Villagers in Chornobyl zone reflect on their lives (05/07/06)

Villagers in Chornobyl zone reflect on their lives

by Zenon Zawada
Kyiv Press Bureau

ILLINTSI, Ukraine - They plant their own potatoes in radiation-contaminated soil. Their only source of income is a government check.

They have children in Kyiv, and one fellow even has a son in Oklahoma.

Yet, the 30 or so residents of the village of Illintsi wouldn't want to live anywhere other than their hamlet in the Chornobyl zone, just 27.5 kilometers (17 miles) from the power plant that released almost 300 times the nuclear radiation unleashed upon Hiroshima.

"I don't want to move to a two-room apartment in the city," said Hanna Symonenko, 81. "I was born here, and I will die here."

No one living in Illintsi is younger than 45.

Its residents rely on pension checks from the Ukrainian government of about $75 or $80 a month.

With no store in the village, they can spend their money only when a food truck swings into town once or twice a week.

They mostly feed themselves with the food they grow in the local soil.

Maria Shaparenko, 82, said she doesn't see why her village has become such a spectacle. "I eat the potatoes, beets and cabbage that I plant," she said.

She feels no adverse health effects from living there, and neither do most of the residents.

Oleksander Tkachenko, 62, moved with his wife to Illintsi after the catastrophe. Life isn't too bad in the zone, he said.

"Of course I have a television!" he said upon hearing the silly question. "I also have three dogs and two cats."

At the time of the disaster, Mr. Tkachenko lived in Kyiv. He decided to move with his wife to her native village the year after because his building was deteriorating and they had no place else to go.

His son, Volodymyr, made it to Oklahoma playing basketball for a university there. His grandson, Shura, was born there, and, though he hasn't seen him yet, they chat over the phone.

Illintsi's residents have become so accustomed to reporters that they are comfortable giving interviews, even repeating some of the same sound bytes that they have prepared.

"What am I going to do in America?" Mr. Tkachenko said with a grin.

Some Ukrainian reporters have visited enough times that they know many of Illintsi's residents by name.

Some of Illintsi's residents belong to a rare group of Ukrainians who have borne witness to the nation's three 20th century catastrophes, all of which were man-made: the Holodomor, World War II and the Chornobyl nuclear catastrophe.

During the Holodomor, the Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933, life was hard in Illintsi, but the village was largely spared, Ms. Shaparenko said, remembering that her parents had two cows throughout.

Ms. Symonenko remembers how German soldiers came upon the village and hauled off its youth to work in German factories.

When asked what was the worst catastrophe, Roman Yushchenko (no relation to the president), 75, doesn't take long to offer his conclusion.

"After Chornobyl, there was nothing left," Mr. Yushchenko said. "There used to be schools here. It all disappeared."

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