Marking the 30th

Marking the 30th anniversary of the Chornobyl disaster in - the worst nuclear catastrophe in history.

A one-day CEEL event in partnership with the: • Central and Eastern European London Review • Embassy of Ukraine • Association of Ukrainians in GB • Association of Ukrainian Women • Anglo-Belarusian Society Chornobyl: 30 Years On Foreword by the Ambassador of Ukraine to the of Great Britain and Northern Ireland “ Her Excellency Mrs Natalia Galibarenko In the morning when I woke up, I did not April 1986 Today, the construction know something had happened until I went was the date of a new safe confine- out of my home….As soon as I went down the 26 when the ment at the Chornobyl world learned the name Nuclear Power Plant is stairs of the apartment block and out through of Chornobyl. underway. The confine- ment, due for comple- the door into the street, I was aware at once In the last 30 years it tion next year, will has become a synonym isolate the destroyed that something was wrong. I could feel on both for a terrible power generating unit my face a tingling as though it was raining technological disaster from the surrounding and ecological catas- environment. although it was not. I felt also a taste of metal trophe on a global scale. The imperatives of in my mouth, and my eyes began to water…. strengthening nuclear This tragedy has safety and overcoming taught mankind that the consequences of As I turned the corner which would bring technological progress technology and the the Chornobyl catas- can produce a bitter environment. trophe will encourage me almost to the power station entrance, I harvest. Chornobyl has more active involve- become a reproach to These consequences ment among the world stopped. Right in front of me was a reactor, the past and - at the cannot be ignored as community in solving same time – a painful they still affect the the remaining problems and it was on fire….among the smoke above warning for generations health of all those who in this sphere. to come. live on the contami- its roof flames were dancing,… red and green nated territories and I believe that this year’s and yellow and blue. They were not dancing The whole world need medical assis- commemorative events realised the horrific tance, those who were will open up a new wildly or with excitement, they were swaying consequences of this resettled and need phase of international disaster, one which moral and humanitarian cooperation aimed at - almost merrily, to the tune which was produced hundreds help, as well as children turning the “Shelter” of times more radia- who in the third genera- into an ecologically suddenly in my head… It was an allegro; the tion than the bombing tion suffer from cancer safe system. In the very flames were dancing in a stately way, and this of Hiroshima and and immune system near future Chornobyl Nagasaki combined. diseases. will be known not was terrifying to me, because it seemed I can And today, 30 years only as the site of a later, Chornobyl is We are very grateful to nuclear disaster, but only say quite normal… once again demanding all friends of Ukraine as a world-renowned the world’s attention, in the United Kingdom scientific and research reminding us of the who continue to help centre which will help Nadia Larova, newspaper editor dangers of the peaceful us in alleviating the keep the world safe: atom and how vigilant consequences of the an unexpected lesson the world needs to be Chornobyl catas- of hope from a nuclear in its interaction with trophe. tragedy. ” “The odds of a meltdown are one in Another kind of war 10,000 years. The ven today, anyone Belarus and Ukraine were the two plants have safe and visiting Pripyat - the ghost- countries worst affected by the town which once housed Chernobyl disaster, but the radiation reliable controls that 50,000 residents in the cloud blew right across Europe, Eshadow of the Chornobyl power- also contaminating - among other are protected from any station - can see what a well-designed countries - Russia, Scandinavia, breakdown with three place it was. Switzerland and Wales. safety systems”. Close to forests and lakes and on In Pripyat, effectively the Ground the banks of the Pripyat River, it Zero of the tragedy, radiation levels Vitaly Sklyarov, laid on everything for its citizens: rose to 600,000 times higher than Minister of Power of Ukraine, playgrounds, restaurants, a cinema, normal, its 50,000 residents being February 1986. a theatre, good schools, good health evacuated - a catastrophic day late - services, an olympic-size swimming in a single afternoon, transported on pool. Houses were plentiful, shops over 1,000 buses ‘borrowed’ from were well-stocked. It was a genuine . Told they were leaving the city community of nuclear workers and and their homes for just three days, their families, and getting a job there they were never to return. was good fortune indeed. By 5 May, another 80,000 from the “An accident has All this ended at 1.23 am on 26 April Exclusion Zone had joined them. 1986, when an experiment to see Houses built by their owners’ families occurred at the what would happen to Reactor 4 if and lived in for generations were the power were switched off went abandoned forever, their fixtures Chernobyl Nuclear horribly wrong. The reactor heated and furnishings now dangerously up to 10 times its normal level, radioactive. And, as the sky began to Power Plant, and one causing a massive power-surge. The discharge radioactive rain and forests resulting explosion blasted 50 tonnes surrounding Pripyat turned a livid and of the reactors has of radioactive matter into the atmos- eerie shade of red, a massive damage been damaged. Steps phere, while the fire beneath it would limitation exercise got underway, rage and then smoulder perilously for are being taken to weeks. A fleet of helicopters flew over 1800 sorties to dump a mixture of sand and deal with the situation, The firefighters who appeared on boric acid, in an attempt to extinguish the scene a few minutes after the the fire. Conscripts - ‘liquidators’ - and aid is being given blow-out proved unable to extin- were retained for months in perilous guish it, for this was a new kind of conditions, forced - a job that defies to those affected. blaze against which conventional description - to hose the radioac- efforts were useless. So too were tive dust off the houses and shoot The Government has their uniforms: deprived of protective the domestic animals left in them, to clothing, many were to die lingering strip the upper layer of earth from the formed a commission of and agonising deaths a few days 40km Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and enquiry”. later at Moscow’s special Hospital bury it in the ground. 6 for radiation patients - a place to which many ‘Chernobylites’ return by Others were despatched to shovel Soviet television news report, in its entirety, necessity even today. debris from the power-plant’s roof 28 April 1986. back into the reactor, taking the most As an investigation subsequently got Undeniably, life is slowly returning rapid of turns, since more than 40 underway, steps were taken to ensure to the region. The ghost-town of seconds in its proximity could lead the explosion was blamed on the Pripyat - recently deemed uninhab- to their deaths. They complained of errors of a few individuals rather than itable for 200,000 years - now hosts dizziness, burning eyes, a strange design and construction faults in the daily tours bussed in from Kyiv, metallic taste in the mouth and – reactor itself. whose customers are mesmerised because they too lacked adequate by the town’s abandoned schools protective clothing - were told ‘Culprits’ were jailed, careers were and hospitals, the Soviet posters that their best defence against the ruined - seldom the right ones - and which still hang on the walls, and effects of radiation was simply to on 25 April 1988, almost two years the rusted and derelict funfair up their vodka intake. Many were to the day after the catastrophe, whose Big Wheel has become the subsequently to die. Chief Investigator Valery Legasov, city’s best known icon. over-burdened with guilt and Drawing parallels with Afghanistan unable any longer to bear the lies There are approximately 3,000 - for Chornobyl was another kind of and half-truths he had been forced workers still staffing the Zone, and war - one soldier remarked grimly to present to the public as ‘facts’, about 200 ‘resettlers’ living there, on the major difference between hanged himself in his Moscow home. their lifespans seemingly unaffected them: home from Afghanistan, you in a region where, just 20 years had survived; it was when you got Yet, for all that the cover-up had afterwards, radiation levels are back from Chornobyl, in the months intended, the ramifications would often lower than in the city of Kyiv. and years that followed, that the real be felt worldwide. Chornobyl, Nature has bloomed here, with problems started. Gorbachev later admitted, was burgeoning forests, and thriving perhaps ‘the real cause of the collapse populations of wolves and wild This was the Chornobyl clear-up of the .’ horses. operation: it affected thousands and involved countless unsung heroes, Estimates vary widely on how many A new sarcophagus - the largest many of whom sacrificed their lives have died as a direct result of the moveable structure ever created on to prevent a second, even worse, Chornobyl tragedy: no two sources land - is being built at Chornobyl explosion from the reactor: one of information agree, while Soviet to house the ruins of Reactor 4, which - Secret Soviet documents later state records deliberately obfuscated ensuring that the area is safe from revealed - would have devastated half figures, refusing to recognise all but more emissions for 100 years. And of Europe. those who had died at the outset. every May, on Victory Day, former residents of Pripyat return to the But there was also the Chornobyl The Ukrainian government has city, driving in from the areas of cover-up operation - a cynical and estimated deaths among clean-up Ukraine to which the catastrophe disreputable enterprise. As Soviet workers alone from 7-8,000, while scattered them, bringing picnics for authorities laboured to keep their Greenpeace states that as many as an annual - and almost celebratory citizens as ill-informed as possible, 200,000 have died or will die from - reunion. a May Day Celebration in Kyiv was cancers triggered by the effects of the allowed to go ahead in the open air, disaster. Yet this last figure is hotly Thus we gather, nearly 30 years to under radiation-levels thousands of contested by organisations like the the day after the Chornobyl nuclear times their normal levels. World Health Organisation and the disaster of 26 April 1986, to ask, Chernobyl Forum, who have put the among other things, a key question: Soviet television gave the Chornobyl estimate at nearer 2% of that number. Chornobyl - unparalleled nuclear explosion - the worst nuclear Predictions from different sources catastrophe? Or strange story of disaster in history - scant mention in thus range from 1 million down to hope? their news reports. It was a full 18 just a few thousand - a staggering Robin Ashenden days before Gorbachev addressed discrepancy, bringing home how Central and Eastern European the matter - and the nation - on controversial a battleground London Review television. Chornobyl still is. 1970TimelineConstruction of the town of Pripyat, one of 9 “atom towns” begins, to be inhabited by future employees of the nuclear power plants. Discussions take place in Kyiv about the type of nuclear plant to be built at Chornobyl. Chornobyl’s director, Bryukhanov, proposes construction of 1972 Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs). He informs the Ukraine Minister of Energy, Aleksei Makukhin, that an RBMK (a boiling water reactor) releases forty times more radiation than a PWR. The scientist Alekzandrov opposes this, saying that the RBMK- 1000 was not only the safest reactor, but it also produced the cheapest electricity. On these grounds, it was decided that the RBMK pressure tube reactors would be built.

December 1983 Completion of construction of Chornobyl Unit 4. Plant goes into production on 20 December.

Minister of Energy, Anatoliy Mayorets, decrees that information on any adverse effects caused by the energy industry on employees, inhabitants and April 1985 the environment, are unsuitable for publication by newspapers, radio or television.

Literaturna Ukraina (Ukrainian Literature) publishes an article written by Ms Lyubov Kovalevska, a Pripyat journalist who cites, among other things, 27 March 1986 faulty construction, workmanship and concrete at the Chornobyl Plant. “The failures here will be repaid, repaid over the decades to come”.

Preparations are underway for a test to discover how Unit 4’s output is affected when power to the Unit is shut off. The test is largely a precau- tionary measure for outbreaks of war or natural catastrophes. Levels of radioactivity fall to dangerously low levels and, against all safety procedures, 25 April 1986 vital energy-shutdown systems have been disabled. There are protests in the control room about the dangers of the imminent test, but these are over-ridden.

01.21: The test has gone ahead, but problems are rapidly developing. Power has surged in the reactor and cooling systems have failed. Massive pressure inside the reactor is sending shockwaves through the buiiding’s structure.

26 April 1986 01.23:44: The reactor reaches 120 times its normal levels. It explodes, violently dislodging the 1,000 ton lid on top of it. A second explosion follows, shooting burning debris and radioactive matter 1km into the sky. Fires are started on the roof of Chornobyl Unit 3.

01.35: Firemen struggle to extinguish the fires at Unit 3. Against the fire in Unit 4 itself, their efforts are useless.

10.00: Helicopters begin the first of 1800 sorties to bombard the fire in Unit 4 with sand, boric acid and, finally, lead. 27 April 1986 14.00: The evacuation of Prypiat town begins. 1,200 Kyiv buses evacuate 50,000 residents. They are told they are leaving for ‘three days’.

09.30: The Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant, Sweden, registers a startling rise in the region’s radioactivity. 28 April 1986 21.02: Moscow TV news announces - in a 14 second broadcast - that an accident has occured at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant: “Measures are being taken to eliminate consequences of the accident. Aid is being given to those affected. A government commission has been set up”.

30 April 1986 Tass carries a government statement denying western reports of mass casualties. Only two people have died during the accident, it claims while 197 have been hospitalised.

1 May 1986 The wind - hitherto blowing the radiation-cloud over Belarus, now changes direction and begins to carry it towards Ukrainian capital Kyiv, where, as in the Belarussian capital Minsk, annual May Day celebrations are held in the open airin radiation levels thousands of times higher than usual.

Smoulering materials in the reactor - at a temperature of more than 1200 C - begin to burn down through the reactor floor. Should they penetrate into the bubbling pools of water beneath, there is an extremely high risk of thermal explosion - a catastrophe far worse than that of 26 April: one 2 May 1986 that will raze Minsk to the ground and make half of Europe uninhabitable. Three engineers, Anatoliy Ananenko, Valeri Bezpalov and Boris Baranov knowingly sacrifice themselves to scuba-dive beneath the reactor, open the sluice gates from within and drain them. They died a few hours later. ‘A 30km zone around the reactor is designated for evacuation (90,000 people)’.

6 May 1986 Schools in Gomel and Kyiv are closed and children are evacuated. The total number of those now forced to uproot themselves reaches 500,000.

14 May 1986 More than two weeks after the disaster, Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev makes first public statement on Russian TV News. He tries to explain what happened and criticises the West for using the accident to launch an “unrestrained anti-Soviet campaign”.

27 May 1986 A month after the accident the danger is not yet over. A concrete structure - the Chornobyl ‘Sarcophagus’ - is decreed to entomb Reactor 4. It is completed in December that year, with scientistsd stating that it will remain effective for 20-30 years.

2007 A contract is signed for a New Safe Confinement with French consortium Novarska? who will build a second sarcophagus - the largest moveable structure on land - to secure Reactor 4 for the next 100 years. Its completion is now scheduled for late 2017.

Nearly 30 years after the disaster, a huge sliding arch structure designed to prevent deadly radiation spewing from the site is nearing completion. 2016 The 30,000 tonne ‘New Safe Confinement’ arch – the world’s largest land-based moving structure – will be pulled over the former Chornobyl nuclear power plant to contain radiation from the damaged reactor for the next 100 years.

With special thanks to the Chornobyl Gallery (chernobylgallery.com) ‘What’s“ it like, radiation? Maybe they show it in the movies? Have you seen it? Is it white, or what? What colour is it? Some people say it has no colour and no smell, and other people say that it’s black. Sources: UNEP/GRID-Arendal, European Environ- ment Agency; AMAP Assessment Report: Arctic Polution Issues, Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Like earth. But if Programme (AMAP), 1998, Oslo; European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP; Co-operative it’s colourless, then programme for monitoring and evaluation of the long range transmission of air polutants in Europe, 1999. Adapted from Le Monde Diplomatique, 1999. it’s like God. God is everywhere, but you can’t see Him. They scare us! The apples are hanging in the garden, the leaves are on the “We didn’t “There was a strange sensation “We were leaving trees, the potatoes understand in the air. At first I could not tell - I took some earth are in the fields. I then that the what it was: the air felt somehow heavy from my mother’s don’t think there was peaceful atom and still, a feeling of unreality. Then I was grave, put it any Chernobyl, they Voicescould kill, that aware of somethingfromChernobyl else: there was not in a little sack. man is helpless only the stillness but a complete silence, Got down on my made it up. before the laws of no sound of any kind anywhere. knees: ‘Forgive us physics”. No birds were singing, not one. for leaving you.’” ” Programme

14.30 Welcome speeches 14.45 FILM SCREENING: Chernobyl: Surviving Disaster (Nick Murphy, BBC, 2006). The hard-hitting BBC docu-drama about the explosion at Chornobyl Reactor 4 and its subsequent cover-up, starring Ade Edmondson. 15.45 Interval. 16.00 FILM SCREENING: Babushkas of Chernobyl (Bogart & Morris, 2015). Haunting, affirmative documentary on a group of elderly ladies defying the authorities to inhabit the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. Winner at the Woodstock and Los Angeles Film Festivals. 17.30 Interval. 18.00 ‘A Solitary Human Voice’ from Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl, read by Anamaria Marinca with live harp accompaniment from Alina Bzezhinska 19.00 Interval. 19.30 panel: Chornobyl - unparalleled nuclear catastrophe? Or strange story of hope? Chair: Robin Ashenden - Editor of Central and Eastern European London Review Panelists: Alla Kravchuk - Radio documentary-maker and former resident of Pripyat, Chornobyl. Balthasar Lindauer - Deputy-Director of EBRD nuclear safety programme. Anna Reid - Author and Ukrainian Specialist. Professor Gerry Thomas - Specialist in effects of nuclear radiation. ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS ABOUT THE ORGANISERS

SCREENINGS up in Belarus. She worked extensively as Robin Ashenden - Event Founded in 1946, it exists to develop, a journalist, and soon became known for promote and support the interests of the non-fiction narrative, in books about Soviet Producer / Chair of Panel Ukrainian community in the UK. Nick Murphy - history shaped from oral testimony. Her The AUGB operates a network of most notable works in English translation branches across Great Britain, has a highly writer and director include Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from a Robin Ashenden is founder and editor respected reference library and archive in Forgotten War (about the Soviet invasion of of Central and Eastern European London London and a small gallery and gift shop. It Afghanistan), and Voices from Chernobyl Review (ceel.org.uk). He has an MA in Soviet publishes a fortnightly bilingual Ukrainian- Chernobyl: Surviving Disaster (BBC, (1997), oral testimonies from survivors of Travel Writing and worked for several years English newspaper ‘Ukrayinska Dumka’, 2006). Nick Murphy is a British film and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 - as a travel journalist (Sunday Times Travel, established in 1945, and has published television director. He is best known for republished by Penguin on April 21st 2016 as Wanderlust & the Guardian), specialising numerous books on Ukrainian history and directing the films The Awakening (2011) Chernobyl Prayer: A Chronicle of the Future. in Central and Eastern Europe. In 2009, he culture. (also writer) and Blood (2012). In 2015, Alexievich was awarded received a writer’s award from the Winston It works closely with other community the Nobel Prize for Literature, ‘for her Churchill Memorial Trust to travel in and organisations in the UK and abroad Holly Morris - polyphonic writings, a monument to write about the post-communist countries of including government and academic institu- suffering and courage in our time.’ Central Europe. tions on exhibitions and joint projects. co-producer / co-director Since its foundation, the Association’s Oksana Kyzyma - members have donated generously to Anamaria Marinca - reader humanitarian projects in Ukraine, including Babushkas of Chernobyl (2015). Holly Co-Producer most recently, to Patriot Defence, a charity Morris is an American author, documentary which trains Ukrainian doctors to interna- director/producer and television presenter, Anamaria Marinca is a Romanian tional standards of first response trauma care from Chicago Illinois. As producer and actress. She made her screen debut with Oksana Kyzyma is a young diplomat from and rehabilitation for those who have been correspondent, she has made programs in the Channel 4 film Sex Traffic, for which Kyiv Ukraine, currently working as Press physically and psychologically damaged in Bangladesh, Borneo, Brazil, Cuba, India, she won the British Academy Television Attache of the Ukrainian Embassy in London. the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. Iran and Syria, among other countries. Award for Best Actress. Marinca is also She is also vice-president of the Diplomatic In 2010 Morris published A Country of known for her performance in 4 Months, 3 Press Attaches Association of London, a Women, a chronicle of the ‘self-settlers’ who Weeks and 2 Days (Mungiu, 2007), earning professional organisation uniting diplomats Association of Ukrainian live inside Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, going several awards for her performance, and was from all around the world working in the UK. Women in Great Britain on to produce and direct (with Anne Bogart) nominated for the European Film Award for In 2015 she received the Diplomat of the Year the 2015 documentary Babushkas of Best Actress, London Film Critics Circle Award, for outstanding contribution to the Chernobyl. Award for Actress of the Year, Los Angeles press corps. Formed in 1947 to unite Ukrainian women Film Critics Association Award for Best of all ages to foster Ukrainian culture and Actress and National Society of Film Critics traditions and inform the world about the Anne Bogart - Award for Best Actress. In 2008, at the 58th Central and Eastern plight of Ukrainian women, including co-producer / co-director Berlin International Film Festival, she was European London Review political prisoners, in the then Soviet Union. presented the Shooting Stars Award by the The Association maintains a unique European Film Promotion. Folk Art museum in Manchester and Has filmed around the world for the PBS Central and Eastern European London Re- operates through a network of branches travel series Globe Trekker for 12 years. She Alina Bzhezhinska - harpist view (ceel.org.uk) was founded in May 2014, and volunteers throughout Great Britain. It has produced and directed programming for to cover any and all CEE cultural events in has campaigned for the release of women both French and English-based broadcasters, and musical accompanist the capital, with news, reviews, interviews political prisoners and, from 1990, provided including the long-running pop culture and a total cultural diary. It is the first site to humanitarian aid for the most vulnerable and magazine Eurotrash in the U.K. Bogart has bring together on one resource the cultural needy in Ukraine. written for W magazine, The New York Alina studied at the F. Chopin Academy programmes of about a dozen countries; it has Times, The Los Angeles Times, Women’s of Music in Warsaw, Poland (Masters in now published more than 300 articles, listed Wear Daily, and Elle Decor magazine. She Arts), and The University of Arizona, USA about 1,000 events, and has over 50 contribu- Anglo-Belarusian Society divides her time between London and Los (Masters in Music Performance). She has tors - many of them from CEE countries. Angeles. performed with many major European Its patron is the celebrated CEE historian orchestras including the Young World Professor Timothy Garton Ash, and Chorno- Founded in 1954 with the object of the Symphony Orchestra, the National Opera byl 30 is the first event which, in cooperation diffusion, interchange and publication of READINGS in Warsaw and Scottish Opera. Her London with its partners, CEEL has organised. knowledge relating to the Belarusian people, appearances include Shakespeare’s Globe their land, history and their culture in the Theatre, BBC Radio 3 and London Jazz UK. Svetlana Alexievich - author Festival. She has had the honour of playing at The Association of Ukrainians The Society publishes a yearbook – The the European Parliament, and at the Queen’s in Great Britain (AUGB) Journal of Byelorussian Studies and, more 80th-birthday celebrations at Balmoral recently it has organised or co-organised Born in 1948 in the west Ukrainian town Castle. She is a harp tutor at the Royal various lectures, commemorations, recitals of Stanislaviv to a Belarusian father and a Conservatoire of Scotland, and has recorded The largest representative body for and book and film presentations relating to Ukrainian mother - subsequently growing a solo-album Harp Recital (2008). Ukrainians and those of Ukrainian descent. Belarus and its people. PANELLISTS Alla Kravchuk Defining shared solutions Alla Kravchuk is a Ukrainian opera soloist, singing teacher and latterly documen- tary-maker on Pripyat region. She trained at the Kyiv Conservatory in her native Ukraine before moving to Germany, where she appeared in numerous produc- “The last blow from the USSR to fall on somehow finding ways to ease tions and sang a wide variety of roles (in May 2016 she will appear at Stuttgart on Belarus was inflicted with Cherno- suffering. In the Zone, when you byl…. The Kremlin tried to conceal Opera House in Mussorgsky’s rarely-performed ‘The Marriage’). She now lives the mere fact of the disaster and never actually talked to people you did in London, and has just broadcast a two-part Radio 4 documentary about a return admitted the scale of the damage. The not see victims, you saw survivors, to Chornobyl - where her parents worked both before and after the disaster thirty current Regime in Belarus followed a resourceful community well years ago. the Kremlin’s lead”. accustomed to managing against Andrei Sannikov, former Bela- rusian Deputy Foreign Minister considerable odds to find their own and political prisoner, now Leader solutions to their own problems. Our Balthasar Lindauer of the European Belarus Civil well-meaning efforts were devaluing Campaign those resources by failing even to Balthasar Lindauer is Deputy Director of the European Bank for Reconstruction perceive their existence. and Development’s Nuclear Safety Department, which carries out projects aimed at improving safety in nuclear facilities, assisting with the safe decommission- orking in the zone affected Western charities, albeit motivated by ing of nuclear power plants and providing facilities for the safe management of by both chemical and genuine compassion tended to focus radioactive waste in Eastern Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. He Wpsychological fallout from on “victims” with negative images to joined the EBRD in 2002. Prior to that he was in charge of international nuclear the Chernobyl disaster in the Republic match. To counteract this, collabo- safety cooperation at the German Ministry of Environment and worked for a Ger- of Belarus made a permanent mark on rative partnerships were formed man technical safety organization. He studied in Paris and Berlin and graduated mine and others’ souls. between Belarusian and Scottish from Freie Universitaet Berlin. organisations at all levels - community, As Aberdeen’s International Relations cultural, scientific, educational. Officer in 1990 I visited Homiel We reframed how we viewed the Anna Reid Region in Belarus - twinned with Belarusian people, not as problems Aberdeen - including the highly to be fixed or bundles of needs to be contaminated areas, accompanied Anna Reid holds a master’s degree in Russian history and reform economics met but as active and equal partners by medical and scientific experts to from London University’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies. She in defining shared solutions to shared establish how the City of Aberdeen was the Kiev correspondent for the Economist and the Daily Telegraph from issues. could help. 1993 to 1995. Her first book, Borderland: A Journey through the History of One continues to be amazed at the the Ukraine, was published to wide acclaim in 1997, and she has subsequently I spent time talking to people, and resilience and inventiveness of written The Shaman’s Coat: A Native History of Siberia (2002) and Leningrad: saw the level of fear and distrust of the Belarusian people. Despite the Tragedy of a City under Siege, 1941-44 (2011). Ms. Reid lives in London. information from the authorities about realities of the Lukashenka regime what was safe and what was not. there’s a growing generation of social Professor Gerry Thomas innovators who are using the benefits This was an area that was officially of new technology to connect people evacuated, with services cut off as a and promote public participation in Gerry Thomas is Professor of Molecular Pathology at Imperial College London, consequence. The trouble was, the civil society. Director of the newly established West London Genome Medicine Centre, Prin- people were still there, belongings cipal Scientist for the Wales Cancer Bank and Director of both Imperial College packed, trucks loaded and waiting… Such people are anything but passive Healthcare Tissue Bank and the Chernobyl Tissue Bank. Her main research area just waiting. One old lady said she was victims: they are agents of change and focuses on the molecular pathology of thyroid cancer and how this is influenced digging vegetables out of the ground bring hope of a new future for Belarus, by aetiology and age at diagnosis. She strongly believes that public involvement with her bare hands. She had done this aware of what their country went and information is a key part of academic research, and is actively involved in the when the Germans invaded but at least through on 26 April 1986 - but not public communication of research, particularly with respect to radiation protection then she could see the enemy. This too defined by it. and bio-banking. was an enemy but invisible, contami- nating and eroding the very fabric of Жыве Беларусь! * * * the community. Alison Cameron It was easy to get caught up in the Secretary, emotion of it all and focus all efforts Anglo Belarus Society, London Aid and hope from the Ukrainian community to those in need

he Association of Ukrainian Women in Great TBritain (AUW) established the Ukrainian Mother and Chil- dren’s Appeal Fund in 1990, and was the first western organisa- tion to send humanitarian aid to Ukraine. in 1996, again for families living by the war in Eastern Ukraine. In March 1990 it sent two around Chornobyl, together with 38-tonne lorries of aid for those medicines and equipment for local Since 2009, the Association also affected by the Chornobyl dis- health centres. operates a Stipendiary Fund which aster: over 1000 parcels of food provides grants each year to prom- and clothing for resettled families, The Association has also provided ising students who would otherwise and several tonnes of medical humanitarian aid to Ukrainians in not be able to finance their studies. supplies, including over a million need in Romania and Bosnia and child-sized disposable syringes to victims of flooding in Western Altogether, in today’s values, the for the 14th Children’s Hospital in Ukraine, as well as supporting UK Ukrainian community has collected Kyiv, which treated the majority of charities who work in Ukraine to over £400,000 and, with donated children with cancers and other ill- provide medical care for children goods, humanitarian aid worth over nesses resulting from the disaster. with disabilities and those suffering £500,000 has been sent to Chornobyl from cancer. victims and others in need. The first tranche of humanitarian aid was followed by three further As the situation in Ukraine has Donations are always welcome and lorries in 1992, for over 1000 changed, the AUW’s charitable work can be sent to: resettled families, along with leu- has focused on providing financial kaemia medication and antibiotics assistance for voluntary organisa- Ukrainian Children’s Appeal Fund for the 14th Children’s Hospital; 10 Highbury Road tions in Ukraine who work with Sutton Coldfield three lorries in 1993, with food disadvantaged children and vulner- West Midlands and clothing for 800 elderly able elderly people; on sending aid B74 4TF people who had returned to live and Christmas gifts to children in in the Chornobyl exclusion zone, orphanages and centres for disabled Bank Transfer to together with clothing, antibiotics Ukrainian Children’s Appeal Fund children; and, most recently, aid and HSBC and vitamins for children evacu- support to children and families who Sort code: 40-07-13 ated from Chornobyl to Lviv in have lost a parent and been affected Account no. 11298569 Western Ukraine; two lorries Chornobyl 30

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