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Kiev: Galina Miroshnichenko (34) has thyroid cancer. This illness is found particularly
often in women in Ukraine and Belarus since the Chernobyl disaster.
MAY
Vesnovo: Since the Chernobyl disaster many children, especially in the southern area of Belarus,
have been born with learning disabilities or with severe physical disorders.
MAY
Rogin: Dimitri Novikov (22) has had leukaemia for ten years. After the Chernobyl disaster people
were evacuated to Rogin until it emerged that it too was radioactively contaminated.
MAY
Narodichi: Sunday afternoon at a radioactively contaminated location a few kilometres from the reactors. People living
there receive the equivalent of 25 cents a month from the government to buy uncontaminated food.
MAY
Kiev: Larisa Kaplun (49) worked in Chernobyl during and after the disaster,
from 1986 through 1989. Both her hip joints have had to be replaced.
MAY/JUNE
Vesnovo: Natasha Popova (12) and Vadim Kuleshov (8) were born
after the Chernobyl disaster with psychological and physical disorders.
JUNE
Rogin: Ludmila Novikova has suffered from leukaemia for eight years. She collects milk from the radioactively
contaminated collective farm in Rogin. The people of Rogin live in poverty and isolation.
JUNE
Gomel: Irina (19) and Elena (24) Patushenko both suffer from brain tumours
even though the family left the region shortly after the Chernobyl disaster.
JUNE/JULY
Pripyat: Former town cinema. Pripyat is just a few kilometres from the reactors
and was evacuated three days after the Chernobyl disaster.
JULY
Vesnovo: Sasha Nesterenko (left, 16) was born with Down’s syndrome. Considerably more children
have been born with severe disorders in Belarus since the Chernobyl disaster.
JULY
Gomel: Annya Pesenko (15) has a brain tumour and is dependent on her parents
to turn her over every 15 minutes in the night so she doesn’t get bedsores.
JULY
Minsk: Mikhail and Vladimir Lariga (16) are twin brothers. Mikhail was born with hydrocephalus, and Vladimir was born
with learning disabilities. Their father and mother worked in the most heavily irradiated areas after the Chernobyl disaster.
JULY
Budo-Kashelevo: Nastia Eremenko (9) has cancer of the womb and lung metastases.
Mayak near Chelyabinsk is a nuclear complex in the Ural mountains on the
Russian border with Kazakhstan, and is one of the biggest in the world. Mayak
is not a single plant but in effect a small town of nuclear facilities. It was the
centre of Soviet plutonium production from the 1940s to date.
Its main task was to obtain plutonium from spent fuel rods
and reprocess it for use in nuclear bombs.
On 29 September 1957 a defective cooling system at Mayak
caused what at the time was the biggest accident at a nuclear
plant, today overshadowed only by Chernobyl. Radioactivity
was released over a large area as a result of the explosion.
The Mayak complex has caused approximately 272,000 people
to be exposed to high doses of radiation in the last few
decades from numerous accidents and intentional releases
of radioactivity causing damage to health as a result.
The region is today regarded as one of the most irradiated
areas in the world.
The epicentre of this suffering is the village of Muslimovo,
30 kilometres from Mayak. Hardly anyone there is in good
health. People suffer from chronic illnesses, high blood
pressure, heart problems, arthritis and asthma. Every second
adult is infertile, every third newborn child comes into the
world with deformities, and every tenth child is born
prematurely. The number of people with cancer has risen drastically.
The photos following here were taken in the Chelyabinsk region
in September 2000 and August 2001.
AUGUST
Muslomovo: Many farmers go duck hunting despite the area being radioactively contaminated.
AUGUST
Kurmanovo: Ramzis Fayzullin (16) suffers from chronic headaches resulting from his hydrocephalus.
As a victim, he has protested against the storage of radioactive material and lack of reliable medical information.
AUGUST/ SEPTEMBER
Muslomovo: Karl Marx Street, the main street of Muslomovo, near the Techa River. After the area became radioactively
contaminated many people abandoned their homes, while others are suffering from illnesses caused by radioactivity.
SEPTEMBER
Bashakul: Kostia Nekharasnov has Down’s syndrome, and for eight years his sister Natalia has suffered from a brain
tumour. Their mother swam in the radioactively contaminated river Techa when she was a young woman.
SEPTEMBER
Muslomovo: Alfya Magazumova (26) and Ilias Magazumov (13) suffer from bronchitis and nose bleeds. Doctors have
advised them at their young age, that due to their frail health, they cannot participate in active play.
SEPTEMBER
Muslomovo: Karl Marx Street, the main street of Muslomovo, near the Techa River.
The town was never officially evacuated despite the river being radioactively contaminated.
SEPTEMBER /OCTOBER
Bashakul: People in discussions with their Regional Governor. They haven’t been able to pay their bills for months,
resulting in their electricity supplier in Ozersk cutting off their electricity.
OCTOBER
Muslomovo: Farida Valeva (41) may soon lose the ability to walk, and is already restricted to limited
use of her hands. Her jaw has shrunk and she suffers from severe bone pain.
OCTOBER
Muslomovo: A business in Muslomovo. Most living here suffer from illnesses caused by radioactivity.
OCTOBER
Hudayberdinsk: Ilias Garev (13) lies in bed, with his father in the foreground. As with many children
from his area, Ilias is so weak he has to lie down after school every day.
OCTOBER
Muslomovo: Saturday night at the disco. Young people want to leave the region
because of the radioactive contamination, poverty and social problems.
The Siberian Chemical Combine at Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7), on the river
Tom is 3,000 kilometres east of Moscow in Siberia. It is one of the most
important military nuclear installations in Russia. The complex consists of five
nuclear power plants, a plant for extracting plutonium from spent fuel rods,
factories for processing uranium and plutonium, buildings for
storing nuclear waste, and a facility that pumps liquid nuclear
waste into the ground. The nuclear reactors, two of which are
still in operation, were used to make plutonium for
Soviet/Russian nuclear weapons.
On 6 April 1993 a tank at a uranium and plutonium factory
inside the plant exploded. Radioactivity was dispersed into the
atmosphere contaminating an area of over 120 square
kilometers. Numerous villages had to be evacuated and are
permanently uninhabitable. The people in the region are still
suffering the consequences today. Many show the same
symptoms as the victims at Chernobyl and Mayak - cancer,
blood disorders, damage to genes.
The region continues to be insidiously contaminated. Liquid
nuclear waste is still simply pumped into the ground, and
more and more nuclear waste is collecting on the site.
Germany and other western European countries play their part
in this contamination. The French nuclear company, Cogema,
and the German-UK-Dutch enterprise, Urenco – one third
owned by RWE and Eon – dispose of radioactive waste from
their uranium enrichment plants at the Siberian Chemical Combine at Seversk
(formerly Tomsk-7).
The photos that follow were taken in the Tomsk region in August
and September 2005.
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER
Nauomovka: Ksenia and Eugeniy Kolomoyzevi. Ksenia (15) has thyroid and immune disorders,
while Eugeniy (24) has kidney problems.
NOVEMBER
Samus: The Tom River, near one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities in the world, the Siberian Chemical
Combine at Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7). Fishing or swimming is forbidden here.
NOVEMBER
Samus: Sergei Frischmann (28), a former worker at one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities in the world, the Siberian Chemical Combine at Seversk
(formerly Tomsk-7), suffers from nose bleeds, headaches and immune deficiency. He performed most of his work without appropriate protection from radiation.
NOVEMBER
Samus: Samus Harbour. Many of the port and construction workers are ill.
Doctors have diagnosed their illnesses as resulting from radioactive contamination.
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER
Tomsk: Alexander Boltachev and Valentina Boltacheva. Valentina is recovering from breast cancer and her
granddaughter was born with cerebral palsy. Many of her friends and relatives have become ill or have died.
DECEMBER
Samus: Irradiated sand, from the harbour at Samus and the Tom River, was used in building houses.
DECEMBER
Nauomovka: Vera Mayer has diabetes. Her husband, who worked on contaminated fields without protection
against radiation, is dead. Vera’s daughter has had to have both legs amputated due to thrombosis.
DECEMBER
Nauomovka: Children on the way to school. This town was contaminated from a nuclear accident at one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities in the world,
the Siberian Chemical Combine at Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7) in 1993, and never evacuated. Those who could, have left the area.
DECEMBER
Nauomovka: The town was contaminated as a result of a nuclear accident at one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities in the world,
the Siberian Chemical Combine at Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7) in 1993, and never evacuated. Those who could, have left the area.
JANUARY
Nauomovka: Tatiana Rolgeser (19) suffers from gastritis and thyroid and kidney disorders.
JANUARY
Tomsk: The Black Lake is right next to one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities in the world, the Siberian
Chemical Combine at Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7), and is contaminated by high-level radioactivity.
JANUARY
Samus: Vitali Fedakov (60) was a dredger captain who worked deepening the Tom River. During his work on the river
he wasn’t disturbed by the fact that the river sediment was radioactively contaminated. Today he is an invalid.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY
Tomsk: The Black Lake. Large quantities of radioactive waste from one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities in
the world, the Siberian Chemical Combine at Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7), are pumped directly into the earth.
FEBRUARY
Nauomovka: Children at Nauomovka primary school. This town was contaminated by an accident at one of the world’s largest nuclear facilities
in the world, the Siberian Chemical Combine at Seversk (formerly Tomsk-7) in 1993, and never evacuated. Those who could have, left the area.
The Semipalatinsk Polygon was a test site for nuclear bombs on the Kazakh
steppe, 480 kilometres east of the Kazakh capital, Astana. It was the biggest
test site in the former USSR, covering 18,000 square kilometres. The Soviet
government exploded some 498 nuclear warheads here between 1949 and
1989. This was done above ground until 1962, then in tunnels
and shafts, but this in no way stopped radioactivity from
being released into the environment.
Radioactive fallout from the nuclear tests has spread far
beyond the region for four decades. The city of Ust-
Kamenogorsk, for example, 450 kilometres to the east, and the
Altai region, some 300 kilometres to the north-east in Russia,
is contaminated. The United Nations estimates that the fallout
from Semipalatinsk has radioactively contaminated several
hundreds of thousands of people.
According to studies made by professor Saim Balmukhanov,
the consequences for people in the region have been
devastating. Death rates are almost two and a half times
higher than in uncontaminated areas, 80-90 per cent of
children and women suffer from anaemia, and 60-70 per cent
from thyroid disorders. Almost half the population concerned
has malfunctions to their locomotor systems.
The Semipalatinsk test site was shut down on 29 August
1991. But generations of Kazakhs will have to continue to live
with the consequences. They are still inhaling radioactive particles or ingesting
them through food – for example through the milk of their cows which graze
on contaminated land.
The photos here were taken in the east Kazakh region in April 1999.
FEBRUARY
Semey (formerly Semipalatinsk): Mr Gudsenko has a tumour in the left side of his brain and is being treated in Semey.
FEBRUARY
Polygon: Children playing on a farm three kilometres from radioactively contaminated Lake Balapan.
FEBRUARY/MARCH
Sarjal: Sirigaisa has lost two sons to suicide. 45 young men from this town have committed suicide
in the last ten years, most of them because they suffered from impotence.
MARCH
Polygon: Ergasy Sultanat and two of his sons near his farm three kilometres from radioactively
contaminated Lake Balapan. Farmers keep their cows on radioactively contaminated land.
MARCH
Semey (formerly Semipalatinsk): Valentina Sarova (71) previously worked at the Igor Kurchatov Nuclear Research
Centre and witnessed many nuclear explosions. She prematurely became infertile and has suffered a heart attack.
MARCH
Polygon: Two daughters in the Sultanat family were born with learning disabilities.
Their mother has immune system and thyroid disorders.
MARCH/APRIL
Semey (formerly Semipalatinsk): Dsunusova Gulsum (43) is suffering from a brain tumour. She lives in the nuclear bomb testing area.
APRIL
Semey (formerly Semipalatinsk): Seryozha Mukamela suffers from cerebral palsy and requires around-the-clock care. His father left
the family, and Mother and son live from the sickness benefits of his grandmother, who was diagnosed with cancer.
APRIL
Polygon: Ergasy Sultanat and two of his children at their farmhouse. The farm is three kilometres
from radioactively contaminated Lake Balapan.
APRIL
Polygon: Ground Zero. The former USSR detonated its first nuclear bombs here in 1949.
© March 2006
Most incidents are defined to the exact date, these entries start with the specific year. Sometimes the sources used stated the month only.
In these cases the specific year and month of the incident are embedded in the text.
PUBLISHED BY
Greenpeace International
Ottho Heldringstraat 5
1066 AZ Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 20 7182000
Fax: +31 20 5148151
Email: supporter.services@int.greenpeace.org
responsible for content: Thomas Breuer; text: Alexandra Boehlke; photos: Robert
Knoth/Greenpeace; cover photo: Annya Pesenko (born 1990), diagnosed with brain tumour,
Gomel; editor: Omer Elnaiem picture editor: Conny Boettger; design: Ursula Peters, Hamburg,
Germany; maps: H.E.D.I., Hamburg, Germany
If you would like to make a contribution to the production cost of this calendar,
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