Chernobyl - as seen by a 7 year old.

It was just 26 of April again. The date of the biggest nuclear disaster in human history, that took place 90 km from Kiev. And if not for the heroism of the regular Russian soldiers, the 50 years worth of graphite fuel that the scientists were made to load in instead of 5, would've erased half of Europe in those days.

My kids wonder why I get upset when they sing that "radioactive" song.  People always ask me about Chernobyl. What happened, and what did we know about it then. For objective information I can only refer people to YouTube. This one, for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18o_X696dYw
But I also think, when people ask me, they don't want objective information. They want my story. So, here it is.

In the spring of 1986 I was 7, and finishing  my first grade in a regular Kiev school. I remember that day very clearly. Whispers, rumors, phone calls, my mom was a math and physics teacher, after all, and she knew what the word "radiation" meant. Discussions of whether we should leave or not, performed in the bathroom with the water running, in case the KGB is listening. I kid you not. Names of people who left and those who stayed. A few days of whispers and tension. The cities of Prypyat and Chernobyl are being evacuated - but we don't know about that, not yet.
Then the 1st of may- the International Workers day. A parade with red flags in the center of Kiev. Me and mommy and daddy, eating ice-cream, and watching, and it's hot, and we spend the whole day outside. Then we drive to our dacha - a hut in a village, where my mom buried her health, trying to work like Ukrainian peasants. I'm raking last year's leaves, and picking up wild strawberries, and catching lizards and frogs, and running around barefoot. It's all poisoned. About 40 km away from us people are being loaded into lorries by force, made to abandon every last one of their possessions, every pot, doll and book,  and driven away, because their town has become a nuclear desert. It looks the same, sounds the same, and yet - the very air is lethal.  Only when those lorries unload the evacuees in the town center, my parents realize that something bad is going on, and we return to Kiev. 2 weeks after the explosion the government finally owns up.  Evening news, the brisk drumming tune. I'm dozing off on the couch, when I hear the word "reactor" from the TV. I imagine a photo camera on a tripod. Like, what's the big deal? A fire? I start asking, but my parents hush me.

 We must leave, for the air, the soil, the water, the food, are all contaminated with radiation. The only way our senses can detect it is on old film. When you watch films recorded in those days in the radioactive zone, there are flashes on the screen. That's gamma-particles hitting the film and being recorded.

At exactly that time, hundreds of 18 year old soldiers were made to remove the pieces of radioactive graphite from the roof of the reactor with their bare hands, with no equipment other than a spade. They were given 20 seconds, then ran back. They all died, of course. We had no idea.
  Daddy goes to his Writers' Union and brings back the news that all roads out of Kiev are closed, except the one leading to Chernobyl, and a Geiger's counter to measure the radiation, bought for an obscene sum.  The next day my parents are arguing over a big map, and daddy goes to bring the car closer to the house.
(A couple of words on our car. A Zhaporozhetz is basically a prematurely delivered "Volkswagen Beetle", which makes a noise like that aforesaid Beetle who's suffering from a terrible nasal congestion.  Russians call Zhaporozhetz "The quietest car in the world - because when you're driving it, your ears are blocked by your knees".) I'm so excited - we are going away! I go to my shelf, and pack my most prized possessions -  a set of markers and a notepad to keep a diary of our trip.

I have that diary in front of me right now.
I vaguely remember the scene by the road block, with my father waving his journalist's papers in front of the policeman, who refuses to let us out, and every car in the long queue is being turned back. Another road block, then another. On the fourth one we arrive just as the people have plowed through it with their cars, (Ukrainians were always less obedient than Russians, just as they are now, mind you),  and we escape, in the direction of Belorussia.There are signs with skulls, warning us to stay on the road and under no circumstances to stray into the dusty hard shoulder. It's May, but he leaves on the trees are dark red, maroon, purple,  in some places - black. We know it's the radiation. The radioactive cloud has passed here.  The road is deserted, and my father squeezes all he can out of the poor engine. We fly though at 90 km/h, raising clouds of dust after us.  Then spend a few hours sleeping on the road - parents in their seats, me across the back seat, then carry on at dawn. There is a feeling of urgency, to get out of this wasteland as soon as possible, then turn South, to the Black sea.
To be continued.

Faith and force

Throughout human history a person's faith defined him as much as his gender, eye colour, or race. And just as people were killed for their race, they were killed for their beliefs.  As opposed to other things, though, faith is something voluntary.
After you cross the fine age barrier of about 5, you do not just believe what you're told. I can tell from now and until doomsday that the sky is blue and the trees are green, but if you're colourblind, you are not going to believe me. I can tell you that the painkillers take away a headache, but if you choose to say, I don't believe in conventional medicine, and you've never tried it, you are not going to believe me.
In exactly the same way I can tell you that there is a God, and that Jews are chosen, not to lord over others, but for  a mission, for a responsibility, which has been proven time and again by their whole tragic history, if your reality is that of a liberal society, where satanist rituals have equal value to the Pesach Seder, you are not going to believe me, and resent me for saying it. And just as I cannot change the eyes of a colourblind person, I cannot change your reality. Faith is VOLUNTARY. If you choose to believe that Christ is coming back, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. And this freedom of faith is an inherent part of being human. No ruler, however oppressive, can take it away, with any brutal force, till your last breath.  Your thoughts and feelings are yours, in the end of the day. You may choose to relinquish them, or to pretend that you did, but it's YOUR choice.
That's why, throughout history, people who knew this little fact, whether instinctively, or through education, proved to be the biggest threat to any regime. Your knowing eyes are a threat to them, even you remain silent. So you must nod, or they will doubt your faith. Nod in every oppressive educational institution. And I can not only pound the walls in frustration with my fists when it's being done to my children, but to also teach them this inherent truth. I will be repeating it till I die. Kids, it's your right to choose what you believe. And I accept your freedom to believe differently from me.
Dear teachers, parents and other educators: you. cannot. force. faith. Do you hear me? cannot. God made it one of our inherent freedoms in this world to choose what we believe, and you cannot deprive us of it. Cannot force us to feel what you wish us to feel.  I'm on a crusade against brainwashing, guilt tripping into submission, and threatening into obedience. We are created free.
Times are changing so fast that we can barely keep up. But some things stay, and stay relevant. To be continued.

Why am I doing this?

I grew up with words - my father is a journalist, a writer, a historian. But I had associated all the negative traits I saw in him and in the Writer's Union with writing itself, for nearly all my life.
But I guess I can't fight it anymore. Graphomania is both hereditary and acquired. I've loved books since I was 6. Books were my world, my respite, my reality, much more real than the grim Soviet world of food queues, abusive schools, and dysfunctional home. I lived in the jungle on Borneo, traveled to Victoria waterfalls and to the North Pole without leaving my couch. I cried for "les Miserables" and laughed with Ilf and Petrov, dreamed of other planets and tried my brain at Latin.
I see and analyze and feel as if I had no skin on, and the only respite, just as ever, is in words.
I can't write in Russian. Every word I manage sounds so cliche, that I erase it immediately. But thankfully, the love of my life, English, is there for me. And the internet. So thankful.
Constructive criticism is welcome.