people ran away and were evacuated. There were only 3-4 experts left. I established the department by organizing former coworkers - mostly physicists. I brought them from the Institute of Physics in Suhumi. I assigned Tihonov to be in charge of the water detection. Water - is a very difficult and important issue. (Imagine that in the area around Chernobyl there are 32 million people. All these people are using water from the Dnieper for drinking and watering plants. That's why it is such an important issue.) Eduard Tihonov came from the Institute of Physics of Suhumi also. I also brought a few people from the Institute of Nuclear Research in Kiev. One of those people was a great specialist, a former radiochemist who could detect plutonium, Ludmila Gerovedkin.

So, what you are saying is that at the moment there were 32 million people using Dnieper as a water source. For how long the water was bad? And what is "bad"?
-First, what does "bad" water mean? Radioactive products, which have a short lifetime and decay within the year, are not very damaging. They do not contain any biologically dangerous elements. Biologically dangerous materials are materials, which need more time for decay and more time to leave the human body. Strontium 90, cesium and plutonium 239 are some good examples of such elements […]. At that moment, none of these dangerous elements were in the water. However, there were a lot of short lifetime elements, which are able to irradiate people. What is specifically dangerous about strontium 90? It gives a person irradiation from inside. It gets into your bones and kills you from inside.

When did strontium start getting into the water?
-In the beginning, but in very small melted glasslike balls, which fell to the ground. Their size was in the range of 1Mm - 100Mm (microns).

What if we compare the size of the accident with the explosion in Hiroshima?
-The Chernobyl explosion was 500 times bigger than Hiroshima, in a sense of release of radioactive matter.

Has this comparison been published somewhere?
-It was probably published in someone's article. It never was a secret. Abagyan was reporting about it.

All I have heard before was from 10 to 90.
-The idea was to make it look less damaging then it really was - especially during first couple of days. They have tried to present it as a heat explosion and so on. Now, when we say "nuclear explosion" everyone understands "nuclear explosion", but these words are not being used so often.

Nikolai, please tell me when did the water become dangerous?
-At the first moment after the explosion, when radioactive elements had gotten into it. On April 26, near the Chernobyl area (Pripyat river) the level of Iodine was at 10-6 Curie per kilogram. What does this mean? It means that it was at the limit. Everything above that is called "minor nuclear waste". Nuclear waste needs to be kept in special storage places. Such storage rooms are usually made from concrete and are located on every nuclear plant. These rooms are used for radioactive garbage (dirty uniforms, respirators, etc.)

So, what you are saying is that drinking water was at the level of nuclear waste. Where was the drinking water kept?
-In Pripyat.

Who was drinking it?
-Kiev residents. When you are going toward Kiev, within 1 kilometer from the city, before the harbor, you can notice a lot of pipes, which are going towards the city. Those pipes take water to Kiev.

And that reserve was supplying water, which was at the "nuclear waite" level to the city?
-Yes. And the Pripyat river flows merges into the Dnieper.

For how long was the water so bad?
-I can tell you exactly, that on May 15th it was already 10-8 - 10-7.

Does that mean "better"?
-Yes, of course. But this means that the iodine decayed.

Was it safe to drink?
-It is always better to drink absolutely clean water. […] We were getting clean water shipped to us in bottles.

From where?
-From the "mainland".

So, at least people in the emergency situation such as was had to be notified "Do not drink water!"
-Yes. And they were notified.

In Kiev?
-In Kiev too. People had to switch to drinking bottled water, milk etc.

When was the announcement?
-I assume, after first days of May. Before that, the message to the people was "nothing has happened". I cannot tell you for sure if there was any announcement. But I know that all people in Kiev were drinking bottled water.

How do you know?
-I worked with them. A lot of experts I worked with were from Kiev.

Ok, but what if someone was drinking not bottled but water from a sink in that situation? What could possibly happen to those people?
-Because of the iodine, we lost our voices for few weeks. It was caused by beta burns of the throat. Every person, who has spent 1.5-2 days in Chernobyl, had these kinds of burns.

What helped you to go through this? You said, that a lot of specialists from Pripyat ran away, and there were only 4 people left. Why didn't you "run away"? Why did you and your coworkers relocate there?
-I invited my good friend, an army officer from Semipalatinsk who was about to retire. I used to work with him before, on nuclear explosions. I invited him to Chernobyl, and he flew in. I put him in charge of the laboratory, but very soon he was assigned to be my boss. From that moment working was a pleasure for me - I had a boss who was my very good friend and a great specialist. Can you imagine how great it is?

Did you really feel that you are on a professional mission?
-Imagine a dead pine forest. You are going to that forest and the only tool you have is a DP-5 (a military detector, used in the army since 1950). This tool has the highest scale - 200 roentgens per hour. We are going to that forest and we see that the arrow is going above that scale. But we need to work in that forest. Army officials are sending divisions of solders to that area and we need to know how long they can stay in that dangerous area. But how can we find out? The only way is to go there by yourself, take a sample and check the level of radiation. How? If you take a BTR (armored van) it will reduce the radiation effect on you by three times. If you take a military tank - it is going to be 10 times. Therefore, you can only win by playing with time.

Did the results of your observations affect the time periods that soldiers were on the site?
-It was my main goal to check how long anybody can be in a certain area. In order to do that, we had to find out where the radioactive trash was located.

So, the schedule for soldiers was made based on your judgments.
-Later, we were dealing with a lot of other issues also, but at that time it was our main goal. Also, when people started to die we had to count the radiation dosage they had received.

When did people start to die?
-Staff members began to die right away. I remember there was a big scandal, and I was almost kicked out from the site. It happened in August 1986. There was a Yakovlev family working on site. I never saw this family, but I knew that the wife was working near the forest, at the trash removal site, as a laboratory assistant. She got a very big radioactive dose. I estimated, it was somewhere around 700 roentgens; a big dose is everything between 200R and 700R. She was dying in August 1986. It was obvious, that she would die any moment. Her husband would be left with three children. He started to request pension. He wanted us to give her a radiation sickness diagnosis. But there was this order passed from Ilyin (I never saw this order, but smart people were talking about it), not to give this diagnosis to anyone. There are three types of the radiation sickness: 1st stage - 100R and up; second stage 200R and up and third stage (death) is 300R and up (in the cemetery). I estimated her radiation level between 200R and 700R and submitted this information to the government. After that, some people came to me and told me to reduce the estimate by 10 times. They said it had to be done in order to avoid radiation sickness. They said that Mr. Yakovlev would still get a pension from the government. But I could not do it. I told them I could do it only if I would get different radiation level maps. But with the maps I had, I could not possibly estimate less then a 100 roentgen. Think about it: where can you get less then 100 roentgens? You will never find such a place on the site.

During three years you have spent in Chernobyl, how many people did you see die?
-A lot. Somewhere in the middle of May I witnessed a horrible scene. I don't remember why, but I was going to Solnechniy, where we were spending nights. I was following several army cars, which were transporting soldiers "on fire" (irradiated soldiers) out from the site. The road became wider, and I decided to overtake the cars. Suddenly, I noticed a "uazik - 462"(minivan). The car was packed with dead bodies. I counted approximately 15 corpses. Those were the soldiers who died on site. And how many soldiers died after they were sent home?

Did they die as a result of the irradiation?
-Of course, what else could they die from? The thing is that at first, none of the soldiers were told about an accident. They were told something else. They were given shovels and sent to the site to remove graphite from the surface, near the plant. The disinfection had already started, but soldiers were told that it was a drill. And soldiers acted in accordance with what they were told. I saw it myself - they were collecting radioactive graphite to some piles. And then, they were sitting on those piles and eating lunch with their dirty hands! […] Academician Pashevich (he used to be a chief scientist at that time) reported it to the government committee. The results were not pleasant for army officials - high ranking general even lost his stars. After that, older inmates (they all were older than 40, who were no longer in the "reproductive age" ) were brought to work on the site.

And before that, most of the soldiers were in their first enlistments.
-Yes, they all were young, serving their first year.

How many soldiers were there?
-There were a lot of soldiers in May. They did not know what they were sent for. Almost all Chemical Regiments of the Republic of Belarus were there (I don't have exact numbers, but since Kunzevich was there to monitor them, there were 30-70 thousand people.

For how long did they stay in the area?
-Until they were overdosed. For example, some group could work on the 3rd block. They stayed there for 3 days, and then were sent out, after soldiers got their dose of 25 roentgens. Whoever was working in the less radioactive area, could stay there for longer, sometimes even a couple of months.

And the measure of the irradiation was estimated?
-At first, yes. Then we were given a special glass, which can be put under the car's tires and with its help we measured radiation.

What was the allowed radiation dose for troops?
-25 roentgens is a dosage in wartime. After that they were moving them to the clean area. Dismissing only those who were overexposed.

Those soldiers, who were sitting on the pile of radioactive sewage and were eating food - how can you calculate the amount of roentgens that they got?
-I don't know how much they had worked before that, and how much after. On that pile, even if they were sitting for 5 minutes, nothing could have happened. Even, if there were 100 roentgens. In a 5-min period they could get 10 roentgens. It's not that bad. I mean it's bad, because they were young and they have to produce handicapped generations afterwards. It is scary. But it's allowed in wartime.

You mean there are going to be mutations?
-Yes of course. But if a man working in that area had not only one dinner eaten on that pile of radioactive sewage, he will eventually get such a dosage of radiation that he wont be able to get home.

Could you tell me what kind of consequences future generation of children of workers in that area could incur?
-There are so few generations that were exposed to that kind of dosage. It's hard to make long-term prognoses. But already you can see that the side effects are terrible. The first generation that was in direct contact is dying from cancer much faster than other people. If not dying from cancer then from other diseases. Life expectancy is much shorter. For example, I don't know anyone from Obninsk, who was working with me at an experimental station for nuclear submarines, and has passed the 60- years-old mark. Even though there is very serious dosimetry service there.

Excuse me for this risky question, how old are you?
-I am 54.

You look healthy enough.
-If you don't look at my cane.

How do you feel?
-I am trying to feel good.

How is your health?
-When I was a student, I felt much better.

What was allowing you, holding you there until you got those 270 roentgens? Were you an irreplaceable specialist?
-I understood your question. When I was starting to work, I didn't realize it completely. And if I did break away, I could have worked in Moscow on the same problem quietly, could be writing a Ph.D. dissertation - and some people chose that way. But when I got deeply involved in this work - 2-3 months had already past - I was offered the job of vice--director of the complex group of the Government Committee. It was too late for me to leave - I was the only person in the Department of Energy (except for Dr. Pashevich, the chief scientist), who was an expert on that problem directly in the department.

What would have happened if you had left?
-They would have found a replacement for me, of course. But more soldiers would have died and more civilians would have gotten overdosed.

How many lives have you saved?
-It's hard to talk about how many lives I have saved. I think that with time we created a great team. Among the military personnel when they got there were, there were not any experts for 2-3 months. Kunevich used to come, he is an academician, a high-level specialist, but he is a high-ranking commander. The breakthrough happened when Lev Nikolaevich Koryakin arrived there. He was an ex-colonel. So, Koryakin from the military, Evgeniy Danilovich Stukin from "GOSKOMGIDROMETA" [one of the Soviet Departments], and I from the Department of Energy and also some people from the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, would not allow them to send soldiers to the places by an order "Die but complete the objective". We were working in such a manner that if a soldier got overdose of radiation, he would be dismissed and let go.

What if you, after a year of working in Chernobyl, had quit anyway? How many additional lives could be lost?
-I did not count; it's hard to talk about it. After a year, probably, nothing would have changed, since everyone from the whole Soviet Union who was capable of working with this kind of problem worked in our department. I had two vice-directors under me, who were not only on the same level of expertise as I but in some areas even better than me.

How come you weren't called off? If soldiers after being overdosed with radiation were called off, why weren't you?
-Hard to say, why I wasn't called off. […] I couldn't leave. I had friends: executive director Potemkin, executive engineer Komarov (we were working together since submarines), how could I leave?

You could get at least a month of vacation. Even at the time of war people used to get vacations.
-In the time of "war" it was impossible to leave, but sometime after 1.5 years I got a vacation. [Nikolai like everyone else, who was working in the area of Chernobyl used to call the first months after the accident "war"]

Your vacation was only after a year and a half. Why couldn't you take it earlier?
-I could easily find a substitute, but…

Your coworkers did not want you leave?
-Yes.

For how long was your first vacation?
-I don't remember.

Where did you go?
-I went to Alushta [Crimea, Black Sea].

When it was over, did you ever think of not coming back?
-Never. I was supposed to be on vacation for 30 days, but I was called in earlier.

Where was your family at that time?
-In Moscow.

Do you have any children?
-Yes, I have a daughter.

You were apart from her for a half a year, weren't you?
-Yes. The thing is that I was working on other nuclear sites before (in Semipalatinsk, Novaya Zemlya, where first nuclear explosions took place), and could not be in Moscow with my family at the same time. Plus, I had to travel a lot.

How long did you business trips usually last?
-Some of them were only two - three days long. Some of them lasted for a couple of months. I used to spend about half a year in Semipalatinsk every time.

You mentioned, that your job saved a lot of civilians. What do you mean by "civilians"?
-I mean regular residents of Chernobyl, Pripyat and the Republic of Belarus. My responsibilities included watching a 30-km area. (It is 60 km in diameter). But actually, this area included more regions such as Gagin, Vishe and Kiev. However, the Kiev Institute of Nuclear Research was mostly dealing with Kiev.

In your opinion, what aftermath did this accident have for the residents?
-First of all, these people have increased possibility for cancer, including leukemia.

Did you get a cancer?
-Not yet, thank God!

To be honest, by looking at you I am becoming an optimist. To get 270 roentgen and…
-There is an explanation to it. Because I was getting small amounts of roentgen since the 60s, my body got kind of adapted to it. Of course, if I was supposed to live until 90, I would live until 60-70, if I were supposed to live until 70 - I would live until 50-60. But anyway there were people dying before my eyes - Maslov, expert in spectrometry, and excellent specialist from Dzerzhinsky Moscow Technical Institute. He wasn't working with me long, around a year in the laboratory, in the closed room. He didn't get a large amount of radiation, around 50-70 roentgen max, but died at the age of 30 without any obvious reason. Another friend of mine from Azerbaijan worked for 3 months and then he got symptoms - hair was falling off. He was hospitalized immediately. He was sick for 3 years (coronary disease, hair loss) but then hair grew back. And I met him again - I flew to Baku from United States and met him. His hair was fully restored, but he is approximately 10 years younger then me but looked like he was 50. What happened? Got exposed somewhere, somehow, because not everyone was walking with detectors, and the situation was this: a wrong step to the left or a wrong step to the right - lethal dose.

Nikolai, tell me where are you from?
-I was born in Moscow, my mother used to live in Nikolsky and my father is from Kostroma.

You have some kind of tolerance; your body is immune to radiation.
-My father on my mother's side lived to the age of 90 years in Nikolsky. And in Kostroma my father had 5 brothers and two sisters, but the brothers were killed in World War II; one came back, caught a cold and then died. […] So, I can't speak about my longevity on father's side. But my grandfather and grandmother on my mother's side lived to be well over 90 years old.

It's great. Excuse me for this confidential question: do you have any diseases because of exposure to radiation?
-Of course, why do you think I walk with this cane? Legs, my legs are killing me. Almost all my friends who worked with me in Chernobyl over one year have problems with their legs. Our executive director had sick legs. In most cases it all begins with the legs. It's self-explanatory: we walked on the radioactive sewage with our legs, so our legs got the biggest hit. As a result of that the veins lost their elasticity.

What kind of problems do you have with your legs? Is it hard to walk? Painful?
-I have an illness called arthritis. The reason for it is radiation. Sometimes, I cannot use my legs for two or three weeks. It very severe sickness - sometimes I can't even go two meters to the bathroom by myself. My legs will not hold me. But after a while, it goes away. Now, it has been a week that I can walk.

When did your illness start?
-It first, it struck me in 1990. I was only sick for two-three days. Later, it lasted for a few weeks. Since 1993 I had to use a cane all the time (sometimes even crutches). In 1991, a doctor told me that I have only 3 to 5 years to live. In 1992 my daughter and her husband moved here. In February of 1993 I moved here with my wife and got some medical treatment.

Why did you decide to move here?
-A lot of reasons. We probably should not be talking about them.

If there were no Chernobyl accident, would you ever move here?
-The Chernobyl accident is not the major reason I moved.

But is it somehow related to your relocation?
-No, it is not related to it. I could never imagine, that I will be getting treatments, and it will be helpful for my illness. I had other reasons for coming here. I never went anywhere abroad before. Most people of my profession never go abroad. I was not even allowed to go to Mongolia, when I tried. The thing is that those people who were at Semipalatinsk and Novaya Zemlya sites and on nuclear submarines are not allowed to leave the country. There were rumors, that it is only for 5 years, but it was actually forever. Only when Gorbachev became president, did things change. Thanks to Gorbachev, I used that chance. The fact that I came to the USA and what I saw here was total shock for me.

What was your first impression?
-Before I came here, I only knew about the US from schoolbooks. You know, basic stuff: how bad life is in the US, destroyed forests, polluted air, how people are fainting on the streets. You probably have heard all this. When I came here and realized that you can have the same shoes for a year without really cleaning them, I was impressed. When I did not see even one dirty car on the streets I was in real shock..

What do you think can be done now, in order to relief the Chernobyl aftermath?
-First, we have to keep working on the site. The 4th block is covered with a "sarcophagus" (cover), but it is only temporary and it is falling apart. I saw how it was built and took part in it. There is still a lot of nuclear waste, which is not buried. It all lies on the open surface. It can still get into the ground water and then to Pripyat, which will merge into Dnieper and… There is a lot of bad stuff still.

What do you mean by "a lot"?
-If the accident caused 500 times more radiation to be released than at Hiroshima, then what was left is much more than one Hiroshima.

What is the main danger for now?
-Plutonium. The period of half-life is 23 thousand, 430 years.

What does this mean?
-It means that if originally we have a kilogram of it, then 23,430 years later there will be a half-kilogram. It means that you and your subsequent generations will be exposed to it for the rest of their lives.

What could it result in?
-Plutonium causes cancer.

What is going to happen if the cover on damaged block will break?
-The radioactive waste will get in the environment. By the way, the cover is not hermetic.

What needs to be done to that cover?
-All radioactive elements, which are under the cover, have to be removed and put into some containers. The containers have to be stored in accordance with the rules in special warehouses, such as in Germany. (Russia also has such warehouses) There those containers need to be maintained: if they are rusted, they have to be replaced. Someone has to monitor air control and ventilation.

How much will it cost to remove and store those materials?
-Five years ago I was reviewing a few international proposals for a new reactor cover, which would go on the top of the deteriorated one. All necessary mechanisms, allowing us to remove everything from the cover and put it in containers, were there. The cost of the least expensive cover was 8 billion dollars. The most expensive was about 20 billion.

Bill Gates has about 40 billion dollars.
-Well, that's Bill Gates. Maybe in 10 years, Ukraine will have this kind of money, but not now. After I reviewed a couple of projects, I came up with my own proposal […], which would cost about 2 billion dollars. It is probably better than the French one.

Is there a chance to clean it up to the point where it's going to be possible to lie down on the grass and rest?
-The concept of all non-Soviet nuclear plants was that after the plant was no longer needed the area of that plant could be converted into lawn.

Do you think that theoretically it could be done with the Chernobyl plant?
-Practically yes. The Japanese cleaned up Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

And what is going on right now in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
-They slowly removed layer by layer of radiation-infected ground and buried it.

Here 500 times more work needs to be done?
-In reality, yes, more work, but not 500 times more. 500 times more radioactive materials were thrown into the air as a result of the explosion. But in reality most of the sewage was thrown - red woods, construction site ("stroibaz")- they are not very large areas. But the 4th block needs to be liquidated and there is nothing that could be done about it.

A 30-kilometer area could be cleaned up?
-Yes, of course.

Could it be cleaned up to the point that there is lawn?
-To the point were it's going to be possible to live there sometime. But now there is no reason to clean up the 30 km area, because first the 4th block or the "center" needs to be cleaned up. But anyway it's in the process of being cleaned up.

Imagine there are no financial difficulties - there is money.
-If there are no financial problems, then there are no technical problems.

How much time could it possibly take?
-Around 5 years.

You mean in 5 years there could be a real lawn?
-Yes.

And would you recommend that area to your grandchildren to build a house and live there?
-Of course. Because nothing is going to be left there - it's all going to be cleaned up.

And water is going to be clean?
-And water is going to be clean. Why not?

If 5 years are needed for all this, couldn't this have been done in the last 13 years?
-If there were money - yes.

You mean that there were projects and technical solutions?
-Yes, of course. No problems. Every thing was related to the lack of money.

And soldiers would be working again?
-Why soldiers? Only experts. A soldier is not an expert.

Who will clean up all that radioactive sewage under the sarcophagus?
-Just regular workers.

Will they be exposed to radiation?
-Yes they would get some radiation but not on the level of soldiers - but the regular 5 roentgens that regular personnel would get. I can assure you that there are going to be plenty of volunteers.

So, you mean that just because of the financial difficulties it wasn't cleaned up for the last 13 years?
-Of course. There is no other explanation for it. There were no technical difficulties. One of the French projects already exists.

Is it discussed anywhere?
-I'm sure that "SREDMASH" made the project a long time ago. It just that there is no money.

Tell me, is that "sarcophagus" hazardous only for Ukraine or for other countries as well?
-Do you know that Belarus' got hurt more than Ukraine?

Yes, I do.
-Here is the answer.

Is it hazardous only for Ukraine and Belarus'?
-Russia also got hurt.

Accept Russia, Ukraine, Belarus'' -who else? Can some terrible things happen to the "sarcophagus"?
-Nothing horrible will happen. Another explosion is out of question - I can guarantee that.

So, those materials can stay on the Ukrainian soil, and no one will care?
-You know, the borders are quite relative. Radioactive elements do not recognize state borders - if there is wind it can move anywhere.

But now, when it's under cover, it is not moving, is it?
-No, why? Do you know that old expression: "The water will always find a hole"? Water with those elements gets into the ground, and then to the Pripyat. The Pripyat merges with the Dnieper, and the Dnieper merges with the Black Sea.

But the doses are very small, and they can be a kind of "vaccination" for you. Right?
-Yes they are small. But no one proved yet that they are harmless.

But you just described your good shape by the fact that you were getting exposed to the radiation in small dozes, starting from Semipalatinsk, and slowly, you got adjusted to it.
-Yes, the human body gets used to everything. For example, if a non-smoker will smoke a whole pack at once, what do you think will happen?

Something bad.
-Right. And a smoker can smoke two packs in a row without any problems.

So, in this situation, maybe all the elements, that are getting into the environment from under the cover, can build some kind of tolerance in people. I don't know. What do you think?
-I cannot tell for sure. Actually, a human body is always exposed to radiation from space. Also, there are some natural radioactive elements in the surface of earth.

I want to understand whether 30 million people, leaving in the Dnieper area need to be worried or not.
-Yes, they have reason to be concerned. First, cesium and strontium are very dangerous. Sooner or later, people will consume cesium (by watering the plants). I already mentioned before, when plutoniy gets into your system, it causes…

I got it - cancer and everything else. What about money for the next 5-year plan?
-This amount of money is nothing compared with what could be needed for the treatment of future illnesses. […]

You know I just had a vision: Sometime ago, computers were of huge sizes, but not so long ago, right before our eyes, they changed into laptops and after a few years they will be the size of the address book with much more memory. I think that those huge nuclear plants will become something small, fed by solar energy, and more powerful.
-But most important - a lot safer. Nuclear plants produce energy, but besides that they produce radioactive sewage. This is the most unpleasant part.

Tell me, if all the money that is spent on nuclear plants would be spent on research for some other kind of plants that will provide energy, do you think that the human brain would come up with something like solar energy?
-It's been done a long time ago and it has been thought of. And it's not a technical problem.

I think that all the peaceful nuclear plants were just a cover up for making nuclear weapons. On the one hand we are developing nuclear weapons, on the other getting energy as an excuse. Isn't it so?
-Not exactly. For example there was a great project in Russia - in the 80s, there should have been a launch of aircraft with astronauts on Mars. To the Earth orbit it would have been delivered using regular chemical engines, but from the orbit it would move by using nuclear engines.

Well, but what was created first - civil use of nuclear energy or military?
-Of course, military. Military use was easy to implement.

Let's slowly get to the end of it. We already talking for more then two hours - and it is very important without any doubt. I'm really thankful for your story and I would really, really want the sun to be our source of energy, the big-big-big Sun, the one that we can see in the window every day and every morning, and not the small-small atom, that is like a time bomb. Although I'm not a physicist, and don't really understand all this, but when I came to Kiev in April 28, 1986 (I was born in Kiev) my good friend told me: you know people are saying that civil atom just blew up. But no one knew anything: on May 1st there was a demonstration, and on May 4th I left Kiev, and on May 5th the accident was announced and there was a panic.
-No. In Kiev everyone knew everything from the first days.

No, no one knew anything. I was in Kiev since the first days.
-I understand it wasn't published in newspapers.

Not all of the people knew about it. We just heard some rumors. So, we, actually, had drunk a lot of bad water and our children did the same. But thank you, anyway. I hope your ancestors from Kostroma and Nikolaev gave you some nice genes, which will fight anything. Plus, you get a very good treatment here. Maybe something else will help.
-Maybe the time.

Time has different effects on everyone. There was Dr. Kaznacheyev, an academician at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He had this great theory - that in human life there are 3-4 different biological programs. Each of them is supposed to for 30-40 years. When the first program is done, a person starts to get sick often. If the person finds courage to change his life, the second program starts to work, and all illnesses go away. This programs switch when we are about 30, 60, 90 and 120. I believe your movement to the USA not only allowed you to treat your illness, but you changed all your lifestyle. So now a new biological program will start working a little earlier than 60, some kind of new life starts.
-Don't get my hopes up.

Seeing all the hell in Chernobyl exhausted your second biological program. And then you left. Now the third one is turning on, and you have four in total. If each of them is 30 years (in your case), looks as if you have 66 (120-54) more years to go.
-Thank you very much. You made me feel better. It is a very beautiful theory […]

Thank you, Nikolai.

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