lorrie mayzlin

8/2/2019 Lorrie Mayzlin

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/lorrie-mayzlin 1/2

6 THE AGORA  Features August 25

By Lorrie MayzlinAgora reporter

MCCC’s Chernobyl survivor is a healthy (thankful-

ly) 38-year old Dean’s List student, and my husband,Michael Mayzlin. I would imagine that he is the onlyChernobyl survivor in all of southeast Michigan.

Over the span of our 13-year marriage, I have lis-tened to his thoughts, fears, dreams and memories of Chernobyl, which is about 60 miles north of his former home in Kiev. Generally, Michael is a shy and quiet person, who is not one to make too many waves wher-ever he goes. This being the 25 th anniversary of thetragedy, it’s a good time to tell his story.

Q. How old were you when Chernobyl occurred?

I was 12 years old in April 1986, just before my 13th  birthday.

Q. What did you hear from the government?

Absolutely nothing on the day of the accident. I think the rst ofcial announcement came May 1 in a 30-sec-ond blurb during the nightly newscast. The announcer read a short prepared statement about a small accidentat the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and said every-

thing was under control.Q. How was it determined when you’d evacuate?

The school year always ended at the end of May. Oneday, about two weeks before the end of school, localgovernment ofcials in Kiev made verbal announce-ments in schools and various work places that theschool year would end early and everyone under theage of 18 is to evacuate the city of Kiev within the nextcouple of weeks due to health hazards associated withthe accident at Chernobyl.

Q. Who determined where you’d go?

Families were given a choice to take their kids out of Kiev. Those who did not have anywhere to go, would be taken in bus loads to summer camps. Luckily, wehad relatives living in Chisinau, Moldova, deep in thesouth of the Soviet Union on the border with Romania.

I was actually excited to go because it was like tak-ing a summer trip to another country. Some of myfriends simply left the city for their summer “dachas”in the countryside.

Q. What if people had no money?

Money was needed only for a train ticket and person-al expenses if you were not on a “government bus” go-ing to a summer camp. Actually, not too many people

ally know the severity of the situation. I heard from myfriends that radiation makes living things explode ingrowth, but I didn’t realize that the bushes in front of our apartment building will turn into large trees.

I guess when I came back and couldn’t see the play-ground behind those “trees,” I knew that it was moresevere than what we were told.

Q. What were your fears? Dreams? Worries?

My biggest fear was not being able to come back toKiev again. Although we were told that everyone will be back in September, I was afraid that this was goingto take longer.

Being 13 at the time, I really did not fully under-stand the severity of the situation. I didn’tknow about the medi-cal repercussions or long-term effects.

My friend in Kievhad his dad’s radioac-tivity meter. He usedto take it out on theplayground and show

case each in hand, my mom, dad, and mysea taxicab on the way to the airport. The enttook about 4-5 months and included a trip tfor a visit in the U.S., Austrian and Italian Austria and Italy were “transfer points” thatgo through.

Q. How much did it cost to move to the

I can’t possibly begin to imagine the amouey my parents had to gather to make this  pen. A lot of it was, of course, visa and papeThe bulk of it, however, was “under the tabthat had to be paid to various government were processing the paperwork to get it mothrough the channels. I would think now

amount was plocal KGB aagents to prevfrom harassing

Back then, if y

to leave the “myou were contraitor and the ment of society

l

orrie Mayzlinreporter

e push for “clean energy” in theed States has never been greater thane last few years.

r dependence on foreign countriesnergy supplies and volatile price uc-ons have caused American citizens toder other alternatives.

11 is an important year in “clean en-” because it marks both the year thatukushima nuclear power plant melt-own and the 25th anniversary of thet nuclear plant disaster in the world,ernobyl in the former Soviet Union.

is issue is relevant for MCCC stu-and faculty for several reasons.

e from students’ cash-strapped bud-MCCC has a new nuclear technol-program, and it has a student whoved the Chernobyl disaster.

ere are 361 square miles in BelarusUkraine that have been designated

“exclusion zone” around the Cher-l site. They are mostly off-limits to

ors, but especially for residential pur-s.

e ground will remain contaminatedleast the next three generations. Al-

gh the “red forest” no longer glowsundeniable signs of the long-lastingstation still are there.

1986, shortly after the Chernobyl re-melted down, a temporary sarcoph-was placed over the exposed reactor ntain the nuclear fallout. Today, theor is still “melting,” the sarcophagus

cked, and radiation is leaking.e government of the Ukraine doeshave the $840 million required to

a new containment unit.

ried in Mitino Cemetery in Moscow,ia, are 14 “liquidators,” who were theresponders” (reghters and opera-They were exposed only briey to

mmense radiation and were all deadn one month.

lliam Lorenz of Belleville, who isather of this article’s author, workede United States Embassy in Moscow,ia, during the mid-1990s.

here is a cemetery in Moscow, whichmother and I used to pass on our wayd from our job in the United Statesassy,” Lorenz said.

When we entered this cemetery, you

d see that there was a special sectiondecorative blocks surrounding aboutaves, and there was a plaque writtenth English and Russian which saidhe graves were of the rst helicopter s who dropped the cement to cover ole created by the explosion.”

tures of the villages and cities thatunded Chernobyl are grim andly – schoolbooks scattered in class-s, apartment homes with furnitureclothing where people once lived,nally, Mother Nature taking back reas that man covered with concrete.

hen Fukushima melted down earlier year after an earthquake and subse-t tsunami, the Japanese governmentto downplay the numbers of casu-and severity of the damage, thus

ng hundreds of thousands of people

uding our own military service mem-in harm’s way.

ook several months before Japanesernment ofcials admitted their pow-ants had indeed gone through a full

 AftCheexppeopyato abridoutcitygootheInithadthaleveminthaweTheoutthelevewenea

Pho

The Funfair at Pripyat, the city closest to Chernobyl, was set to open on May 1, 1986, four days after the reactor meltdown. It never opened and remains aband

After 25 years, Chernobyl still relevanragedy offerserspective on

clean energy”

MCCC student was 12 when he survived Cherno“Very few people in these

(May Day) parades knew 

about the severity of whathappened just four days

before inChernobyl.Ironically,everyonewas out inthe streetscelebrat-ing Com-munismand the

 government, pretty muchtrapped below the cloudof radioactive air.”

Michael Mayzlin

8/2/2019 Lorrie Mayzlin

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/lorrie-mayzlin 2/2

  _____________________________________________________________________ 

2012 Michigan Community College Press Association Judging Form

Place of award:First Place Second Place Third Place Honorable Mention

Category: In depth reporting

Headline/title of entry: After 25 years, Chernobyl still relevant

Contestant’s name: Lorrie Mayzlin

College name: Monroe County Community College

Judge’s comments:Your husband has an interesting story. You asked him some good questions, but focusedless on the facts of his experience and more on what it means to him 25 years later. Also,

while it’s good that you acknowledged the relationship at the beginning of the piece, I thinkwriting about friends and family members requires special justification or, at least, anapproach that differentiates itself from straight news or a straightforward interview.The piece on clean energy has good information, and it’s not a bad thing to try your hand atthose sorts of stories as a student journalist. But it doesn’t strike me as the sort of story thatmost local newspapers would ask one of their reporters to write, largely because it doesn’tspeak specifically to a local audience.