Chernobyl journal (Volume1)

Chernobyl journal (Volume1)

Stones and bombs

Have been following recent tragic event of bombings in London. Sorry to see how cheap is human life and how body count became everyday thing now. I wonder if any citizen or official have ever considered what would happen if terrorists will get to nuclear facilities. Look at my Chernobyl site and you will see what becomes to the land if only some 10% radiation released in atmosphere, the rest still under sarcophagus. With high prices for oil, the nuclear plants will spring up like mushrooms after the rain. All our houses made of glass this days and our world leaders shall not throw the bombs....

August, 2005.

UN report

2006 is the 20th anniversary year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Powerful pro-nuclear forces are committed to spinning out positive "news releases" and "reports" to lessen the negative impact.

Below is a pull-quote from news release on one such official report from the Chernobyl Forum that took place in Vienna in Septemer 2005:

"The number of people killed by radiation as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, the world's worst nuclear accident, is so far 56... the U.N. said on Monday."

Not long ago, officials were about to admit to 4,000 Chernobyl dead, but with record-high oil prices the demands for more "cheap atomic energy" is so huge they had to put a much smaller figure.

Now, we see the desperation and cunning of pro-nuclear officials. They raised the death toll from 31 to 56 souls. They can now brag to critics that new report almost doubles the official Chernobyl death toll, but such trickery is insulting to all of us.

Every attempt to set a death toll for Chernobyl accident is pure speculation, no one knows what it was, or will be in the end - not even approximately.

My neighbour who worked in Chernobyl died of cancer at age 56, how in the hell we know if he got this cancer in Chernie and if we shall include him in this list of victims.. However, there are people who absolutely should be included such as cleanup workers, firemen, helicopter pilots, soldiers.. what about them? Why does no official death toll recognize them as casualties of Chernobyl disaster?

Here are two additional official quotes which are as far from the truth as the official death toll:

"Many evacuated areas were now safe, and the area of zones classified as contaminated was too large. Apart from the still closed, highly contaminated 30 km (19 mile) area surrounding the reactor and some closed lakes and restricted forests, radiation levels had mostly returned to acceptable levels"

It's impossible for us to count victims, but we can travel and count the hundreds of miles of nuclear wasteland that roll past. They only talk about area that is 30 km (19 mile) around reactor, but it is only 1/8 of the total area that was poisoned with radiation. I have a map. on my site, it shows the total area that in size of european state. There is no information about Belorussian, nothing known about Russian part of Chernobyl. Those areas are closed for visitors.

As for levels which returned to acceptable standarts, levels has fallen because in 1986 radiation was on surface, in summer 1989, 3 years after the accident, 90% of radiation was in 2cms of soil, now it went in soil on 20 cms, which makes farther decontaminating process impossible. Now soil breathing with radiation from deep inside and sometimes the following element in decay cycle is no less safe then previous, like in case with Americium

The UN report sound like people about to begin to populate those part of the land where according to UN radiation levels had mostly returned to acceptable levels. Let me assure, nothing of this kind is really happens. Each year I travel I see more and more desolated villages and towns. The whole area is dying away. One of the reason why people do not want to settle in areas close to Chernobyl is because the hastily constructed sarcophagus is in danger of collapse.

Almost 20 years have passed since the accident and they even didn't start building us a decent sarcophagus. How come that the richest industry can not find money to build a new sarcophagus? They have enough means to build new reactors, to bribe news media and politicians all around the world, they rich enough for keeping a death toll so low for so many years, but they have no means, neither political will to protect people of Europe from nuclear meltdown.

Farther, the UN report states:

"Benefits offered to 'victims' were expanded to 7 million people now eligible for pensions, special allowances and health benefits. These needed to be scaled down or target only high-risk groups, though it would be unpopular, it said"

Pensions not really worth to mention them, we all know how "generous" are post soviet officials with pensions, special allowances and health benefits... these benefits hardly worth a trolley ticket to go and pick them up.

Victims of Chernobyl would do much better if they had received money that governments spend on organizing all those fake seminars and forums.

In any way, I just wanted everyone to know, where we stand with the truth about Chernie on eve of its 20th anniversary.

Chernobyl is not just the piece of our past. What government officials are hiding may be the future of our planet, because some day, we'll have to pay for all lie, hypocrisy and greed of our system.

September, 2005

The Deafening Silence

I grew up in a the Soviet Union and even when I was very young, I clearly remember the inescapable oppression of a totalitarian society. It is like owning a finely tuned piano, and trying to play with an orchestra that is deliberately out of tune because the state has determined that there are just too many notes in the musical scale, so some of them are outlawed.

Five years after the accident, the economy of Soviet Union collapsed. This was a good thing, it seemed for a moment that world harmony might be on the horizon, but that hope now spins out of sight and everything around us is again going out of tune as wars and atomic madness reverberate in overtones of discord and the ticking metronome of our inevitable ruin grows louder each day.

That makes it more important than ever that we immerse ourselves in the solemn task of calmly tuning our souls to perfect pitch and strain to hear the whispers of harmony from others like us - arching over the wall of noise, before we are all surrounded by nothing but the deafening silence of a last vanished opportunity.

December, 2005

Chernobyl suicides

In the first few years after the Chernobyl disaster, a very high rate of suicide was reported. The thought of suicide comes creeping when terrors of life come to outweigh the terrors of death. Who could doubt that Chernobyl has provided all mankind with mega-terrors lurking up a blind alley?

Now, the official blame has been laid on those officials who took their own lives, such as Valery Legasov or the first secretary of Communist party in Ukraine, Sherbitsky. I really belive those poor souls who committed suicide following Chernobyl were not complete bastards. Why? Because true bastards are known to have homicidal - not suicidal - tendencies.

December, 2005

About UN policy. (Extract from interview to Bikernet online magazine)

Question Do they really think that people all over the world will believe their reports? Do they assume the average person is just plain dumb? What can people reading this do; to make sure that the Chernobyl disaster is not swept under the carpet and forgotten?

Answer Yes, everyone I know was shocked with UN report in September 2005. Even though we know, they treat us like a fools, no one could expect their lie would be so obvious and offensive, but then, look at what happened in Iraq, this war is fair result of all UN policy and their treating of Arab world like one big, dumb gas station, with their food for oil reports and one fake report about Iraq owning chemical weapons. Now, Iraqis who didn't have any weapon of mass destruction will try to get it as soon as international troops will leave Iraq. They had nothing to do with Al Kaida, now Al Kaida is in Iraq. In Iran they desperately want to obtain Plutonium for nuclear weapon. What worse is that now Osama became a hero for millions. Bin Laden is not a boss of a gang of thugs and killers as he was a few years ago, he is leader of a large political faction of the Arab world now. 60% of the Arab world are under the age of 20. That is 840,000,000 teenagers. Many of them want to be just like Osama. He is their "Elvis", who carry AK-47 instead of guitar. But they do not want to learn to play a guitar and run out of gas at a drive in movie on a prom date. They want fill the car with dynamite and kill everyone who do not recite the words of the Koran verbatim. Now, they hate us bitterly, everyday people dying for no good reason and this is result of all UN reports. Best everyone can do to keep Chernobyl story active is to pass link of my story to their friends...

January, 2006

New reactors

Ukraine will build new reactors. It was one of a first decisions of a new parlament. Nuclear power will find a support of our parlament, regardless of which candidate win the election, they call it fuel and energy sovereignity. We already produce more electricity then we need and we supply neighbouring countries with electricity from our nuclear plants, they just want to sell more. Our government didn't come up with anything but a selfish scheme to make money now at the expense of the health of future generations.

If you look at parliament in Ukraine, at the beginning your first impression will be that political life is boiling. More than fifty parties continually falling apart and making new coalitions. Much fussing around, crowding and swarming in all directions. If you keep looking you will notice that, year after year, this mass of deputies do not produce any changes. It is because we have the same people in politics that we had during the Soviet years, but now joined with their relatives and protoges. No matter what forms every new parlament, the same people are always present, like the combinations in a kaleidoscope; at every turn a fresh picture strikes the eye, you may think something has changed; and yet, in reality, you see only new combination of the same bits of glass that you saw before.

April, 2006

Green Cape

Today I went to the book market, because I wanted to see what was available on Chernobyl. I found bookcases filled with all sorts of colorful magazines about crime , sex, rock and roll, and fashion, but not a single book about the wasteland that spreads a few hundred kilometers north of Kiev.

In the autumn of 2005, I returned to "Green Cape" town, where years ago I used to ride my motorbike. But the town is nowhere to be found, and I learned that it had been demolished. After the Chernobyl explosion, being located only 50 kilometers South of the reactor, poor "Green Cape" has become yet another nuclear statistic. Not a single building is left there now, no memorial, nothing that indicates the town was there. It was erased from the face of the earth - in exactly the same manner as the books about Chernobyl have vanished from book stores.

In the spring of 2006 I see that still more towns and villages have been erased - all casualties of Chernobyl. I think in future, the Ukraine authorities will demolish all the remaining villages and towns in the area, and drag the remaining radioactive rubble to a final resting place close to the reactor.

Tourism in Chernobyl has no future, because everything is so overgrown and the buildings are beginning to collapse. The idea of tourism won't find any support of a state officials, because profits of tourist companies offering Chernobyl tours can not even begin to offset the losses of the nuclear industry, so all of the evidence of the many Chernobyl Ghost Towns will need to be disposed of within this generation. Eventually they will even have to bury Pripyat, the greatest of all Ghost Towns.

Who will be there to say the last words over it, and what will they be? "From ashes to ashes, dust to dust, isotope to isotope... ?"

March, 2006

Mourning of officials

State-sponsored mourning, and most all official ceremonies, are magnificent drama productions, and there should be awards for the most convincing performances. Maybe they could call it the Russian or Ukrainian Academy Awards.

Like a Hollywood movie, they are meticulously staged illusions - and Chernobyl requiem each April 26 seems to bring out the very best in their acting skills.

After midnight, a large crowd of somber looking politicians gathers at the Memorial to Victims of Chernobyl in Kiev. They stand in long lines, each of them holding their candle, and all trying to out perform each other in their sad displays of feigned compassion for Chernobyl's dead and unborn.

With slightly bowed heads they slowly shuffle forward and scroll through their well-rehearsed professions of devout sorrow. This pitiful scene of shamefully hollow hypocrisy stars the very same people who were directly responsible for the Chernobyl tragedy, still hide the truth of it, and still line their own pockets as the power and money brokers for new nuclear plants.

For the final crescendo, this tidy mob of oligarchs and ministers scuttle off to a church full of carefully placed cameras - but not to atone for their sinful deeds, and rather to give their despicable posing an air of solemn dignity. Years ago, they used to send Christians to mental institutions and labor camps, but the new state standards now require them to feign the belief in religion.

So there they stand, candles in hand, looking humble in their temporarily adopted sanctuary. Communists, Marxists and atheists all, they cross themselves from left to right, from right to left, then the church Patriarch, a former KGB spy, appears to give them a final blessing.

"Christians" like them make us all wish Jesus really would come back.

April, 2006

From interview to Dagens Nyheter, the day before my book was published

Why do you devote so much of your life to this catastrophe?

Some day those towns and villages will be demolished and I don't want their memory to disappear. I want to leave a record in images, videos and short stories of how I saw Chernobyl. I am sure, in the future people will appreciate my efforts.

How would you describe the life in this area, when you were a child?

I have lived all my life in Kiev, which is 130 kms South of Chernobyl. I was not present in the Chernobyl area before the catastrophe. My first visit was to the Belorussian part of Chernobyl in 1992. Later I traveled through the Russian part and was impressed with the immensity of the total territory that had been poisoned by radiation.

How is this issue, the Tjernobyl catastrophe, discussed in your country today?

Unfortunately, the human cost of the Chernobyl catastrophe is not often mentioned anymore. Removing it from memory has been a policy of our government for all these years. It is impossible to buy a book about the history of Chernobyl. Now we only see the movies and documentaries about Chernobyl on April 26. Yet even these show only the cold science of nuclear reactions and flawed engineering

The 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine didn't bring us any progress. Authorities only raised the official death toll from 31 to 56 people. Ukraine does not want to depend on Russian oil and gas and now will build more reactors. Our president is proud when he says that Ukraine already exports electricity to Moldova and Belorus.

How, do you think, will Tjernobyl affect coming generations? Physically and mentally?

This spring I visited different parts of Chernobyl area. I saw new dead villages located 60-90 kms west from reactor. Deserted places can be seen as far as 250 kms on North from reactor. People are leaving. It appears that places that have been affected with radiation have no chance to survive. Sooner or later people will leave them all. This is the saddest thing, towns with a thousand years of rich history now standing in ruins. This is only what we can see, we can not see what affect Chernobyl is having on human health. All such statistics are very controversial. I am sure Chernobyl affects both physically and mentally those who still live in the contaminated areas. It doesn't affect people who live in other parts of Ukraine. The decision to build new reactors was taken without any public debates or protests. The residents of the towns where they will build new reactors are more concerned about ring-melodies for mobil phones - apparently being eager to sell out their collective genetic future for a few jobs and fast money. Fools gold, I think. I am not an anti-nuclear activist, I am just someone who thinks that we should learn from past mistakes and therefore not build any more reactors close to population centers.

Can you tell me, in detail, what you were doing that very day, the 26th of April 1986?

On April 26th we didn't know anything about the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. I was very young and I was playing in the streets with other children. The next day, a Sunday, my parents wanted to visit our country house, but there were no busses to be had. 1200 busses had been sent to evacuate people from Pripyat and several hundred more to evacuate people from other villages close to reactor. That evening first official announcement was made on TV, it lasted only 14 seconds. My dad is a nuclear physicist, so the next day he brought a radiation detecting device home from work. It was big as a suitcase. The next two days radiation readings remained normal. At this time Sweden was already affected, but in Kiev all was still normal. The South wind saved us. Then on May 1st the wind changed direction, and that morning the reading at our home showed 1 milliroentgen per hour, which is 100 times greater than normal... I will never forget my father's face - he just grabbed me and my sister and put us on the train and sent us all off to my Grandmothers, safely away from the radiation.

April, 2006

Time's usury

If some particular region or civilisation at large is to survive, it must live on the interest, not the capital, of nature. Ecological markers suggest that from the creation of the world and until the 1980s, humans were only using renewable resources; by the early 1980s, we'd crossed the point when we started spending the capital, we reached 100 per cent of using nature's yearly output; and in 2006 we were at 130 per cent, it would take the Earth 16 months to regenerate what was consumed this year. Such numbers may be imprecise, but they clearly indicate that we are on the way to bankruptcy.

In accordance with new program of industrial developement, in a next 15 years Ukraine will build 15 new reactors, growing appetite suggest that we enter the epoch of Nuclear Renaissance and not only here, but all around the World. Atomic energy is being presented as panacea for all economic problems, as a source of environmentally clear energy that will save us from bankruptcy. Unfortunately, they fail to understand that we just take another loan and now we become victims of worse sort of usury, of Time's usury. It's just a matter of time untill we will have to pay a rate of interest more ruinous than any other creditor would require.

More about Time Usury

Let me drive home a few examples of Time Usury. It is not really hard to find them. Like, for instance, the sports figure who takes anabolic steroids. Such a one compels Time to grant him/her a loan to finance physical riches in the present. Yet the interest will be compounded and come due later in life with some tragic weakness or chronic malady.

One who turbocharges their motorbike can ride faster, but not for very long. Turbocharged engines don't last.

It is possible, for instance, to make a tree bear fruit within a few days, but this will be the only good crop on that tree. Later it will wither away.

It was even thought possible to postpone the food crisis on the planet by switching to hybrid seed and chemical farming. A half-century of government and corporate meddling with the human food supply has produced only little success for such a great cost to the soil, and loss of genetic diversity. The long term impact to human health is as yet unknown, but obesity has already become an international scourge - a graphic example of the ballooning interest mankind is paying for genetically whipping plants into unnatural growth patterns.

Someone who is going to buy food or medicine or is about to vote for new energy sources will want to estimate their safety. Everyone should take into account a maxim of universal application attributed to the Emperor Napoleon: everything that is unnatural is imperfect. Don't disregard this old Napoleonic rule, because everything that is unnatural is not only imperfect and harmful to consume, but is also very profitable to produce.

Nowadays the blind belief in progress, with all its seeming miracles, breeds a form of arrogance. With most of these miracles, the violation of natural principles to achieve a short term gain will compound a high debt to be paid in the future.

May, 2006

About debt to Nature and nature of debts

Charles Dickens gave very plain and true remark about indebtedness -"If a man had twenty pounds a year for his income, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy, but that if he spent twenty pounds one he would be miserable"

It is really simple with indebtedness of individuals, with nature it is not, for there is no scale for us to measure where we stand with our debt, it is why humanity living off its "ecological credit card" and nature is constantly being abused. There are symptoms however, such as oil wars, rush to build new Atomic plants- they indicate that we are already at the point when easy energy opportunities have dried up. Those symptoms not catastrophic yet, but their trend is clear- they mark the road to misery.

Throughout the 90s, experts in a range of fields have began to see the same closing window of possibility to make the planetary energy system self-sustaining, without obligating future generations to Times Usury.

Half of the world's Nobel laurates have warned these are the last few years when civilization still has the wealth and time for making positive changes, to set the economic limits in line with natural ones.

Wise people were unison in opinion that it is better to have a life with reduced living standart and energy consumption than no life at all. They warned that failure to take appropriate measures now will risk disintegration of our civilization, because if we don't do those things now, while we prosper, we will never be able to do them when things out of hand.

Now, just in past ages, the wise are warning of disasters to come. The UN was set up by presumably wise men, and it should be the instrument for turning around the deteoriating world situation. Instead the UN now selfishly serves the interests of the nuclear monster and its corporate patrons.

May, 2006

Post 20th-Anniversary note

The 20th annivesary of the Chernobyl disaster didn't bring us any lasting solution to the nuclear monster. There was much noise on tv and other broadcast media, and a lot of thrashing in the press... Most of this was only lip-service, being sponsored by International Atomic Agency and local nuclear barons with no other aim than to mislead the public.

Here we are in mid-June 2006, only a couple of months later, and all that's left to remind us of the thousand year tragedy is a few photobooks and couple of movies. There is a thousand times more attention now being given to the world socker championship than ever there was to the 20th anniversary of Chernobyl.

It is impossible for a government of one State to keep the truth of nuclear accidents hidden from the rest of the World. Even so, the UN report of September 2005 is proof that all member governemnts support and further the lie of safe nuclear energy. The real problem of Chernobyl is that no one wants to face its reality. Not here in Ukraine, not in Russia, not in America or anywhere in Europe. We have different economic and political systems, but greed in high places is the same everywhere and its legacy controls all of us.

Neither we shall expect any breakthrough for truth in the future. Time is not our ally here because it robs us of our memories. Year after year the memory of Chernobyl fades. The only way to keep it alive for future generations is to infuse music, art, and literature with the Chernobyl thematic; to entwine it into spheres of artistic creativity which can outlive even some of Chernobyl's malevolent nuclear elements. Unfortunately, the whole of modern art and literature seemingly has no other purpose than to get a few dollars out of public pockets.

How can we preserve the knowledge for future generations if we are not even able to interest our contemporaries in doing so?

Most authors prefer to avoid Chernobyl and its tragic aftermath, for everyone understand Lichtenberg was right when he said,- "You can make a good living from soothsaying but not from truthsaying."

Everyone who writes for money must advertise in the big papers, which are all politically correct and greed-controlled. Large news agencies and papers won't advertise Chernobyl relative works, except for those that serve their selfish interests. Such fare is seldom objective.

Next chance to remind people about Chernobyl will be in 5 years, on 25th anniversary, but there will be even fewer memories of it surviving then. Fewer still that can stand up to ever more demand for cheap nuclear energy and will be another socker cup.

June, 2006

"Black Land" song

The only time our tv shows accurate and interesting programs and films about Chernobyl are near the days of its anniversary, but only at odd times. For example like at its 10th and 20th anniversaries when they showed related programs between 2am and 5am, exactly at the time when our traditional-thinking majority sleeps.

Because of this I have to stay awake during the wee morning hours on every anniversary watching for what may be new and honestly presented programs.

On the 20th anniversary I spotted a good program of creative art from people who live in contaminated areas. Stories, poetry, paintings and songs of those who live in close to Chernobyl villages.

The program left me with the strong, metallic aftertaste of radioactivity and the bitterness - no wonder it was scheduled for middle of the night. The most remarkable was the haunting song of an autistic girl, about eleven or twelve years old, which she called "Black Land."

She sang it in the Belorussian language, a dialect which I find hard to understand, but the feeling it left in me was not only because of her words or melody. I'd say it had the aura of a pagan liturgy, full of tellurian mystics, where you can hear the echo of desolated regions, something of the whispered tones and the furtive look of solitude. It was a hymn of desertion; a chant to dispel the curse of dawn in wormwood villages. In its notes vibrated a new and dangerous kind of silence - of burying something in silence. This song was absolutely inhuman and could only be the distillation of a mind that was born and raised amidst ruins of Chernobyl.

Kids are like wine, they absorb flavor of their environment. When a boy or a girl has been sitting alone, with their soul in complete discord, year after year, day after night without any hope of ever seeing the light, their minds begin seeking for a new harmony which is completely different from the foreground noise of life. They start digging passages and labyrinths deep into their self, and eventually their concepts acquire the twilight color of catacombs. It may be a coal mine or gold mine, one can become a cave bear or treasure digger. Similarly a monster or a monster chaser- we never know..

They emit this peculiar odour of a diver who just returned from the depth. They are honest, their opinions are not cop-outs, their words are not a mask and their creative art is not meant to deceive.

Our society should give them a chance to express themselves openly, yet most of society is asleep when their work is shown. Thus, during the day and in good conscience, everyone can watch government sponsored programs and films which are directed and paid for by the nuclear industry.

***************************

Chernobyl is so easily forgotten because it was only known to ourselves. In a first years after the accident we didn't want to share our story with the world, now we can not share it, we hardly remember it ourselves. All that remains of the tragic tale is a memory, weak and disfigured by time. In the future, indifference of people will smother the few remaining embers until at last they too are extinguished. After that Chernobyl will always remain inside knowledge of a few eminent individuals and the sole property of nature.

My spring publications

In April, 2006 I planned to present my Chernobyl materials to as many non-Internet readers as possible.. My publications were presented to audience in more than 20 countries through newspapers, magazines, books and TV documentaries. Eventually, I became unsatisfied with this, because in most cases my materials were edited to shreds. My thoughts were excluded from most publications.

Insight is the center of gravity of any work, let it be book or film or internet website, but it appears many only wanted free photos, videos, some info, but not insight. It's because information is merely a means towards insight and can be easily distorted and altered to serve the interests of political, financial and media groups. Insight, on the other hand is intellects final product, it can not be altered or perverted, only insight serves the truth and insight is not in demand.

June, 2006

Post Totalitarian Consumerism.

In my part of the World, New Energy Program became possible due to the changes that our society has undergone during past two decades.

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, people were flooding into the streets, with both religious and environmental protests. The people were eagerly seeking the truth. Public interest in philosophy and history was revived, freedom was in the air... Still, the People were poor, the wound of Chernobyl was fresh, and prices for non-atomic energy resources were cheap. That era is ended now.

Those tender sprouts of real freedom and democracy have been weeded out. Things have changed tremendously. In a totalitarian state, the government kept the information from the people, now, in a "free state", the people keep the information from themselves. Everyone seems to be happier outwardly, well fed, better clothed, and sheltered... Any protests are now only political. In the end, everyone is fooled by one party or another.

The real rulers of the country are financial groups that mass-merchandize their issues with the same psychological techniques that business has developed to sell goods. Their chosen political candidates, like hunchbacks, show us only their best sides and push receptor buttons that appeal only to the weaknesses of the masses. It seems, therefore, they seek mostly for the people to remain weak-headed, and do everything possible to achieve this, through constant pushing on those buttons and dispelling common sense whenever and wherever it dares to appear.

Most every paper, news, radio and TV station belongs to an entrenched establishment that takes refuge under a sign proclaiming itself to be an abode of free speech. But speech must be immune from government control in order to be truly free, and these days that can most reliably be found in the unfettered resources on the internet. I'd say, it is chiefly through the medium of internet that learned and free thinking public exist today at all. The old-line media would be happy to conceal the thick puppet strings that connect themselves to the official establishment, and to completely dismiss all internet sources as irrelevant. Fortunately, they don't know how.

The result of this policy is well seen already: the study of history is in steep decline, and the most popular philosophy is the one that helps us obtain only material wealth. Orwell was prescient, it's done through the television. Most people now agree to live by bread and TV shows alone... . What suits our "leaders" is a society where the decision to build new atomic plants can be made without any debates... Adolph Hitler once exclaimed, "What luck for the rulers that the people do not think!" The post-Chernobyl madness illustrates this very well, because people who would rather not think are eagerly welcomed by the rulers whose power relies upon perpetuating public ignorance.

* * * * *

All totalitarian regimes eventually will collapse, because their ideologies rooted in hatred and envy- those are human secondary vices and can be defeated, while consumerism is grounded inward in human nature, it is rooted in avarice, pride and lust, in cardinal (primary) vices, for which there is no escape.

It is striking to see to what an extraordinary degree life is the same everywhere: the inability to resist the interests of corporations, whether in Asia, Europe or America. It's like we're all in the same room now, the only difference among us being that we entered at different times, through different doorways.

June, 2006

Two type of authors

There are basically two type of authors who write about Chernobyl; and they are separated by their motivations. Some write to keep the memory of Chernobyl alive, but far too many others write in an effort to make a living off of Chernobyl.

One is market by the steady, sober and quiet pace of a permanent record. And the other proceeds at the full gallop of sensationalism, as each author attempts to shout louder then the other, because the level of noise they make corresponds dirrectly to the amount of money they accrue from a national tragedy. But as hoopla they create echoes into the fading distance, they are nowhere to be found, because they have already dashed off to another sensation that they can process into a nice, fat paycheck.

And because their writings are carefully worded to avoid thereatening the system, and stepping on any big toes of nuclear monster, the media eagerly trumpets their works, either they pro or anti nuclear, they are not dangerous, their action is always based on motive, and, therefore, fragmentary and fleeting.

The names of authors involved in the slow and methodical research of Chernobyl- and for non monetary motives- goes unsung. And part of the reason for that is because their detail and permanency poses a danger to the powerful men who caused it. One sterling example of this is the documentary "Suicidal mission to Chernobyl"- a movie that many people have been hunting for since 1991. Where did it vanish to, and why? I also treasure the works of the Chernobyl writer Irene Zabytko, and the photographs of Igor Kostin.

There are probably others, but there is no way to know for sure, because all of the really important works are being concealed from the public. And in their place are only silly popular distractions like "The Da Vincii Code"

June, 2006

P.S.

I shall probably elaborate on my thoughts on the "Two Type of Authors" to explain why Chernobyl scares off most of these creative folks.

Any work on Chernobyl thematic can only be humanitarian work, where author can expect few, if any, rewards. On this subject no achievement will be favorably received and will remain in obscurity untill the time, when third part of the world will become wormwood.

Most authors work for one of two reasons: either to get paid or to get recognition (fame). There is an incomparably fine saying of Seneca's, that fame (recognition) follows merit as surely as the body casts a shadow; sometimes falling in front, and sometimes behind.

Most authors will only work if they see good things before them. But Chernobyl presents a case where, no matter how great their literary or investigative achievement, troubles will always loom ahead them while the shadow of fame will always lag behind, a long way behind.

Charity Today

In April 2006, my book "Tjernobyl" was published in Sweden, and I decided to sell about 50-60 books on eBay with the intent of sending the proceeds to orphanage N1, in Kharkov (Ukraine) My charity auction was banned from eBay on the second day. The reason was purely political. And in banning my book from that auction, eBay has deprived those orphans of the oranges, soccer balls and bicycles that the money could have bought.

It is no wonder that so many starving and kids eat from garbage cans, when honest attempt to help them is sabotaged for scummy political reasons.

June, 2006

Nuclear export

There is a boom in the exports of nuclear technologies to the countries of third world, and especially the Middle East.. There is fierce competition to build nuclear plants in Iran, Pakistan, India, Turkey and Egypt.

However, the countries who export these technologies, and have been dealing in atomic facilities for many years, have gradually gone through an evolution in the process of developing different types of reactors and have developed a skilled school of scientists and professionals who keep the reactors relatively safe. Also, most of the exporting countries have a democratic societal structure, which allows the whole thing to occur above the table, but the countries that these nuclear technologies are being exported to often live on the brink of war.

When progress takes them unawares and raises to a high position without having led them there step by step, it is almost impossible to hold the position securely. Many countries can export technologies, but none of them export experience.

With the road accidents is the same, statistics say that the majority of drivers who got themselves killed inexperienced and drove fast cars and motorbikes. I always say - "If you want to get someone killed, buy him a fast motorcycle, but if you want to see everyone dead, build them an atomic reactor."

June, 2006

Back to UN report..

Conference itself is nothing new, it was organized by governments of Ukraine, Russia and Belorus, sponsored by IAEA and was conducted in best traditions of all official Soviet reports. All that is new is that now post-totalitarian regimes and western governments speak in a single, canned voice for hiding the truth of the Chernobyl disaster. Now, the representatives of Western democracies must all do exactly as their east european colleagues bid them. They must all parrot the same lies for they don't want any open confrontation with each other. This days West do not need any more enemies, they already got plenty and everyone understand that if the donor countries of ex Soviet Union were hostile to their western collegues, and if the normal flow of raw materials were deliberately interrupted, the nations of the West would find themselves in a very bad way, indeed. Their industrial system would collapse. Of course, under such conditions the "Powers That Be" can easily find approval among politicians and now they build new reactors in the West too. Their main argument is that peaceful atom will help them to escape a new economic dictatorship, and make them immune against OPEC conspiracy, etc. However, the truth is that they are already being manipulated and thus sing in the choir of liars where once crooned the likes of Stalin and Khrushev.

Whoever says that Western democracies are any more accountable or responsible than their post Soviet counterparts need only look at signatures at the bottom of this UN report. We are all reduced to the same "common denominator" when it comes to matters of nuclear expediency. If we let the UN walk away, unchallenged, with this and other lies, then globalization will only be a process of adopting each other shortcomings, of levelling down, a universal downgrading to the mindset of third world countries.

July, 2006

Journalists

From the very beginning, and to this very day, the subject of the Chernobyl disaster is off limits to serious scientists and researchers. Journalists are never denied entry to the Chernobyl area, and this easy access causes them to report, mistakenly, that the region is also open to researchers.

The problem with most journalists is that they can not see farther their noses. They usually believe in what they write, even if it is spoon-fed by authorities. They are allowed entry to Chernobyl because their work presents no real danger to the system.

Due to short-sightedness journalists are completely incapable of writing anything substantial. Their articles live like mosquitoes for only one day and everyone understands that breaking news and headlines are the strident chorus to the drama of current events. Every reporter seeks, for the sake of their trade, to be an alarmist and noise maker. Exaggeration in every sense is as essential as it is to the writing of a soap opera. They huff and puff as much as possible into every event and no one really pays much attention to their bellowing. The goal is to shout louder than all their fellows, and readers quickly become deaf to any real alarm that may be sounded.

The reason why the battle for Chernobyl is losing is because journalists and TV reporters are the ones with the best opportunity to tell people the truth about it, while writing for papers and magazines do not have any long term impact, it is like writing in the sand, where every new wave of publications washes away all previous knowledge.

There are still more chances to find good report about Chernobyl in local papers and TV programs of small news agencies. They must compete hard. They spin everything to make as much as possible of every occurance, without the usual limits constraining the mainstream media.

The worlds largest news agencies are more restrained and claim to be professional, but the real reason they seem restrained is that they don't have to compete. They are State-sponsored and making money is not their objective.

They need few if any advertisements on the prime TV channels and can give their newspapers away almost for free. What they produce need not be profitable, it just a means of feeding the State agenda to their captive audience. It is said that we are what we eat, and therefore we the people are both the target and final product of their tainted buffet.

Millions, maybe billions, of fooled people now believe they are 'safe' when any moment they may become cannon fodder for their nearest nuclear facility.

August, 2006

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In area of Chernobyl, the people who live and work in one part do not have any idea of what goes on in the other. Officials in Pripyat do not know what goes on in Belorussia, the officials in Belorussia are without any idea of how things stand in Russia and so on. In this way Chernobyl presents itself as a dark and unexplored cave, where only journalists can visit. In the writings of journalists we find at the most only what they want to show us. In contrast, the work of the systematic thinker, who mentally embraces everything, shows as a broad landscape. We see the whole and how everything hangs together. The journalist seeks and finds their needle by the beam of a flashlight which casts a light, and that dimly, only on the place where it happens to be pointed. Whereas the mind of a first rank thinker ignites a thousand lamps that floods the whole cave with light. Chernobyl is closed for serious researchers because no one really wants to see the light in this cave.

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Captains, rats and first class passengers

Nuclear reactor at Chernobyl exploded at 1:23 AM. First escapees were relatives of party bosses and ministers. Their planes were already taking off at 6 AM, just a few hours after explosion. The rest of us first learned of the accident several days later.

There is old saying that rats are the first to leave a sinking ship. Chernobyl illustrates it may not be true, because during that as well as during titanic disaster the first class passengers escaped even sooner.

August, 2006

Last note

Chernobyl politics is the perfect tool to x-ray our life: it reveals all the hypocrisy of the world, its falsehood, greed, and the general shallowness of human affairs.

Look at the UN conference, where the members seem so brilliant and distinguished. Look at all those learned professors of science and medicine. See how government officials welcome their every new report, and how vigorously they clap their hands... But in reality, each of them is sleeping and begins to applaud only when they see one or two others around them applauding - a chain reaction of flabby minds. It is only these one or two persons who follow the conference, like an alarm clock they are always there to wake up the others and secure the loudest applause for the poorest reporter.

Look, during the Chernobyl requiem, a crowd of officials moving up so slowly, candles in hand, how melancholy it looks! What an endless row of expensive cars! But look into their eyes - they are all empty, they are only suits who parade to commemorate their own victims.

What an eloquent picture of hypocrisy and hollowness of our life! One really perfect example of Chernobyl's legacy is the desolation in people's souls, the utter devastation of society. Triumph of idiocy.

August, 2006Chernobyl journal (Volume2)Radiophobia

After the Chernobyl accident, multiple cases of mental disorders were reported. The Soviet, and as well as post Soviet, psychiatrists diagnosed all of them as Radiophobia.

In Stalin's GULAG prison camps, they were short of pills, so whoever visited the doctor was receiving "Analgin", which was the same pill for all illnesses. Sometimes doctors broke the pill on half and told the prisoners, - " take one half for the fever, and the other half for the ulcers." This is exactly the same method of treatment victims receive for all sorts of Chernobyl disorders, no matter what bothers them, the diagnosis is "Radiofobia" , and the treatment is always the same useless pill.

September, 2006.

Belorus

The Chernobyl radiation poisoned 1/5 of the total territory of neighbouring country of Belorus, which I call Belorussia. Everyone know this land is too poisoned for farming, and radiation will still be there when Lukashenko's perpetual presidency is ancient history.

This spring, Luka won a another presidential term, jailed the opposition leader, and declared total victory over all his enemies including Chernobyl. He solemnly announced that some parts of the land are now safe for people to reinhabit.

I wanted to write him a letter to congratulate him on his victory, and to propose that his administration and their families become the first settlers of those dead villages..

I heard that they succeeded in gathering "volunteers" for this idea. Among those who agreed to participate in this experiment are people who have nowhere to go, including recent prison parolees and refugees from former Soviet Republics in Central Asia and Chechnya.

So far, all official attempts to breathe new life into Chernobyl have failed, and the only tangible results of their efforts are a few pages of wildly optimistic statistics made for UN reports.

September, 2006

Our education.

Chernobyl must be revealed to young and should become a required subject for study in school, because learning about hypocrisy of the world at a young age will prevent many from being overly naive as adults.

In the Soviet Union, nuclear physics was a privileged branch of science. As if wrapped in cotton wool, scientists developed nuclear technologies under surveillance of KGB, their studies being focused exclusively on Marx and science. The humanitarian parts of education were purposely ignored by their curriculum. The State didn't need philosophers, it needed efficient scientists and patriots who wouldn't think of leaking nuclear secrets to the CIA. Eventually this exclusive cultivation of technique produced scientists who did not understand the total process of life and therefore had little conscience for their activities. The Soviet system of education didn't teach any respect for human beings. Without love and respect for life in general, and human life in particular, knowledge only leads to destruction and misery.

Being privileged means being arrogant, they didn't listen to anyone who was not of their league. The designers of Chernobyl reactor were told many times not to build reactors close to large population centers, but they ignored it. They were told that building reactors with no caps was dangerous, but they built them anyway. They even built Chernobyl type reactors after the accident.

Chernobyl is as much a result of faulty totalitarian education system, where the temples of learning were like a chess-board. A professor of nuclear science had privileges of a queen, while professors of history, literature or Einstein physics had less respect than a pawn. The decades of clinging to formulas and repeating slogans had produced millions of scholars and technicians with out-dated skills and leaden hearts. All these were dumped onto the job markets when the Soviet system collapsed. These very same clods are now back in business - in the business world.

The question is what now? Is new the generation of nuclear physicists and control room operators more professional than the previous? I doubt it, because at least during the Soviet times students had to study. Now in my part of the world everyone can bribe their way through examinations or just buy their diploma. No way for them to learn from Chernobyl, because the truth of Chernobyl is hidden from them as well as from the rest of us. The irresponsibility of officials and designers of new reactors is encouraged by the fact that no one was punished after accident of Chernobyl. Now they do what they always did but this time more blatantly, and with real cynicism, because they know they will never be held accountable for their acts.

Many governments are controlled by large corporations and have taken present day education under their control. They combine their efforts and work together in the area of education or training of young children to NOT THINK critically about what corporations and governments are doing, but to give the young a cleaned-up or sanitized version of events that always gives future citizens and consumers a feel-good view of government-corporate power and influence. They cultivate productivity, efficiency, and success, but again, subjects which teach the respect and understanding of human life are suppressed. Students only study for a specific profession, they are taught how to earn a degree and to be mechanically productive - but without being intelligent.

The whole modern school system is a conveyor, teachers seeking to get bribes out of students seeking to get diplomas. Our educational system is on the last stage of degradation, it allows the word "Wormwood" to be removed from dictinaries. It produces medics who conclude that kids of Chernobyl having higher IQ than children from not contaminated areas, journalists who write that Chernobyl was just a little fire accident... What about seminar, where they adopted the agenda "Let's finish all talks about Chernobyl"

This system suits our ruling elite, because it is making us all subservient and incomplete, deeply thoughtless, and hopelessly passive. Such a domesticated population is consistently useful for the manipulations of the ruling class of society. This is the dream of every government: To get in control a crowd who, like a herd of animals, could be moved from one contaminated place to other. But this dream of a Utopian. This days underdeveloped society can not ever exist, much less survive, with so many chemical industries and nuclear facilities, any mindless society is destined for omnicide. Counting down to Doomsday...

September, 2006

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Amateurs! Unprofessionals! this is derogatory cry of those who apply themselves to research of Chernobyl, for the sake of gain raise, against those who pursue it for desire to find out the truth or from a pure interest in the history of Chernobyl.

This derogation rests upon the fact that personal gain raised through party-line research on Chernobyl can be obtained only through defending the interests of the power industry, and also upon promoting at every opportunity the universal conviction that everyone lacking degrees and diplomas can never be taken seriously. The general public, who do not understand anything about the issues of radiation, has the same outlook and consequently holds the same opinion. This is the origin of it's trust for government officials and respect for "the professionals" and disrespect to "dilettantes and unprofessionals".

The truth however, is that to the amateur the thing is the end, while for professional as such it is the means; In reality the only true professionals are those persons directly interested in Chernobyl and who occupy themselves with it from pure interest in the subject. The word amateur comes from the Latin verb amare which wants to say to like. An amateur does what he does because he likes to do it, and not because he or she is paid to do it. Only this type will pursue it with entire seriousness. It is from such as these, and not from wage-earners and careerists, that the greatest achievements have always come.

As for researchers who remain unrecognized and therefore forever thought to be unprofessional, their biggest problem is that they have to receive acknowledgment and degrees from the hands of the nuclear barons. In this respect Shopenhauer rightly said that the greatest misfortune of all intellectual merit is that it has to wait until the good is praised by those who produce only the bad.

Baby Food

The question I often ask myself is how long people will remain in darkness about Chernobyl? General history shows that comprehension of such complex issues as the Chernobyl disaster and its aftermath requires time for development. It is understandable that for the power industry the news was not favourably received and many want to bury the information in obscurity. Nevertheless, sooner or later there will come those who will discern without enmity or favor. Only then will facts win notice from intelligence of a higher order than accountants and spin doctors.

Optimist in me want to believe that the question will afterwards be gradually subjected to examination; light will be thrown upon it; it will be thought over, considered, discussed, and eventually in the end the correct view will be reached. After a time - the length of which depends upon the difficulty of the subject - the general population will come to understand that what every incisive intellect saw immediately.

Whether we ever live to see this day depends upon many factors, generally, the higher and more important a historic event, the less likelihood there is of survivors and witnesses ever living to reach the day when the fog lifts and truth is revealed for everyone. For instance, it took 50-70 years for majority of people here to learn truth about revolution, famines and repressions. It seems, that the history only triumph over aged evils, while the present and recent evils are easily triumph over history. In case with Chernobyl, it may last longer, but the matter won't last forever.

There is a special benefit which everyone with a clear head has enjoyed: it is seeing clearly in the midst of general disinformation. One learns the true nature of things instantly, not in a half century like the simple souls who wait for the final result to be chewed, digested, and regurgitated to them on tv history channels.

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What impresses me about Chernobyl is the half-life of some nuclear isotopes. A hundred, thousand, even tens of thousands of years! "Chernobyl will last until the second coming of Jesus," Gorbachov once said in an interview.

This spring the news anchors have introduced a new expression: "Old Chernobyl" Perhaps in this way they want to make us believe that Chernobyl is now fading history and soon will be gone completely...

Unfortunately, it is only its victims who are gone even before getting old. Chernie remains forever young, forever dangerous. The birth pains of its nuclear accident 20 years ago is just a few seconds in the age of this eternal infant.

I believe, part of the reason why the general population is not capable of seeing the extended age problem of nuclear accidents is because people can only comprehend time when it is already past. We are still too close to the time of Chernobyl to see the whole scale of its disaster.

Like a big building that requires a view from a long distance to see the shape of the whole structure, so it is with Chernobyl: the whole monstertude of its lengthening shadow will only appear after many generations. After that, it will not disappear until the End of Days.

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They say, in a kingdom of blind, one eyed man is a king. If you can see truly in the midst of general disinformation, then you are like someone who has at least one eye, when everyone around you has none.

You are truly a king or a queen, and you see things as they really are, while the rest believe what they want to hear. You see, everyone is applying false standards and being led by stone blind guides, all groping about among the other sightless wanderers, but you can do nothing to change it. There is no way for you to help anyone to learn what you see; for that they will need your eyes.

September, 2006

New Element (Parody)

Scientists of one of banana republic recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium."

Governmentium (Gv) has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 98 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 212. These 212 particles are held together by forces called morons. Morons still unexplored substance, the distinctive feature of which is large amount of pockets.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 years; it mass will constantly increase over time, because during decay cycle, the mass of pockets of assistant neutrons, deputy neutrons and assistant deputy neutrons on the increase and when it reaching critical concentration, the stucture undergoes a reorganization, in which some morons become a neutrons, a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes everything with which it comes into contact and it comes in reaction with everything that has electrons and not inert. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take over four days to complete.

When Gv decays, it falls into another new elements, Retiredum (Re) and Retardium (Rt) which some call Dementium (Dm)

September, 2006

Bloggers and journalists

Nowdays mainstream media must battle with tough competition from internet. Bloggers keep winning audience and more and more newspapers are on the brink of bankruptcy. The reason is simple, internet bloggers are much more objective, genuine, and liberated than folks who work for news agencies. Newspaper reporters and anchors often wonder why people are blogging on the internet. What they really can't understand is why bloggers will do for free what they, reporters, can not accomplish for money.

Basically bloggers do a better job because they don't write for money. People will start writing badly as soon as they write for pay. An author can only remain objective when writing for the sake of the facts he or she is revealing. Authors who write for money are much like prostitutes: Their goal is to please media bosses and please tastes of reading public. Further, just like prostitutes, it is impossible for them to receive pleasure from their activity. A dedicated blogger never seeks to please anyone's taste. Very often they work in defiance of all official and business policies, writing only for the pleasure of thinking and sharing with others their private conclusions.

Journalists and bloggers are so different. A true blogger can not write for the media just like a newspaper reporter can not blog.

Everyone who applies for work at any news agency, regardless if it is paper or tv or radio, shall be prepared to follow all instructions of political correctness, such as not to offend ethnic minorities, not to hurt religious feelings, not to step on any fat toe of the nuclear monster, not to bite a feeding hand of chemical food production etc... With all those restrictions the mind of journalist is being shackled to a frame of limitations and, like a bird in a cage, can not move. The mind of a blogger is a free bird, flying without boundary, seeing everything as it really is. The blogger can therefore speak his mind without constraint. The basic intelligence or education of the blogger is not important, what matters most is that such a person is master of their own thoughts and their intellect keeps on growing. In contrast, the mind of a journalist inevitably bogs down in a morass of ignorance and apathy and is therefore constantly degrading.

If you are going to work for mainstream media, you will have to obey all their rules. Eventually you will feel as if you received invitation to a disco and, upon arrving, found everyone dancing on crutches. Later you will discover that, apart from those who are naturally lame, there are actually some good dancers who wear crutches only because they have to feed their families. If you join in the dance of the lame, then in a number of years you will find that you, too, are lame and that you can no longer dance without crutches. Congratulations - you have become a journalist.

October, 2006

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Our civilised world is a big masquerade-show, where grief of officials, smiles of shop-keepers, compassion of philanthropists and voluptuousness of porno actors are only masks, there is nothing real about them. One puts on the mask of law and becomes a lawyer, another chooses the mask of patriotism which morphs him or her into a politician, sometimes a politician takes environmental issues of doctrine then he becomes the environmentalist and so on. Basically, behind most of those masks are moneymakers and counterfeiters, whose success rates as con men are greater than their abilities to hide their real faces.

With countries of the world it goes exactly the same: each presents only a happy-face, fabricated by an assortment of politicians, pop stars, movie personalities, sport figures, and celebrities of all kinds.

They present only the "game-face" of their countries, and we can learn nothing from them. The real face of a country is revealed when the social uprisings, strikes, and wars break their brittle little masks apart. As the scales fall away, for a little while we see their real problems. Chernobyl in this respect is a complete disaster, the image of my country is tarnished for decades. In the first 10 years after the accident it was really hard for them to put any mask on such a gloomy face, but all her citizens can now join the masquerade-ball. Ukraine has gotten herself some good socker players, boxers, singers and dancers. No matter how dark the night, the party can just go on and on...

September, 2006

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In Gulag prison system when convicts wanted to kill some informant, without anyone being held responsible, they usually coiled a long rope around the neck of the traitor. Then a few dozen people pulled one side, and few dozen pulled the other side of the rope. In this way, no particular person could be determined as having caused the actual death.

The more people involved in the rope-pulling, the greater the chances for all of them to escape both punishment and personal accountability. This is the main principal of all collective crimes and this explains why the number of Chernobyl victims is always the same and why no one has ever admited guilt or expressed any remorse for this crime. There were just too many people on both sides of the rope.

September, 2006

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Today, on December, 16th, 2006 I noticed that the level of radiation at my home was higher than normal. I went outside and measured the radiation at a different parts of my neighbourhood. I used several different Geiger counters just to be sure. They showed 20-25 mR/hr, which is two times greater than normal.

Later, through my information sources, I learned that the higher radiation level was the result of some maintenance work on the Chernobyl sarcophagus - (they opened up part of its roof) This left me wondering if the new radiation was reflected or if it was brought with the wind. We can only guess because there is no mention of any such event in the news, and our weather report says the levels are normal.

December, 2006

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In February 2007, my friends' father died of lung cancer. He worked in Chernobyl as a driver from the first day of the nuclear accident in 1986. At his funeral I met an other driver, a collegue of the dead man. We spoke as we waited for the burial service and I learned some interesting things. He told me he is the last survivor from the pool of drivers that were sent to Chernobyl. He also said that the territory, which is surrounded with barbed wire and known as the "Chernobyl Dead Zone," is not a 30 kms radius around the reactor, but it actually 40-50 kms. Upon arriving home, I checked my maps and yes, only one checkpoint is at a distance of only 30 kms from reactor. The other dozen checkpoints are located 45-50 kms from ground zero. Why does everyone refer to the Chernobyl "Dead Zone" as 30 kilometers when the radius is in fact 45 kms? What about the huge area beyond of this territory? Does anyone think the barbed wire can keep the radiation from spreading. The way our eyes follow the ball instead of the game is really frightening...

About book publishing

Twelve years ago I was delivering books to a prison. We were also cleaning all the old Soviet books out of its library. The prison Librarian, whom I depicted in the short story "Nikholayevich", wept at seeing thousands of such books being carried out of his library. 'Several generations,' he said, 'have been raised with those books and now we just have to throw them away for utilization.

These days when I walk through endless rows of new books at some book fair, exactly like my friend the librarian, I can only sigh with thoughts that in just a few years none of those authors will be remembered at all. The whole of modern literature is a lottery that has never had any winning tickets, because now it is industry, where everyone is busy with making money off literature: authors and publishers, critics and advertisers - all corrupt - they keep together, mutually sustain each other, they are part of the same system and all have but one goal: robbing the reading public of their time and money.

Such industry thrives on the mindless desire of the public to buy only books on the bestsellers list. Open any such book and you will see it melts on your mind, like cotton candy, without leaving any after taste. It is because there is no way to publish ones thoughts in book form. This system is intolerable to intellect, it forces authors to write about dragons or flying saucers or anything, except reality. Similarly, there is absolutely no way to publish a book about Chernobyl here. All our Chernobyl books must be printed in Western Europe and now with resurgence of nuclear monster it became difficult to print them anywhere.

Very little of our modern literature will stand beyond the day after tomorrow, except those by mediocre authors: the inventors of new clamour, with strong connections to show business, who create another period in a history of literature that will make posterity sigh when it lights upon a grotesque architecture of words. It will push the door of this decayed structure and find it utterly empty, nothing alive inside of sarcophagus, not a single living flower can be extracted from that dry herbarium of conventionalities, not even a trace of thought to stop the future librarians from throwing our time bestsellers to the recycling can.

October, 2006 **************

Chernobyl is alien to the spirit of our epoch, because our culture denies all misery and only accepts success. We learn only to seek the maximum pleasure with minimum thought. Realism has no place today and one who speaks with a realistic outlook sounds like a terrible pessimist. The huge propaganda machine teaches that happiness is mandatory while misery is optional. Its relentless mantra is 'enjoy life every day in every way and to live, like there is no tomorrow.' Eventually, this prevents whole societies from admitting and learning from their mistakes. As a result, the world keeps generating more and more of bad news.

At all times, the first rule for wise conduct of life has been expressed by Aristotle. He bids us direct our aim, not toward securing what is pleasurable and agreeable in life, but toward avoiding, as far as possible, its innumerable evils. Now, this rule is disregarded. I believe that side-stepping it is the source of all our present and future troubles. How can people avoid evils, mistakes, and failures if they deny such problems even exist?

P.S.

If we live like there is no tomorrow, there won't be.

[Footnote 1: "The prudent man seeks not pleasure but freedom from pain" Aristotle "The Nicomachean Ethics" 1152b10

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Chernobyl is a hard lesson and it has shown to the world that we cannot let technology get ahead of our own development.

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Chernobyl Churches

There are more than 2,000 dead towns and villages within a radius of 250 kms (155 miles) around the twisted, Chernobyl reactor. There is no way to count all the villages because many have been systematically demolished by the authorities and some roads are ruined now.

Traveling through the dead zone I have yet to see any ruined church. Looters are superstitious folks and are afraid to rob churches. Also, nearby community members come to fix the abandoned churches every few years, so they stand longer than all other buildings in the area.

Doors in these old churches are unlocked. There is nothing valuable inside, only a couple of cheap icons, towels and slightly radioactive Bible - usually opened to the page where the age of wormwood is foretold (Revelation 8: 10,11*). Few people can remain unaffected when they learn that the Ukrainian word for 'wormwood' is 'Chernobyl'. I am not exception and this inspired me to explore the sacred side of Chernobyl.

Chernie is haunted by many ghosts, because there are two spiritual armies still and always at war: the forces of good and evil. As long as the churches still stand, the battle continues. It is not just an empty place, like those deserted coal mining towns. Chernobyl is magical, repellent, interesting and frightening at the same time. One who travels solo through Chernobyl never feels like he or she is alone, there is the ever-present feeling of being watched. The discomfort is real. This supernatural and unpleasant sensation can be felt even through the photos and videos of Cherny. The Christians call it: the presence of the devil.

I don't believe Chernobyl is only about the bitter taste of Wormwood, the falling star of Revelation. Our Chernobyl is just the final consequence of compounded human error and greed, the root causes of which are also indicated throughout many books of old and new testament.

If I had to bring a few passages from the Bible that explains the causes of Chernobyl, I'd bring as the most striking and most appealing the temptations of Jesus in the desert. These did not emanate from a finite, terrestrial intellect, but indeed, from the eternal, absolute and consumately evil mind of an exiled angel: Satan himself.

Those temptations are Miracle, Bread, and Authority. Temptation with Bread is the most applicable to the Chernobyl disaster and most difficult for the human race to resist.

'Thou see these stones in the desolate and glaring wilderness? Command that these stones be made bread - (and mankind will run after Thee. Show people a miracle and they will follow Thee),' croons the evil angel.

Jesus rejects them all, but mankind is too weak. Science knows how to turn uranium stones into both weapons and bread. The people embraced the vision with unbridled enthusiasm, lured by the tricks of nuclear alchemy. Never mind the penalties of Time's usury and the violation of all natural principles, the people chased after those tainted miracles, marched with nukes in parades, and shouted - Hurrah!

But after the reactor exploaded, the people lost their enthusiasm. Science, too, is frustrated and no one believes in miracles anymore. The time of free will is gone and the real nuclear violence begins. We can do little to stop it, because if we take away their sword we lose thereby our bread. The second advent of nukes is not about miracles as was the first - now, it is about necessity. Producing bread from nuclear stones now has become an industry fueled by the profits of doom.

In Satan's three temptations of Jesus we find, as if blended into one and foretold to us, the complete future history of man. We are shown three images, uniting in them all the future axiomatic, insoluble problems and contradictions of human nature. The seeds of this truth are rooted deep and wide inside the Bible; it is more than a few scattered passages. Chernobyl is a vital icon for modern Christianity, and a bitter fountain of learning for us all.

* Revelation 8: 10 - And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; 11 - And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.

Chernobyl Journal, (Volume 3)

If people knew about Chernobyl, they would think twice about bombing nuclear facilities. Extreme danger of nuclear contamination is present regardless if nuclear power plants or nuclear weapons production is the target. Our world has grown too small for bombing atomic reactors. Bombing nuclear facilities in Iran to make the world "safer" is insane - an oxymoron similar to "Holy war" or "fighting for peace"

Let's cast a retrospective look at half life of some nuclear elements as if we lived in a past. We can see, in what relation nuclear elements stand to the history of progress. The half-life of Americium is 458 years, and to spread this kind of contamination around the planet will send our civilization back to the age of Shakespeare. Plutonium contamination will poison our earth for 24,400 years, which sends us back to the age of mammoths. Neptunium-237 has an extraordinarily long half-life of two million years, and we are back to being monkeys again

In contrast the half-life of useful service for a politician can be measured in mere months, and most can not see any problem that exists beyond the length of this period. Let me drive home one more example to explain how small and miserable are the ambitions of our politicians: If the Romans had invented nuclear power and later someone would bomb their reactors, this land would still contain traces of radioactivity and we would still, 2000 years later, have armed militias guarding their dumps of high-level nuclear waste.

March, 2007

On an optimistic note

This days, I work on translating materials from my websites in European languages. Translation work began in December 2006, and by April 2007 more than 800 pages had been translated. This is important, because Chernobyl is never healed wound, real "Achilles' heel" of nuclear monster. I am sure, our efforts won't be wasted.

In regards to nuclear accidents, whenever any grievous error appears, gains notoriety and receives applause at the hands of officials, we should not despair but rather simply realize that they make a living out of the Nuclear Industry. Why would they ever want the full truth known? Public knowledge and acceptance of the truth would mean no jobs for them. They and their nuclear military complex have strong connections with politicians, they own the media, and they have all money in the world, because it is taxpayers money that the politicians pour into nuclear industry. With such depth of means they can withstand the likes of two or even three "Chernobyl like" events in a present, but they can not annihilate the past. It's just impossible. They will lose and we will win, because on our side is the unfailing tendency of time to correct knowledge and judgment. The past has reason on its side. If that reason is not admitted, it will return to demand it. The past is of its essence a revenant. If put out, it comes back and haunts, inevitably and the only way to separate from it is not to put it out, but to accept its existence and to live with it.

Reaching right judgement can be a long lasting process. It usually takes several generations for the general population to recognize of its own accord truths which those with clear vision detected at the first glance. How long this will take with Chernobyl, depends on us - people who already know the real state of things and are ready to inform the others. The length of this period is also depends upon the difficulty of the subject and all around radiation is deliberately made confusing, but in Chernobyl facts themselves are eloquent of a truth. No one can keep accidents of such magnitude concealed from public forever, not even almighty nuclear industry. Government officials will always cover up idustrial accidents, but it is not officials, neither industries who correct knowledge, it is we- regular people who make history right.

We are at the point that discovery is inevitable. The rules of sham and deception - emboldened by success and powered by the blind confidence of the blockheads who promote them will come to an end. The absurdity of all official reports about Chernobyl reached such a pitch that at last truth is obvious even to the dullest eye. We may thus let them go ahead. At this time, the wilder their statements, the better... and the easier for us to push them around and push them away.....

April, 2007

.............

During the cold war, this dangerous period that could have made Cherny look like a child's sparkler, academic Andrei Sakharov dared to critisize the Soviet nuclear programme. The outcome was following- arrests, interrogations, public disgrace... Sakharov believed reactors can be safe, when they were built underground.

Academic Legasov, who dreamt of an Instutute of Safe Technologies was made a scapegoat. He was diagnosed with cancer, which he received in Chernobyl, but the system forced him to leave his life even sooner, he commited suicide on the day of second annivesary of Chernobyl.

The press branded Dr Gordon Mac Lead a scaremonger after he proved that the accident at Three-Mile Island brought an increase in infant mortality.

Take any country, any time, and you will see that the story is the same ; whether we talk about Didier Anger arrested in France for organizing nuclear protest actions, in the 60-ties, or Youri Bandazhevsky, from Belorus, who studied genetic mutations in Chernobyl and was sentenced for 5 years in prison, after his foundings were published in 1996. Whether we have the murder of Karen Silkwood in USA or the murder of Hilda Murrell, an expert of nuclear waste in UK... the story is always the same. Only the time and place are different.

Still, I wish someone would attempt a study of the tragic history of all those who, before and since, have proclaimed to the world the dangers of nuclear power. I should have condemned the shabby way in which these scientists and researchers, who form the proudest possession of the various nations, were being treated. Such a history would tell of the martyrdom of almost all those who didn't want to adjust themselves to half-truth, but being driven by instinct to the needs of our common self-preservation wanted to find the whole truth, who did an invaluable service to humanity, and who applied all their talents and strength to warning people about nuclear danger they faced.

Such a history would show us how they were tormented to death and jailed, how they worked without recognition, without sympathy, without followers, how they were losing their jobs and lived in poverty, misery and fear, whilst honor, money and security were stolen by the unworthy. We would learn of how they were sneaking through the checkpoints, to bring out photos and reveal reality, how they investigated what truth really is and not what suits the mighty industrial/military complex. Mostly, how they worked without any chance to get their researches ever published. Their fate was like that of Esau who, while he was hunting and getting venison for his father, was robbed of the blessing by Jacob, disguised in his brother's clothes.. , Those people are lighthouses of humanity; and without them mankind would lose itself in atomic smoke and the boundless sea of monstrous errors. They are the salt of the earth, fruits of that tree, which Jesus said will be cut down and put in fire when it does not give a good fruit.

The work of every such person as it were, a sacred object of his or her life, and their aim in storing it away for unlucky posterity, who after they will inherit the wasted land with piles of radioactive garbage won't be interested in anything, other than knowing - how did this happen and how it began.

April, 2007

Unlucky posterity

To understand why posterity will be so unlucky as to be forcefully purified of the dross of civilisation, let's foreshadow a course along which our present movement is taking us. The story of our civilization is a story of swineherd, who has wasted his father's possessions with pigs of this world, who has adulterated his father's inheritance with evil beasts and corporative monsters. The future of our civilization is as predictable as the life of an alcoholic, who is not led by free will, but instead is being dragged by the chains of needs and necessity.

Up to 1980s, we may be compared, in respect of the way in which we used resources- our vital energy, to people who lived on the interest of their money: what they spend to-day, they have again to-morrow. But from the 1980s onwards, our position is like that of the investor who begins to entrench upon their capital. We reached 100 per cent of using nature's yearly output.

At first we hardly notice any difference at all, as the greater part of our expenses are covered by the interest (renewability) of nature's securities; and if the deficit is only slight, we pay no attention to it. But when the deficit goes on increasing, our natural wealth - like polar ice caps and glaciers - begins to melt away. The pace is picking up exponentially, but the vast majority of people have not awakened to the fact that it is becoming more serious every day.

As the drunken party continues, our position becomes less and less secure. Already we feel ourselves growing poorer and poorer, while we still can not foresee that this drain upon our resources must soon come to a disastrous end. No one dares to stop the party, even though our fall from wealth to poverty becomes faster every moment - like the fall of a solid body in space - until at last we have absolutely nothing left. Once this party is over, all that remains is a wasted land and a huge social hangover.

Our unlucky posterity who will inherit such land will most probably de-volve into hunter-gatherers. They will live in separated communities, in cruel hardship. They will have to struggle and adjust to new reality of scarcity. In many ways they will be like the last survivors who still live in Chernobyl. They are unlucky and - as all unlucky people - have only good philosophy as substitute for the good life lost.

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This spring the market spawned a Chernobyl-like computer game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: (Shadow of Chernobyl) This is a popular game and it received good deal of publicity through debate over the wisdom of turning a scene of misery into a computer game. I myself do not have opinion about the game, but I do have high anxiety about the systematic way in which our science, business and political systems seek to: (1) keep us in this simplified, throughly artificial, suitably constructed and suitably falsified world of video games, and (2) deny all consequences of failure and human misery.

What they like to strive for with all their powers is universal happiness of the herd that can find enjoyment of life only in aspiration for falsifying it's image, with security, lack of danger, comfort and easier life for everyone. Millions are now chasing Chernobyl monsters, on their computers, without any idea that there is a real monster behind this scenery and this monster may begin to chase everyone, any time, in real life.

May, 2007

The Atomic Middle Ages

In May 2007 I put up my book "The Atomic Middle Ages". Title of the book derives from my strong conviction that we are living in a time similar to Middle Ages in Europe. After the barbarians conquered Rome, several centuries just disappeared from the human calendar. The church became the highest authority, creativity was suppressed, and peoples minds were poisoned with drinks and religion.

Being under the iron dictates of corporations as it is today, Europe now is flooded by migrant aliens and the peoples minds are being poisoned by all sorts of new "narcotics"- ideological, religious and biochemical.

I truly believe that in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own- The Atomic Middle Ages and historical significance of Chernobyl is that sarcophagus represents the first tombstone of this epoche. It will remain radioactive for at least 100,000 years and will definitely outlive all other signs of our time.

Of course, most people do not share this idea because they believe themselves to be living in progressive times. But seven hundred years ago no one who lived in what we now call the Middle Ages thought of themselves as living in it. In the Middle Ages, people thought they were living in modern times and believed in a human progress, just as people do today.

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Today, more and more countries of the world are beginning to build nuclear reactors, abandoning plans to phase out old nuclear plants or open discussions on construction of new ones. The Atomic Renaissance leaves no doubts that both the western and eastern civilized worlds are entering a new "Dark Ages" with "faith-based thinking" depending upon mindless, violent, dark propaganda and unreasonable belief systems.

We appear to be moving away from reason-based critical thinking, hard work, and creative innovation - moving instead toward an ultra-selfish, do-nothing, mindless consumerism with our leaders being controlled by powerful greed-motivated corporatism. We are rapidly moving toward a false or fake kind of democracy that is really corporate-controlled, militaristic fascism. It kills the environment and - even worse - kills our future.

I call our time "The Atomic Middle Ages" because many of its portents are reminiscent of the beginning of the first Middle Ages. The process of the collapse of states is transpiring parallel to an universalistic uniting. There have began the