Oh, joyous spring! (In remembrance of times past)
Chornobyl Museum, Kyiv
Remembrances, fate, tragedy, and selfishness: lest we forget
25 years ago today, at precisely 1.23am on 26 April, 1986…
‘…one of the four nuclear reactors exploded after a round of tests, sending plumes of radioactive waste – 100 times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – into the air. The fallout drifted in various directions, with the bulk of it going north over Belarus and up into Scandinavia, where it was detected by Swedish scientists days two days later. At least thirty people died in the immediate aftermath of the accident due to radiation exposure, with thousands more affected in subsequent years. Cancer rates – especially with the thyroid – have spiraled in the years since.
At first, the authorities kept quiet about the disaster, telling citizens that there was nothing to worry about. Traditional May Day celebrations went ahead in Kyiv, despite the radioactive ash cloud enveloping the city, 100km south of Chornobyl.
Prypyat, the town housing most of the plant’s workers, was evacuated, and today remains frozen in time. The last remaining reactor was shut down in 2000, with a concrete sarcophagus built to protect the plant.
Tours, not for the faint-of-heart, are offered today, to the remains of the plant as well as Prypyat. Authorities have given their assurances that the levels of radioactivity are too low to pose any significant health threat. For those unwilling to take the risk, the Chornobyl Museum in Podil, Kyiv’s old mercantile quarter, offers a chilling glimpse into the horrible events of that fateful day.’
I’ve just quoted myself above. I was recently commissioned to write a small article on Kyiv, publication pending, and was asked to add an ‘in a nutshell’ blurb on Chornobyl. That was the best I could do. It’s way too simplified, but I think by now, most of the world knows what happened there.
Way too much, by those far more qualified than I, has already been written as it is. I can only contribute, at this time, a purely selfish exposé on how Chornobyl affected my life. I warn you: this borders on the excessively self-indulgent, but then after all, isn’t that what this blog is all about anyway?
My last post – and others before – touched upon rootlessness, identity, and the idea of home being such a transient thing for me. For the benefit of those who don’t really know me, a brief encapsulation: I’m 34 and have spent roughly 14 of those years in America, the remaining 20 primarily in Europe, mainly the UK. Before the age of 18, I had spent 6 years in America. From September 1983 to August 1986, I lived in Tacoma, Washington.
I’m long past the point of regretting things I didn’t do in the past. One of my most important philosophies in life is this: never regret having done something. Only regret what you haven’t done. Thus, as an imprimatur for future action, when in doubt, do it. Much better to regret what you’ve done, pardon the cliché. I’m not exactly alone in this line of thought.
Cause and effect plays a massive role here. I stopped regretting and lamenting what I hadn’t done when I was finally mature enough to realise that any tinkering of the past would have altered future events. Again, nothing new here. As a history buff, this is all part and parcel of my trade.
I used to moan and groan about why I hadn’t studied French or Russian much earlier, and ‘oh, what was wrong with me back then?!’ But had I mastered one or the other, then who knows where life would have taken me? I could be working in a Montmartre bistro, or in Paris for BNP Paribas right now, or at some think-tank in St Petersburg, with a completely different set of friends, a couple of kids even (!), my very own dacha for beautiful spring weekends.
I’m incredibly happy with the way life has played out, and I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but here, in Kyiv right now.
But Chornobyl easily could have radically altered the course of my life. Here’s a classic ‘what-if’ scenario. And though my memory is a bit hazy and the facts might not be 100% accurate, the general idea is the same.
April 1986 I was 9, and living in Washington. Not long before this time, my father had received orders – him being in the military – for our next assignment, Madrid. I do believe, however, that the other serious option being mulled over was Rome. Rome, New York that is. We opted for Spain. But then after Chornobyl, panic set in.
Keep in mind the level of paranoia that exists in American circles. This is a gross overgeneralization, but Americans tend to be excessively cautious when it comes to travelling abroad. For comparison purposes, try this little experiment when the next crisis hits. Whenever there’s a crisis or some sort of turmoil, however minor, in a certain part of the world, the US State Department is always quick to issue a travel advisory warning, cautioning any American citizens from travelling to the territory. This alert exists in a permanent state for quite a few countries (Nigeria, for example, which caused my parents no end of sleepless nights when I was working there). In contrast, Britain’s Foreign & Commonwealth Office either, depending on your perspective, opts to throw caution to the wind and say to hell with it, visit where you like, or not deem the threat to be as serious. Overall, Americans are, shall we say, more cautious and more paranoid.
With the radiation cloud spreading all over Europe, my parents started to panic. They were suddenly in serious negotiations about whether to abort the Spanish Inquisition and instead opt for upstate New York. At this time, with the cold war still alive and kicking – barely – reliable information was at a premium and no one knew what the full story was. But from the American side of things, all of Europe was suddenly a high-risk zone, and it became impossible to predict where would be profoundly affected by radiation. To be on the safe side, people were being cautioned about travelling anywhere in Europe, and there were questions as to how to handle the thousands of American military personnel already there. This is nowhere near on a par with the Cuban Missile Crisis – my father grew up in Miami and he’s told me tales of the onset of panic during that time, with people scurrying into their bomb shelters at the slightest whiff of an attack – but there was definitely some consternation and deliberation.
In the end, we did move to Spain, and the rest, as they say, is history. I spent the next 8 years of my life, probably the most formative, in Europe: Spain, Germany and then, for the 3rd stint, England. Had we remained in America, who knows what would have happened. I very might have been more a red-blooded, gung-ho American, and I almost certainly wouldn’t be a football supporter. Maybe I wouldn’t have developed so much of an identity ‘crisis’ either.
And though I could be mistaken, I do recall reading somewhere that amongst all European countries, Spain and Portugal suffered barely any fallout whatsoever. Parts of Wales remain under some sort of radiation ‘alert’, something to do with farmers and their sheep, but I’m not exactly sure and I can’t be bothered to look it up.
For more on Chornobyl:
Elizabeth made a trip to the area in October 2009 and posted this superbly-written account of her visit, along with some great photos. Though I hope to make my own visit one day, I can hardly top what she has to say.
This is a very moving, tear-jerking photo essay from a Magnum photographer.
Mtskheta
Appreciating local culture, and all that crap
Though I’m not one bit religious – talk about an understatement – I do like to partake in religious celebrations under the guise of appreciating and experiencing local culture and traditions. I have so many fond memories of times past – the Passover meal I mentioned in my last post; Nowruz (Persian New Year) in Kyrgyzstan; church services in Nigeria where I was lambasted and told I would burn in hell for my lack of belief; being introduced to the priest by a friendly local at a church service in Mtskheta in Georgia, an ancient site with incredible churches where Christianity was proclaimed the official state religion in the 4th century; my observance of Ramadan in Jordan (where I fasted for all but two of the eight days that I was there, not bad considering all the hiking and traipsing about that I was doing); celebrating Rosh Hashanah in Tel Aviv with my good pal Yonni and his family and relatives; a mesmerising trip to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, as well as to Bethlehem and the site of Jesus’s alleged birth, the Church of the Nativity; Orthodox Christmas and Easter in Lviv; and Christian American Christmas with my father’s massive, ghastly, plastic-figured, overly tacky nativity scene in the front garden in New Hampshire. All were special in their own way.
This year, I was invited to an Easter church service, which sounded like a nice idea at the time. At 5am. Umm, on second thought…not a chance in hell of that.
So I didn’t do much, except reflect on the most memorable Easter I’ve probably ever experienced, five years ago in Lviv with Marichka and her family.
In the morning, we headed to the church service, our pasca in basket. This is the sweet bread consumed over much of Eastern Europe during Easter, and tradition dictates that you take the pasca to the church to be blessed by the priest before consuming it. The priest leaves the church to meet his throngs of followers, all patiently waiting for him to sprinkle water on the bread, while at the same time helping heal any ailments or answer any prayers. Me of so little faith was merely content to present the pasca and didn’t bother asking for anything else in return.
This little rite was followed by a sumptuous feast with Marichka and her family. I had also spent my Christmas with her family, along with my sister, and both occasions were absolute festive treats.
Afterwards we ventured out to the Museum of Folk Architecture and Life (Muzey Narodnoyi Arkhitekury i Pobutu), an open-air museum consisting of all sorts of wooden buildings representing different aspects of western Ukrainian village life. We met our friend Kristy there and had a grand day out, partaking in games and activities, listening to traditional folk music and imbibing yet more food and drink, surrounded by swarms of patriotic Ukrainians clad in traditional garb.
(sadly, I can’t share any of the wonderful photos I have from the day, as they are all in non-digital format, a couple of thousand miles away from me.)
I’ll remember many things about that wondrous day, but more than anything, it’s one of the last, most special memories I have of our dear friend and colleague Oksana.
We bumped into Oksana, her husband Andriy and young son. After partaking in a bit of fun, they invited us all back to their flat for another delectable feast, even more drinks, and a splendid evening of games, music and wonderful chat. I knew Andriy fairly well – he and I were both regulars at one of our usual haunts, an underground, off-license, excessively smoky dive bar above the Philharmonia, which has long since shut its doors.
The entire day remains permanently etched into my mind, the more so for the tragic events that occurred a few months later.
April 2006 was, overall, a fairly good month. But going back to my earlier recollections, where I talked about the magic of April 2005 and the subsequent months, the good times couldn’t last forever. 2006 turned out to be an absolutely horrible year. March featured a dreadful health scare from my dear old man, who needed emergency heart surgery after a routine check-up with the doctor. He of course pulled through that okay, but despite a decent three month stretch of April, May and then a fun-fuelled World Cup in Germany in June, July saw the return of bad news when my beloved Granny died. Being very close, that took me ages to get over – not that I ever really have. In late September I headed to San Sebastian, for my next teaching stint, and that got off to a horrendous start. I had a far from pleasant teaching experience, which never really improved – I was counting down the days one month into my contract, I kid you not. When things were really bad, I got some dreadful news on one particular Friday afternoon.
Though on the outside Oksana was a cheerful, ebullient personality, there was a lot more lurking on the inside. I knew she had been battling depression for years, but she seemed to be doing so well. She had a loving husband and precious wee son, who I have to admit was adorable.
Marichka had emailed to say that Oksana had had enough of this life, and had decided to go to a better place. I was, of course, shell-shocked. I remember reading the email just a few minutes before I had to teach my worst class of nasty teenagers. I could barely hold myself together. When the students wasted no time putting on their usual disrespectful airs, it took all my willpower not to throttle them and pummel them into a bloody pulp with rage. It was hard to maintain my composure.
That Sunday, needing to get away on my own, I took the train out to a small Basque village on the coast called Durango. I went to a church service and cursed the supposed God who allowed such things to happen. I recalled one of my favourite lines in literature, Maurice Bendrix uttering ‘I hate you God. I hate you as though you existed’ in The End of the Affair. I spent the day, a chilly October one, on a windswept beach watching children frolic about, reminiscing about the Easter I spent with Oksana and her family, many more memories streaming through my head.
Just to cap off a really great year, in the final days of 2006 I broke my foot whilst walking in Andalusia. The damn thing is still giving me trouble, over four years later, thanks to the dunderheads who treated it. A great year indeed.
I hate to end on a gloomy note, though I did spend a fair bit of this Easter Sunday thinking about all of the positive memories of that special Easter in Lviv.
Less pathos next time, hopefully.
Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
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