In this show Anastasiia poses a question – can there be a peaceful atom? Can nuclear energy be safe? For that she talks to a Chornobyl liquidator pani Lidia and Natalia Gozak and Polina Kolodiazhna from Greenpeace Ukraine.

Pani Lidia came to live and work in Chornobyl before the nuclear power plant (NPP) was even built and stayed untill after the disaster. She shares her memories of life in Chornobyl with so much love and longing for the lost paradise that Chornobyl used to be before the monster was built. From her stories it becomes clear that the accident was not that accidental but rather yet another mistake that Soviets tried desperately to hide and ignore. P. Lidia is translat4ed by Viktoria – her granddaughter who is a co-founder of an Eastern European feminist NGO Rozviy (development)

In the second part Natalia Gozak and Polina Kolodiazhna tell about the current state of NPP in Chornobyl and Zaporizhia. The two women bust some myths and warn of threats that russia poses to the whole world. Natalia also shares her findings on the impact of Chornobyl disaster on Ukrainian civil activists and the society as a whole. The experts share as well their family stories about the impact of Chornobyl.

Both conversations are fascinating and shocking sometimes. In between we hear a few soundtracks of Chornobyl area. There‘s a unique artisitic project in which Ukrainian and international musicians explore the stories of Chornobyl and reinterpret the tragedy in each track. All compositions are united by the “Sounds of Chornobyl” audio library, recorded in 2018 by Valeriy Korshunov, a media artist. These include the crackling of a dosimeter, the creaking of the Ferris wheel in Pripyat, the rustling of the Red Forest, and other characteristic sounds of the Chornobyl area, which have become part of the songs by the project’s musicians. Thus, each song contains an audio imprint of Chornobyl area. Apart from that you can hear a song from Onuka band called „Vidlik“ (countdown) from an EP of the same name that is dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the disaster.

Some more recommendations:

A Computer game „STALKER 2. The Heart of Chornobyl“ immerses you in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone filled with dangerous enemies, deadly anomalies and powerful artefacts. Created by ukrainian artists

A few Ukrainian films with English subtittles:
The Babushkas of Chornobyl
Scream of my Blood
The Wormwood Star
Chornobyl 22

Books by Serhii Plokhiy – a Ukrainian-American history professor.

„Voices from Chornobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster or Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future“ by Svetlana Alexievich

Please share this show with the people who might find it interesting.

P.S. For more comfortable listening, click on the tittle in the player below and go to mixcloud website, that hosts the audio files. There you can also find time stamps.