East Ural radioactive trace: secret genocide? Kyshtym accident: five secrets of the most secret nuclear disaster of the USSR

Kyshtym accident 1957 (photo the current state of the area where it occurred is presented below) - an emergency situation that occurred at the Mayak chemical plant in Chelyabinsk-40. Currently this city is called Ozersk. The former name was previously used only in secret documents. In this regard, the disaster began to be called “Kyshtym”. This name comes from the city closest to Chelyabinsk-40, indicated on the maps.

Kyshtym accident: photo, scale

An explosion at a chemical plant occurred in a tank built in the 1950s. Activities for its construction were carried out under the leadership of Ch. mechanic Arkady Kazutov. At that time, the chief engineer was V. Saprykin. The containers for storing radioactive waste were cylinders made of stainless steel and placed in concrete “jackets.” There were no doubts about the strength of the structure. On September 29, 1957, the cooling system failed. This resulted in the explosion of a container containing about 80 m 3 of nuclear waste. The structure was completely destroyed. The concrete floor, which was 1 m thick and weighed 160 tons, was thrown aside. As a result, about 20 million curies of radioactive compounds entered the atmosphere. Some of them rose to a height of about 2 km. A cloud of solid and liquid aerosols formed. Within 10-12 hours from the moment the Kyshtym accident occurred, toxic substances fell over a distance of 300-350 kilometers to the northeast. The contamination zone included several chemical plant enterprises, a military camp, a prison colony, a fire department, as well as an area of 23 thousand square meters. km with a population of 270 thousand people. in 217 settlements of three regions: Tyumen, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk. Ozersk itself was not directly damaged. 90% of compounds fell on the territory of Mayak. The remaining substances dispersed further.

Liquidation

Considering the scale to which the Kyshtym accident 1957, consequences were very serious. 23 villages from the most contaminated areas of the territory with a population of 10-12 people were immediately resettled. Livestock, property, and buildings were destroyed. To prevent the spread of radiation, a sanitary protection zone was created in 1959. It was installed in the most contaminated part, where any economic activity was prohibited. In 1968, the East Ural Nature Reserve was formed in this area. Today this zone has received a specific name. It is called the East Ural Nuclear Trace. After it happened Kyshtym accident, consequences liquidated hundreds of thousands of employees and civilians. All of them received significant doses of radiation.

Kyshtym accident: briefly about the chronology of events

The main distribution of compounds occurred in September. On the 29th, an explosion was recorded in tank No. 14 in the S-3 complex. Around seven o'clock in the evening, air masses from the chemical plant area moved to the village of Bagaryak and the city of Kamensk-Uralsky. At about 22-00 the cloud reached Tyumen. At 23:00 a glow was noticed in the sky. His main colors were light blue and pink. The glow first covered most of the northeastern and southwestern parts of the sky. Subsequently, the phenomenon was observed in the northwest. At 3 a.m. on September 30, the radioactive trace was completely formed. At 4 a.m., a rough assessment of the level of infestation was made at the industrial site. On September 30, a study of the radiation situation outside the chemical plant and Chelyabinsk-40 began.

October

On the third day after it happened Kyshtym accident 1957, a commission arrived from Moscow. Minister Slavsky was appointed its head. Having arrived at the scene, the commission knew the approximate damage it had caused Kyshtym accident. Reasons, according to which it occurred, were the main goal of the group’s work. However, on the spot it became clear that the situation with the explosion of cans was very difficult. It was necessary to study many aspects of the problem. From October 6 to October 13, based on a preliminary assessment of the radiation dose, it was decided to evacuate 1,100 people. from the villages of Galikaevo, Saltykovo and Berdyanish. The resettlement of people was carried out with a significant delay - 1-2 weeks after the disaster. On October 11, a special commission was formed. She was tasked with finding out the causes of the accident. There were 11 people on the commission. Fomin was appointed as chairman. He was a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

Results

A commission created immediately after the K Yshtym accident 1957, conducted a survey of the area and identified settlements located in the zone of intense pollution. More than 4.5 thousand people were resettled from Russkaya Karabolka, Yugo-Konevo, Alabuga and the tungsten mine village. In addition, about 25 thousand hectares of land were plowed. In 1958-1959, the burial and liquidation of fodder, people's property, buildings, and food was carried out. After the disaster, a temporary ban on economic activity was introduced in the pollution zone. Damage from Kyshtym accident 1957 was very significant. A huge number of people were forced to leave their places of permanent residence. Many people did not want to leave. The situation was complicated by the fact that the Kyshtym radioactive accident caused enormous environmental damage to the area. Hazardous substances found their way into water bodies and soil, and forests and arable lands were contaminated.

Official version of the incident

It should be said that for quite a long time Kyshtym accident was kept secret. Only in 1989 the fact of the disaster was confirmed at a session of the USSR Supreme Council. The official version of the incident provided the following data. The complex to which the exploded bank belonged was built in the form of a concrete structure with cells. The latter were canyons for 300 cc tanks. m. Highly radioactive liquid waste from the Mayak plant was stored in them. These compounds have the ability to intensely release heat. In this regard, the containers must be constantly cooled. The failure of the system, as the commission concluded, was due to corrosion. As a result, cooling was stopped. This caused independent heating of the compounds in the container. The jar contained nitrate-acetate waste. Kyshtym accident occurred due to the evaporation of water, drying of the residue and heating of the compounds to a temperature of about 330-350 degrees. The power of the explosion was estimated at 70-100 tons of trinitrotoluene.

Another version

According to other sources, Kyshtym accident occurred as a result of the addition of plutonium oxalate to the evaporator tank, which contained a hot solution of plutonium nitrate. During the oxidation of the latter, energy was released in large quantities. This led to the container overheating and exploding. The bank, located at a depth (about 8 meters), completely collapsed, the concrete slab was thrown 25 meters away. Glass flew out of buildings within a radius of a kilometer. No other damage was recorded. No one died directly from the explosion itself. If we talk about emissions, then Kyshtym accident was, of course, not on the same scale as Chernobyl. For comparison, in the latter case, approximately 380 million curies were released into the air, which is approximately 19 times higher than in Ozersk.

Disinformation

As mentioned above, the fact of the disaster was kept secret by the Soviet government. However, the population needed to be told something. Therefore, almost immediately after the disaster, a note was published in Chelyabinsk Rabochy (a local newspaper). It spoke of a special glow in the sky as a phenomenon that has signs of the northern lights. In fact, this phenomenon was described in the publication. The article ended with the words that such a phenomenon is possible in the future at the South Ural latitudes.

Publications abroad

Despite all the attempts of the Soviet government to hide the fact of the disaster, it still became known. This was primarily due to the enormous scale of pollution. In addition, many people were involved in eliminating the consequences, who then dispersed to different regions of the country. As for other countries, the fact of the disaster became known to them quite quickly. A Copenhagen newspaper was the first to write about the accident in 1958. However, the publication provided inaccurate data. The article stated that the accident occurred during nuclear testing. The date of the disaster was also inaccurate. The newspaper said March 1958. The nature of the disaster was not known abroad. However, the Copenhagen newspaper said that the accident led to radioactive fallout on the territory of the USSR and neighboring countries. A little later, a report from the American National Laboratory suggested that a nuclear explosion occurred during military exercises in the Soviet Union. 20 years later, in 1976, Zhores Medvedev published a short message in New Scientist (an English magazine), which caused a wide resonance in the West. 3 years after this, he published a book that provided some reliable facts about the incident. In 1980, a publication by scientists from Oak Ridge (American atomic center) appeared. For the first time since Medvedev, experts admitted that a catastrophe had indeed occurred in the Soviet Union. It should be noted that the Mayak incident is the first radiation accident in the USSR. Oak Ridge experts analyzed geographic map information before and after the incident. Scientists have found that the names of some settlements have disappeared. In addition, they noticed that in the lower reaches of the river. During the leaks, canals and reservoirs were built.

Recognition of the incident by the authorities

As mentioned above, the fact of the disaster was first officially confirmed at a meeting of the Supreme Council in 1989. Subsequently, the Committees on Ecology and Health held joint hearings on this issue. Deputy Minister of Industry and Nuclear Energy Nikipelov spoke at the meeting. In November 1989, the world scientific community was familiarized with information about the circumstances, characteristics, and consequences of the accident at an IAEA symposium. Specialists from the Mayak chemical plant itself spoke at the meetings.

Additionally

Among the comments of eyewitnesses, the words of Mayak PA veteran V. Shevchenko are of interest. He said that for a long time, few people in the country, and especially abroad, knew about the disaster for a long time. Shevchenko denies any connection with the city of Kyshtym. He says that the disaster had nothing to do with the city. Publications containing information about what happened accident at the Kyshtym nuclear power plant, unreliable. It is worth saying that an obelisk dedicated to the disaster was built in this city.

Actions of the administration of the Chelyabinsk region

In the summer of 2011, the regional leadership posted a request for quotes for the provision of services. It included a rather specific requirement. In accordance with it, the first ten links in the Yandex and Google search engines for queries relating to the Kyshtym disaster and environmental problems of Karabash should contain materials that include either positive or neutral information and assessments of the situation. Representatives of the regional administration, commenting on their actions, spoke of the need to get rid of the image imposed by “radiophobes”, which has long become irrelevant and does not correspond to reality. In addition, the regional leadership reported that they did not plan to distort information about the environmental situation. Experts involved in search engine optimization considered the method chosen by the regional authorities to be ineffective. By the spring of 2012, the regional administration completely abandoned it. Instead, the regional authorities decided to use such traditional tools as publishing articles and advertising messages in local print media.

Creation of a reserve

To prevent the dangerous impact of the contaminated territory on the population living in the immediate vicinity of the disaster site, in 1959 the Soviet government decided to form a sanitary protection zone within the boundaries of the East Ural radioactive trace, in which a special regime was in effect. It included an area limited by an isoline of 2-4 curies per 1 sq. km for strontium-90. Its area was about 700 square meters. km. Land within this zone was classified as temporarily unsuitable for agricultural activities. On the territory it is prohibited to use forest and land lands, water bodies, cut down trees, plow up plots, mow grass, graze livestock, pick berries and mushrooms, and fish. To enter this area, you must obtain a special permit. In 1968, a reserve was formed in this part of the territory. Due to the radioactive decay of compounds deposited as a result of the Kyshtym accident, the area of contamination in the territory is decreasing. Today, visiting the reserve is prohibited. There is still a high level of radioactive contamination on its territory, and staying there is very dangerous for humans. Meanwhile, the nuclear reserve is of great practical importance. Various studies are being carried out on its territory. Today, persons injured as a result of the accident, citizens who participated in the liquidation of its consequences, have various social benefits.

Conclusion

Of course, any activity related to radioactive compounds carries a high risk. Before the disaster, no one thought that something irreparable could happen. Rules for working at high-risk facilities require constant monitoring of the condition of equipment and critical structures. However, even with the most careful supervision, it is not always possible to completely eliminate the risk. The Kyshtym accident caused enormous damage to the region's agriculture. Large areas of arable land are still unsuitable for cultivation. Many lost their homes and property; animals, food supplies, and feed were destroyed. This disaster should undoubtedly force all persons involved in activities at hazardous sites to be even more vigilant. After all, no fines for the perpetrators or benefits for the victims will be able to restore health lost as a result of man-made disasters or restore the state of ecosystems disturbed due to the toxic effects of emissions.

For the serious development of serious sciences, there is nothing more destructive than brutal seriousness. We need humor and some mockery of ourselves and the sciences. Then everything will prosper.
Nikolay Timofeev-Resovsky

Radionuclide contamination of the biosphere, caused by the development of nuclear technologies, nuclear weapons tests, and man-made accidents, has become global in nature and has reached a critical level in certain regions. Together with the powerful load of other technogenic factors, this circumstance makes the problem of the consequences of anthropogenic impact on all living things especially urgent. The problems that scientists of the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology (IEPiZh) of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, followers of the outstanding scientist, biologist, and geneticist Nikolai Timofeev-Resovsky - the famous Bison from the book by Daniil Granin - are solving today are becoming increasingly widespread. And the old building with wooden floors disappearing from under your feet in the Botanical Garden of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Yekaterinburg, housing several laboratories of the Institute, is still the same - since 1955, when Zubr began working here.

At the end of last year, for a series of works “Studying the effects of radiation on plants,” Vera Pozolotina, Doctor of Biological Sciences, head of the laboratory of population radiobiology of the Institute of Experimental Radiology and Life Sciences of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor of the Department of Ecology of UrFU, was awarded the N.V. Timofeev-Resovsky. For a number of years she has been studying vegetation in the area of the East Ural radioactive trace.

Know ours, Arctic Ocean

- Vera Nikolaevna, immediately explain, is it necessary to be afraid of background radiation in general in the Urals?

There is no natural radiation. This factor has always existed in the Universe, including on Earth, although we learned about it a hundred years ago, when natural radionuclides and ionizing radiation were discovered. Apart from cosmic rays, the bulk of natural background radiation comes from natural radioisotopes of the Earth. In the 60s and 70s, radiobiologists asked the question: what would happen if we removed the natural background radiation? Experiments to reduce background levels by even 40% showed that absolutely all living organisms studied, from bacteria to mammals, responded with a decrease in physiological activity. So this is the background of our life.

The danger comes from elevated levels that arise as a result of man-made disasters. In the Urals, the greatest concern is caused by the Mayak PA - in 1949, in the Southern Urals, 70 kilometers from the now millionth city of Chelyabinsk, near the ancient Ural cities of Kyshtym and Kasli, they created an enterprise for the industrial production of plutonium-239 for the creation of nuclear weapons. In the early years, the achievement of military-political goals relegated the protection of the environment and human health to the background. The lack of scientific knowledge and technological experience has created serious problems. In conditions of acute shortage of resources and time, simplified radioactive waste management schemes were adopted. From 1949, when the plant began operating, until the autumn of 1951, liquid waste was discharged into the Techa River...

- Was no disposal even provided for?

Nothing, there was a direct flow from the pipe into the river system Techa - Iset - Tobol - Irtysh - Ob - Bay of Ob - Kara Sea. Research has shown that at least 10% of the discharge went into the Kara Sea, but most of it settled in the area closest to the enterprise. Since the autumn of 1951, instead of dumping into the Techa, natural and artificial reservoirs, such as Lake Karachay, began to be used as storage facilities for liquid radioactive waste with medium levels of activity.

On September 29, 1957 at 16:22, due to the failure of the cooling system at Mayak, a 300 m3 tank containing about 80 m3 of highly radioactive nuclear waste exploded. The explosion, estimated at tens of tons of TNT equivalent, destroyed the container and threw the concrete floor, 1 meter thick and weighing 160 tons, to the side. 20 million Ci (7.4 1017 Bq) of radioactive substances (144Ce+144Pr, 95Nb+95Zr, 90Sr, 137Cs, plutonium isotopes) were released into the atmosphere, of which approximately 18 million Ci fell on the territory of the Mayak PA, and about 2 million Ci - beyond its borders, forming the East Ural Radioactive Trace (EURT). For comparison, the release from the Chernobyl accident is estimated at 50 million Ci, two and a half times more. But it didn’t seem enough to us either. Most of it spread on the industrial site, and people who were engaged in decontamination of this area were seriously injured.

Some of the radioactive substances (2 million Ci) were raised by the explosion to a height of 1 - 2 km and formed a cloud consisting of liquid and solid aerosols. The wind was blowing from the southwest. Within 10 - 11 hours, radioactive substances fell in a narrow trail over 300 km in the northeast direction from the explosion site, forming EURT.

In the most contaminated head part of it, the East Ural State Radiation Reserve was created in 1966. The territory was strictly protected, as, indeed, it is still protected, although the status of a reserve has been removed.

- Was this topic closed?

Yes, everything related to the atomic department was done in an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy. We started working on EURT (its peripheral part) in the early 90s. The topic of the Kyshtym accident was opened after the Chernobyl accident, when it became obvious that Chernobyl could not be silenced the way the Ural incident was silenced at one time. I personally had the opportunity to work at EURT in 1990: then a delegation from the International Union of Radioecologists came to the institute. They were not allowed into the Chelyabinsk region. But it was amazing: they knew more about EURT than we did. I think the scientists had intelligence at their disposal. At that time we had not even heard of Karachay and did not know the true boundaries of the trail. In general, before perestroika, if someone showed increased interest in this, they received money for it. Only in the same year a book edited by Avetik Burnazyan about the results of the Kyshtym accident appeared in the open press.

In the Chernobyl zone after the accident, specialists were needed who would have experience working in a radioactively contaminated area. There were such ones in the Urals. Unfortunately, not all the methods that have proven themselves in our country were useful to the Chernobyl liquidators. For example, deep plowing of contaminated lands was effective here, in which layers of soil 50 - 70 cm thick were turned over, burying the dirty top layer. Our soils are dominated by heavy loamy soils, while in Polesie there are sandy soils; the method had no effect.

The Kyshtym accident of 1957 was discussed openly here and abroad in 1989 - 1990. I went for an internship to Denmark in 1992. She asked me to show me what my colleagues knew. They placed a thick folder in front of me: scientific publications, reports, including American ones. The foreigners even made the outline of the EURT quite accurately, comparing the maps that were sold in our stores: until 1957 there were such and such villages - and suddenly they were not on the maps.

The container that exploded at Mayak contained mostly short-lived radionuclides; after four years they decayed almost completely. The main pollutant that remains is strontium-90, which has a half-life of 28 years.

Price "at any price"

- 56 years have passed since the accident, which means the second half-life has ended. So, is everything clean in the zone?

Alas, this is not true. In the head part of the EURT, near the epicenter of the accident, concentrations of strontium-90 exceed the background level by thousands of times. Cesium-137 was added to it, which also has a half-life of 28 years. From where, you ask? When it was understood that it was impossible to dump liquid radioactive industrial waste into the Techa, from October 1951 the main flow was directed into Lake Karachay, which as a result turned into an artificial storage facility called Reservoir B-9. Gradually, according to official data, more than 600 kCi of activity accumulated there, of which 30% strontium-90 and 70% cesium-137, most of it in bottom sediments. In 1967 there was an exceptionally dry summer and little snow in the winter. The mirror of Lake Karachay has shrunk. Radioactively contaminated bottom sediments - silt and fine sand - were exposed. They were picked up by the wind and carried over long distances, including into the EURT zone, that is, secondary pollution occurred.

- To what extent? Any ratings?

We are constantly assessing radionuclide contamination of soil and vegetation cover. This is the first and integral part of the work in emergency zones - to create a general picture of pollution in the region, to determine the main sources of emissions, their isotopic composition, and the dynamics of the development of the situation since the moment of pollution. According to our estimates, the EURT territory currently contains a total of about 15.5 thousand strontium-90 Ki, 1.8 thousand cesium-137 Ki and about 500 Ci of plutonium isotopes. In the zone closest to the epicenter of the accident, the concentration of radionuclides in soils is hundreds and thousands of times higher than the natural background. In addition to general assessments of ecosystem pollution, the laboratory calculates dose loads on plants and animals in the area and studies the biological effects of chronic irradiation for different organisms.

- Does the current level of ideas and those who dumped waste into Techa, Karachay vary greatly?

At that time they did not know much of what is known now. Various industrial wastes were poured into rivers, without knowing what consequences this would lead to. But even if the pioneers had known about the consequences, things would hardly have changed. The priorities were different. It was necessary to create a “product” (atomic weapon) as soon as possible, at any cost.

- Before Chernobyl, they didn’t study closed EURT at all?

They studied, of course: those who were admitted. In 1958, an experimental research station (ONIS) was created at Mayak, whose employees studied the problems of EURT in a very comprehensive and detailed manner. This work was headed by Academician of the All-Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences Vsevolod Klechkovsky. Employees of the Institute of General Genetics, Moscow State University and others worked on the basis of ONIS. Since the early 50s, branches of the Institute of Biophysics of the Ministry of Health have been operating, now it is a powerful Scientific and Practical Center for Radiation Medicine. And ONIS was liquidated during perestroika.

- How far have you researched?

The annual reports of ONIS contained unique data, but they were put on a shelf and you didn’t go further than PA Mayak. These reports are still in a closed fund. True, Mayak publishes the journal “Issues of Radiation Safety” and publishes archival materials in the appendix to the magazine. In 1993, the first collective monograph on the consequences of the Kyshtym accident was published, covering the most significant results of the work of the first period.

What grows in the new forest

How different are the goals of the first accident investigators and modern ones? Where did you pick up and advance the research?

In the first years, scientific research on the territory of the EURT, as already noted, was headed by Academician VASKhNIL Klechkovsky, who was also a consultant on atomic energy to the Council of Ministers of the USSR. He formulated a concept according to which, in the event of radioactive contamination of the environment, the main attention was paid to the problem of obtaining “clean” agricultural products... Radiobiological issues were of less interest to Soviet researchers.

For us, the main problem is studying radiobiological effects, how much plants and animals are affected. The anthropocentric principle has always prevailed in the public consciousness and is still alive: if a person is not injured, then everything is in order. People began to think about the environment, living organisms, and natural communities only in recent decades. Increasingly, it is being proposed to introduce an environmental principle into regulation, that is, not only to regulate standards for emissions of toxic substances, to assess their content in basic environments, but also to take into account the state of organisms (non-human biota) and biosystems. This direction is now rapidly developing in the West and in Russia; then it did not exist at all.

Of course, I would very much like to know in more detail what the researchers saw in the first year after the accident. From Chernobyl studies, for example, we know that in the near zone coniferous trees died within a few weeks, and deciduous trees were also severely damaged. Likewise, in the near zone of EURT, immediately after the accident, when doses exceeded the current level by more than 3000 times, the forests died. Now new ones have grown there. Nature is strong, its adaptive abilities are very great. Restoration is taking place in a variety of ways. In the affected areas there is a great diversity of species of both plants and animals, although the radioactive contamination there is still enormous. Morphoses, that is, deformities, appear in plants several times more often than in “clean” areas.

Our task is to study the state of current EURT plant populations, assess the long-term consequences of the accident, and identify recovery mechanisms that allow stable existence in the contaminated zone.

- Did the researchers who were the first to begin dangerous work in the zone make preliminary predictions?

Their idea was simple: in the laboratory, study the radiosensitivity of all plants that make up the phytocenosis, load the data into a powerful computer - it will show which species will die and which will live. But in reality, everything turned out to be wrong; the forecasts differed from reality, and deviations of 5–6 times were observed both in the direction of overestimation and underestimation of effects.

Fundamentally new in our research was the introduction of environmental concepts, principles, and laws into radiobiology. We were interested in problems at the “supraorganismal” level. When studying a specific model object, we consider not just a plant, but a collection of plants of this species (population) in the contaminated zone. We take into account the ecological characteristics of species and all types of variability inherent in them in their real habitat. This variability may be due to the genetic heterogeneity of populations and numerous environmental factors that modify the effects of radiation.

For example, weather conditions vary from year to year, and depending on the combination of temperature and precipitation during the main periods of seed formation, the radiation effect can be enhanced or weakened. If you limit yourself to an assessment for one year, you can hit the mark. These are only physical factors, but there are also biotic influences caused by connections between species in an ecosystem, which can be direct or indirect, indirect, multidirectional. The combinatorics of these factors are so diverse and the biological systems themselves are so complex that it is in principle impossible to give an accurate forecast; these are already the laws of mathematics. Our task is to identify the main characteristics of living organisms that are responsible for the successful, long-term existence of populations and to determine the range of their variability under certain scenarios of development of events.

Radiobiologists work with pure lines of animals, varietal crops in experiments where all factors are controlled. This makes it possible to isolate radiobiological effects and elucidate the mechanisms of action of radiation at the level of biomolecules, cells, and organisms. Radioecologists do not control temperature, humidity, other physical and chemical parameters of the environment, or biotic attacks, for example, an increase in the number of insect pests. We consider the complex of living biosystems and changing conditions as nature created them. Knowing the results of laboratory studies, basic radiobiological patterns, and applying ecological principles, we can give a probabilistic forecast of the fate of different species in conditions of radioactive contamination. That is, you need to work in both areas.

I would like to note one more circumstance. Before the Chernobyl accident, the main interests of radiobiologists were focused on studying the effects of high doses of radiation. Small ones have been studied less. Meanwhile, it is impossible to extrapolate effects on them from the region of high doses; low exposure has completely different patterns, they cause fundamentally different effects. We do not concern humans - this is not our topic, we work with non-human biota - animals, plants. But we see many general effects.

- What do you see?

Briefly: many morphoses occur in plants in the EURT zone. All of them are a consequence of genetic disorders that constantly arise both in somatic cells and in generative cells, in the latter case they are inherited. For example, the widespread white slumber plant normally has male and female plants. And in the contaminated zone, we found plants in which both female and male gametaphytes are represented in one flower. This is clearly a genetic disorder. We planted seeds on experimental sites and obtained offspring - the same hermaphrodites; this is an inherited disorder that is a consequence of a mutation in the male Y chromosome. Increased levels of impairment can be passed down from generation to generation, and we observed this effect up to the sixth generation.

The comparative aspect of the problem of technogenic impact on living systems is very interesting. In the Urals we have enough zones of influence of various industrial enterprises that pollute the environment primarily with heavy metals. We compared the effect of radiation and chemical stress (zone of the Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Plant) on plant reproduction using the example of dandelion. This species is widespread, it is a facultative apomict, that is, it can produce seeds without the participation of the male principle; a full-fledged embryo is formed from an unfertilized egg. The result is offspring - a “clean line”.

It turned out that clones from an area contaminated with heavy metals, after removing this stress, have high viability and are resistant to provocations of various negative factors. Clones from the EURT zone also produced offspring with high germination rates a year later, but their resistance to additional influences was very low. Radiobiologists associate this phenomenon with genome instability, which, once occurring, is passed on to subsequent generations.

- What is the problem of genome instability?

It is very easily brought out of balance. It is assumed that ionizing radiation generates various conformational changes in it, which change the rate of expression of different genes. This means that any additional impact: temperature, heavy metals, organic substances, radiation, viruses can cause a disruption of homeostasis, which will manifest itself at the level of the body. For these reasons, we observe a very large variability of various traits in plants in the EURT zone. If ordinary factors: temperature, high humidity or drought in background populations cause only some fluctuations in physiological parameters, then in radiation zones the range of variability in populations is increased several times. Unfavorable environmental conditions in addition to radiation exposure are sufficient to significantly reduce reproductive potential.

But there are years when, on the contrary, stimulation effects are observed in the contaminated area. This gives a wide range of variability of all characteristics and properties, of which the most important is the reproductive function. After all, populations, as we know, exist not only in space, but also in time. For them to exist for a long time, it is necessary that the offspring be born of high quality.

Let's go through the levels

- What are the directions for new research?

Timofeev-Resovsky said: “I went through the levels. And I advise you.” He was a geneticist and argued that all genetic information is recorded at the molecular cellular level. And it can be changed by irradiation. The next level is organismic. Here the information becomes explicit and manifests itself phenotypically. After all, while it is in the chromosomes, it can be realized, or maybe not. And the third level is population. It has its own laws, selection takes place, it is decided which part of the population will remain and give birth to offspring. This is what we are implementing, using new opportunities: to study, along with the morphological and physiological, the enzymatic structure of populations, DNA variability. Thus we come closer to the truth that he postulated, and these studies determine our prospects for the near future.

The decay of strontium-90 is still ongoing, generating effective beta radiation. Formally, it is believed that at least ten half-lives must pass, that is, 280 years, for the territory affected by the Kyshtym accident to become relatively prosperous. Having formulated the concept of long-term consequences, I can confidently say that research into biota in the EURT zone must be continued at all levels of the organization of living things. Restorative processes in living organisms and their communities are observed along with the effects of damage. We have the ability to identify these patterns.

- Is it really only in 280 years that everything will be normal around Lake Karachay?

Everything is complicated with Karachay. They are now filling it up; we can guarantee that 1967 will not happen again. But some of the radioactively contaminated water formed a lens at a considerable depth, and it is more difficult to control groundwater than surface water.

The task of our further research is not to see how something affects something, but to identify some fundamental principles of life. They manifest themselves very well when biosystems are taken beyond the limits of comfort. The EURT zone is a natural testing ground where a lot of surprises open up. Different species have their own adaptations, and what works in one species, for example, protection at the biochemical level, does not work at all in another.

It is important for us to identify the full range of adaptive reactions at different levels. Another example: intracellular repair systems were discovered by radiobiologists. Special sets of enzymes are launched after damage to the DNA molecule occurs. Their job is to heal this damage. But the significance of these systems is much broader. They heal any damage, regardless of what caused it: chemicals, viruses, radiation. This discovery actually removes the main contradiction of evolutionary theory. Geneticists have discovered that the genome is not immutable, many factors can influence it, but species remain stable. And this is thanks to powerful systems that restore the integrity of the genome.

- Is there any practical application of this research?

On the one hand, this is fundamental research, and on the other hand, we evaluate the quality of the environment in which we live. I cannot note any very ardent practical interest. But they are needed, that's for sure. Now Mayak PA strictly controls the research, but does not interfere. At scientific conferences they refer to our data and when it is necessary to convince the population what to be afraid of and what not to be afraid of. It is important for practitioners to know the patterns of distribution of radionuclides in space and radiation levels that are safe for plants and animals. We answer these questions.

- How fully do we know where and how the space in which we live is polluted?

Everything is open to the scientific community; in the Urals we know almost all the pain points. The situation is changing around the Beloyarsk NPP: in the first units, built using different technologies than the current ones, the cooling water was discharged directly into reservoirs. Increased concentrations were observed both in the reservoir zone and in the Olkhovsky swamp. Now the fourth unit is being launched there and the construction of a fifth is planned. It is very important not to repeat the mistakes of the past, to study from what starting level new blocks will begin to work, so that later old sins are not attributed to new technologies.

The Kyshtym accident of 1957 is not an incident related to nuclear energy, which is why it can hardly be called nuclear. It is called Kyshtymskaya because the tragedy occurred in a secret city, which was a closed facility. Kyshtym is the settlement that is located closest to the site of the disaster.

The authorities managed to keep this global accident secret. Information about the disaster became available to the population of the country only in the late 1980s, that is, 30 years after the incident. Moreover, the true scale of the disaster became known only in recent years.

Technical accident

The Kyshtym accident of 1957 is often associated with But in reality this is not entirely true. The accident happened on September 29, 1957 in the Sverdlovsk region, in a closed city, which at that time was called Chelyabinsk-40. Today it is known as Ozyorsk.

It is noteworthy that Chelyabinsk-40 was a chemical accident, not a nuclear one. The largest Soviet chemical enterprise, Mayak, was located in this city. The production of this plant involved the presence of large volumes of radioactive waste, which were stored at the plant. The accident occurred with these chemical wastes.

During the Soviet Union, the name of this city was classified, which is why the name of the nearest settlement, which was Kyshtym, was used to indicate the location of the accident.

Cause of the disaster

Industrial waste was stored in special steel containers placed in tanks that were dug into the ground. All containers were equipped with a cooling system, since large amounts of heat were constantly released from radioactive elements.

On September 29, 1957, the cooling system in one of the tanks that served as storage failed. Probably, problems in the operation of this system could have been detected earlier, but due to lack of repairs, the measuring instruments were worn out. Maintenance of such equipment has proven difficult due to the need for prolonged exposure to high radiation levels.

As a result, the pressure inside the container began to increase. And at 16:22 (local time) a strong explosion occurred. It later turned out that the container was not designed for such pressure: the force of the explosion in TNT equivalent was about 100 tons.

Scope of the incident

What was expected from the Mayak plant was a nuclear accident as a result of a production failure, so the main preventive measures were aimed at preventing this type of emergency.

No one could have imagined that the Kyshtym accident, which occurred in a radioactive waste storage facility, would take away the palm from and attract the attention of the entire USSR.

So, as a result of problems with the cooling system, a 300 cubic meter container exploded. meters, which contained 80 cubic meters of highly radioactive nuclear waste. As a result, approximately 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the atmosphere. The force of the explosion in TNT equivalent exceeded 70 tons. As a result, a huge cloud of radioactive dust formed over the enterprise.

It began its journey from the plant and in 10 hours reached the Tyumen, Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk regions. The affected area was colossal - 23,000 square meters. km. Still, the bulk of the radioactive elements were not carried away by the wind. They settled directly on the territory of the Mayak plant.

All transport communications and production facilities were exposed to radiation. Moreover, the radiation power during the first 24 hours after the explosion was up to 100 roentgens per hour. Radioactive elements also reached the territory of the military and fire departments, as well as the prison camp.

Evacuation of people

10 hours after the incident, permission was received from Moscow to evacuate. People were in the contaminated area all this time without any protective equipment. People were evacuated in open cars, some were forced to go on foot.

After the Kyshtym accident occurred (1957), people caught in the radioactive rain passed through. They were given clean clothes, but, as it turned out later, these measures were not enough. The skin absorbed radioactive elements so strongly that more than 5,000 victims of the disaster received a single dose of radiation of approximately 100 roentgens. Later they were distributed to different military units.

Clean-up work

The most dangerous and difficult task of decontamination fell on the shoulders of volunteer soldiers. Military construction workers, who were supposed to remove radioactive waste after the accident, did not want to do this dangerous work. The soldiers decided to disobey the commands of their superiors. In addition, the officers themselves also did not want to send their subordinates to clean up radioactive waste, since they realized the danger of radioactive contamination.

It is also noteworthy that at that time there was no experience in cleaning buildings. The roads were washed with a special product, and the contaminated soil was removed by bulldozers and taken away for burial. Cut down trees, clothes, shoes and other items were also sent there. Volunteers who cleaned up the consequences of the accident were given a new one every day.

Accident liquidators

People involved in eliminating the consequences of the disaster should not have received a radiation dose exceeding 2 roentgens during their shift. During the entire period of presence in the infection zone, this norm should not exceed 25 roentgens. Yet, as practice has shown, these rules were constantly violated. According to statistics, during the entire period of liquidation work (1957-1959), approximately 30 thousand Mayak workers received radiation exposure exceeding 25 rem. These statistics do not take into account people who worked in the areas adjacent to Mayak. For example, soldiers from surrounding military units were often involved in work that was dangerous to life and health. They did not know for what purpose they were brought there and what the real degree of danger of the work they were assigned to do was. Young soldiers made up the overwhelming majority of the total number of liquidators of the accident.

Consequences for plant workers

How did the Kyshtym accident turn out for the employees of the enterprise? Photos of the victims and medical reports once again prove the tragedy of this terrible incident. As a result of the chemical disaster, more than 10 thousand employees with symptoms of radiation sickness were removed from the plant. In 2.5 thousand people, radiation sickness was established with complete certainty. These victims received external and internal radiation because they had no way to protect their lungs from radioactive elements, mainly plutonium.

Help from local residents

It is important to know that this is not all the troubles that the Kyshtym accident of 1957 entailed. Photos and other evidence indicate that even local schoolchildren took part in the work. They came to the field to harvest potatoes and other vegetables. When the harvest was completed, they were informed that the vegetables had to be destroyed. The vegetables were placed in trenches and then buried. The straw had to be burned. After that, tractors plowed the radiation-contaminated fields and buried all the wells.

Soon, residents were informed that a major oil field had been discovered in the area and they needed to move urgently. The abandoned buildings were dismantled, the bricks were cleaned and sent to cowsheds.

It is worth noting that all this work was carried out without the use of respirators and special gloves. Many people did not even imagine that they were eliminating the consequences of the Kyshtym accident. Therefore, most of them did not receive supporting certificates stating that their health had been irreparably harmed.

30 years after the terrible Kyshtym tragedy occurred, the attitude of the authorities towards the safety of nuclear facilities in the USSR has changed greatly. But this did not help us avoid the worst disaster in history, which happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

First major radiation disaster occurred in the Chelyabinsk region at a nuclear plant "Mayak" September 29, 1957

The radiation release from the 1957 accident is estimated at 20 million Curies. Chernobyl release - 50 million Curies. The sources of radiation were different: in Chernobyl - a nuclear power reactor, at Lighthouse- container with radioactive waste. But the consequences of these two disasters are similar - hundreds of thousands of people exposed to radiation, tens of thousands of square kilometers of contaminated territory, the suffering of environmental refugees, the heroism of the liquidators...

The 1957 accident is talked about less and less often than about. For a long time the accident was classified, and it happened 29 years before, 50 years ago. For modern schoolchildren this is a distant past. But we must not forget about her. Liquidators are getting sick and dying, and the consequences of that accident are now affecting the health of their children and grandchildren. The East Ural radioactive trace is still dangerous. Not all residents have been resettled from contaminated areas yet. And most importantly, the Mayak plant continues to operate, continues to accept waste from nuclear power plants, continues to dump waste into the environment, although waste processing must be carried out at special plants.

Introduction

If it had not happened, people would never have known that in the center of Russia, at the foot of the Ural Mountains, where Europe meets Asia, there had already been such an accident, similar in scale to Chernobyl.

The place where this first major nuclear disaster, was classified for a long time, it did not have an official name. Therefore, many people know her as “ Kyshtym accident", after the name of a small ancient Ural town Kyshtym, located near the secret city of Chelyabinsk-65 (today Ozersk), where this terrible radiation disaster occurred at the Mayak nuclear plant.

Mayak Plant

Long before it was decided to use atomic energy to produce electricity, its terrifying destructive power was used to make weapons. Nuclear weapons. A weapon that can destroy life on Earth. And before the Soviet Union made its first atomic bomb, a plant was built in the Urals to make the stuffing for it. This plant was called " Lighthouse».

The process of making materials for the atomic bomb did not care about the environment or human health. It was important to fulfill the state's task. To obtain a charge for an atomic bomb, it was necessary not only to launch military nuclear reactors, but also to create a complex chemical production, which resulted in the production of not only uranium and plutonium, but also a huge amount of solid and liquid radioactive waste. This waste contained large amounts of residues of uranium, strontium, cesium and plutonium, as well as other radioactive elements.

At first, radioactive waste was poured directly into the Techa River, on which the plant stands. Then, when people began to get sick and die in the villages on the banks of the river, they decided to pour only low-level waste into the river.

Intermediate level waste began to be dumped into Lake Karachay. High-level waste began to be stored in special stainless steel containers - “cans”, which were located in underground concrete storage facilities. These “cans” became very hot due to the activity of the radioactive materials they contained. In order to prevent overheating and explosion, they had to be cooled with water. Each “can” had its own cooling system and a system for monitoring the condition of the contents.

1957 disaster

By the fall of 1957, the measuring instruments, which were borrowed from the chemical industry, were in an unsatisfactory condition. Due to the high radioactivity of the cable corridors in the storage facility, their repairs were not carried out in a timely manner.

At the end of September 1957, one of the “cans” experienced a serious breakdown in the cooling system and a simultaneous failure in the control system. The workers who carried out the inspection that day discovered that one “can” was very hot. But they did not have time to inform management about this. The "can" exploded. The explosion was terrible and resulted in almost the entire contents of the waste container being released into the environment.

In the dry language of the report it is described as follows:

“The failure of the cooling system due to corrosion and failure of control equipment in one of the containers of the radioactive waste storage facility, with a volume of 300 cubic meters, caused self-heating of 70-80 tons of high-level waste stored there, mainly in the form of nitrate-acetate compounds. The evaporation of water, drying of the residue and heating it to a temperature of 330 - 350 degrees led to an explosion of the contents of the container on September 29, 1957 at 16:00 local time. The power of the explosion, similar to the explosion of a powder charge, is estimated at 70 - 100 tons of trinitrotoluene.”

The complex, which included the exploded container, was a buried concrete structure with cells - canyons for 20 similar containers. The explosion completely destroyed a stainless steel container located in a concrete canyon at a depth of 8.2 m. The concrete slab of the canyon was torn off and thrown 25 m.

About 20 million curies of radioactive substances were released into the air. About 90% of the radiation settled directly on the territory of the Mayak plant. Radioactive substances were raised by the explosion to a height of 1-2 km and formed a radioactive cloud consisting of liquid and solid aerosols. The southwest wind, which blew that day at a speed of about 10 m/s, carried the aerosols. 4 hours after the explosion, the radioactive cloud traveled 100 km, and after 10-11 hours the radioactive trail was completely formed. 2 million curies that settled on the ground formed a contaminated area that stretched approximately 300-350 km in a northeast direction from the Mayak plant. The border of the pollution zone was drawn along an isoline with a pollution density of 0.1 Ci/sq.km and covered an area of 23 thousand sq.km.

Over time, these boundaries were “blurred” due to the transfer of radionuclides by wind. Subsequently, this territory received the name: “” (EURT), and its head, most contaminated part, occupying 700 square kilometers, received the status of the East Ural State Reserve. The maximum length of the EURT was 350 km. The radiation barely reached one of the largest cities in Siberia - Tyumen. The width of the trail in some places reached 30 - 50 km. Within the boundaries of the isoline of 2 ki/sq. km for strontium-90 there was an area of more than 1000 sq. km - more than 100 km long and 8 - 9 km wide.

East Ural radioactive trace

The zone of radiation contamination included the territory of three regions - Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk and Tyumen with a population of 272 thousand people who lived in 217 settlements. With a different wind direction at the time of the accident, a situation could have arisen in which Chelyabinsk or Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg) could have been seriously infected. But the trail went to the countryside.

As a result of the accident, 23 rural settlements were evicted and destroyed, virtually wiped off the face of the earth. Livestock was killed, clothes were burned, food and destroyed buildings were buried in the ground. Tens of thousands of people, who suddenly lost everything, were left in an open field and became environmental refugees. Everything happened the same way it will happen 29 years later in the Chernobyl accident zone. Relocation of residents from contaminated areas, decontamination, involvement of the military and civilian population in work in the dangerous zone, lack of information, secrecy, prohibition of talking about the disaster that occurred.

As a result of an investigation carried out by the nuclear industry after the accident, it was concluded that the most likely cause was the explosion of dry salts of sodium nitrate and acetate, formed as a result of the evaporation of the solution in the container due to its self-heating when cooling conditions were violated.

However, there has been no independent investigation until now, and many scientists believe that a nuclear explosion occurred at Mayak, that is, a spontaneous nuclear reaction occurred in the waste tank. Until now, 50 years later, technical and chemical reports on the accident have not been published.

September 29, 1957 became a black day in the history of the Urals and all of Russia. This is the day when the life of people in the Urals was divided into 2 halves - before the accident and after, just as then the normal life of Ukraine, Belarus, and the European part of Russia will be divided by another black date - April 26, 1986.

In order to eliminate the consequences of the accident, actually wash the territory of the industrial site with water Mayak and stop any economic activity in the pollution zone, hundreds of thousands of people were required. Young men from the nearest cities of Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg were mobilized for liquidation without warning them of the danger. Entire military units were brought in to cordon off the contaminated area. Then the soldiers were forbidden to say where they were. Young children aged 7-13 years old were sent from villages to bury radioactive crops (it was autumn). The Mayak plant even used pregnant women for liquidation work. In the Chelyabinsk region and the city of nuclear workers after the accident, mortality increased - people died right at work, freaks were born, entire families died out.

Eyewitness accounts

Nadezhda Kutepova, daughter of a liquidator, Ozersk

My father was 17 years old and he studied at a technical school in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). On September 30, 1957, he and his other fellow students were loaded directly from classes into trucks and brought to the " Lighthouse» eliminate the consequences of the accident. They were not told anything about the seriousness of the dangers of radiation. They worked for days. They were given individual dosimeters, but were punished for overdosing, so many people left dosimeters in their clothing drawers so as not to “overdose.” In 1983, he fell ill with cancer, he was operated on in Moscow, but he began to metastasize throughout the body, and 3 years later he died. We were told then that it was not from the accident, but then this disease was officially recognized as a consequence accident at Mayak. My grandmother also participated in the liquidation of the accident and officially received a large dose. I never saw her because she died of lymphatic cancer long before I was born, 8 years after the accident.

Gulshara Ismagilova, resident of the village of Tatarskaya Karabolka

I was 9 years old and we were in school. One day they gathered us and told us that we would harvest the crops. It was strange to us that instead of harvesting the crops, we were forced to bury them. And there were policemen standing around, they were guarding us so that no one would run away. In our class, most of the students later died of cancer, and those who remained are very sick, the women suffer from infertility.

Natalya Smirnova, resident of Ozersk

I remember that there was terrible panic in the city at that time. Cars drove along all the streets and washed the roads. They told us on the radio that we should throw away everything that was in our houses that day and constantly wash the floor. Many people, Mayak workers, then fell ill with acute radiation sickness; everyone was afraid to say or ask anything under the threat of dismissal or even arrest.

P. Usatiy

I served as a soldier in the closed zone of Chelyabinsk-40. On the third shift of service, a fellow countryman from Yeisk fell ill; when they arrived from service, he died. When transporting goods in wagons, they stood at the post for an hour until their nose started bleeding (a sign of acute exposure - author's note) and their head hurt. At the facilities they stood behind a 2-meter lead wall, but even that didn’t save us. And upon demobilization, we were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Of all those called up, there are only three of us left - all disabled.

Rizvan Khabibullin, resident of the village of Tatarskaya Karabolka

On September 29, 1957, we, students of the Karabolsk secondary school, were harvesting root crops in the fields of the collective farm named after. Zhdanov. At about 4 p.m., everyone heard a roar from somewhere in the west and felt a gust of wind. In the evening a strange fog descended on the field. We, of course, did not suspect anything and continued to work. The work continued in the following days. A few days later, for some reason, we were forced to destroy root crops that had not yet been exported...
By winter I started having terrible headaches. I remember how I rolled on the floor in exhaustion, how my temples were tightened like a hoop, my nose was bleeding, I practically lost my sight.

Zemfira Abdullina, resident of the village of Tatarskaya Karabolka

(Quote from the book “Nuclear Archipelago” by F. Bayramova, Kazan, 2005.)
At the time of the atomic explosion I was working on a collective farm. In a field contaminated by radiation, she collected potatoes and other vegetables, participated in burning the top layer of straw removed from stacks and burying the ashes in pits... In 1958, she participated in cleaning radiation-contaminated bricks and burying brick rubble. Whole bricks, by order from above, were loaded into trucks and taken to their village...
It turned out that I had already received a large dose of radiation in those days. Now I have a malignant tumor....

Gulsaira Galiullina, resident of the village of Tatarskaya Karabolka

(Quote from the book “Nuclear Archipelago” by F. Bayramova, Kazan, 2005.)
When the explosion occurred, I was 23 years old and pregnant with my second child. Despite this, I was also driven out to the contaminated field and forced to dig there. I miraculously survived, but now both I and my children are seriously ill.

Gulfira Khayatova, resident of the village of Muslyumovo

(Quote from the book “Nuclear Archipelago” by F. Bayramova, Kazan, 2005.)
The first childhood memory associated with the river (Techa) is barbed wire. We saw the river across it and from the bridge, then still an old wooden one. My parents tried not to let us go to the river, without explaining why, apparently they themselves didn’t know anything. We loved going up to the bridge, admiring the flowers that grew on the small island... The water was clear and very clean. But my parents said that the river was “nuclear”... My parents rarely talked about the accident in 1957, and if they did, it was in a whisper.
Perhaps for the first time I consciously realized that something was wrong with our river when I went with my mother to another village and saw another river. I was very surprised that that river was without barbed wire, that you could approach it...
In those years (60-70s) they didn’t know what radiation sickness was, they said he died from a “river” disease... It’s etched in my memory how we, as a class, worried about one girl who had leukemia, i.e. . leukemia. The girl knew that she would die and died at the age of 18. We were then shocked by her death.

Conclusion

This was a terrible disaster. But it was hidden. Only afterwards did many in the Chelyabinsk region realize that now they could also talk about the accident at Mayak. And in the early 90s, more than 30 years after the accident, a report on it was published for the first time. In order to somehow compensate people for the harm caused, a law was introduced on the social protection of those who suffered from this accident. But no one will ever know exactly how many people died. Still on East Ural radioactive trace The village of Tatarskaya Karabolka, in which there are 7 (!) cemeteries for 400 people, remains; the village of Muslyumovo, located on the banks of the radioactive Techa River, has not yet been resettled. Radiation causes genetic damage and the descendants of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th generations of people exposed to radiation will suffer and get sick.

50 years have passed since the accident. " Lighthouse» operates, accepts waste and spent nuclear fuel from many nuclear power plants in Russia. People working on it and living near it are exposed to radiation and accumulate plutonium, cesium, and strontium in their bodies. As before, every second, every minute, and even at this moment, when you are reading these lines, the plant produces tons of radioactive waste that is formed as a result of reprocessing fuel from nuclear power plants. And he still pours all this into the water, now not into the Techa River, but into Lake Karachay. This means that everything can happen again... After all, the worst thing is not that such accidents happen, but that no conclusions are drawn from what happened, no lessons are learned...

In one of the villages that remained on contaminated land after the explosion, children wrote the following poems.

Sends Lighthouse not salvation rays:
Strontium, cesium, plutonium are his executioners.

The first major radiation disaster occurred in the Chelyabinsk region at the Mayak nuclear plant on September 29, 1957.

The radiation release from the 1957 accident is estimated at 20 million Curies. Chernobyl release - 50 million Curies. The sources of radiation were different: in Chernobyl - a nuclear power reactor, at Mayak - a container with radioactive waste. But the consequences of these two disasters are similar - hundreds of thousands of people exposed to radiation, tens of thousands of square kilometers of contaminated territory, the suffering of environmental refugees, the heroism of the liquidators...

The 1957 accident is talked about less and less frequently than the Chernobyl disaster. For a long time the accident was classified, and it happened 29 years before Chernobyl, 50 years ago. For modern schoolchildren this is a distant past. But we must not forget about her. Liquidators are getting sick and dying, and the consequences of that accident are now affecting the health of their children and grandchildren. The East Ural radioactive trace is still dangerous. Not all residents have been resettled from contaminated areas yet. And most importantly, the Mayak plant continues to operate, continues to accept waste from nuclear power plants, and continues to discharge waste into the environment.

Introduction

If the Chernobyl disaster had not occurred, people would never have known that in the center of Russia, at the foot of the Ural Mountains, where Europe meets Asia, there had already been an accident similar in scale to Chernobyl.

The place where this first major nuclear disaster occurred was classified for a long time and did not have an official name. Therefore, it is known to many as the “Kyshtym accident,” after the name of the small ancient Ural town of Kyshtym, located near the secret city of Chelyabinsk-65 (today Ozersk), where this terrible radiation disaster occurred at the Mayak nuclear plant.

Mayak Plant

1957 disaster

In the dry language of the report it is described as follows:

Over time, these boundaries were “blurred” due to the transfer of radionuclides by wind. Subsequently, this territory received the name: "East Ural radioactive trace" (EURT), and the head, most polluted part, occupying 700 square kilometers, received the status of the East Ural State Reserve. The maximum length of the EURT was 350 km. The radiation barely reached one of the largest cities in Siberia - Tyumen. The width of the trail in some places reached 30 - 50 km. Within the boundaries of the isoline of 2 ki/sq. km for strontium-90 there was an area of more than 1000 sq. km - more than 100 km long and 8 - 9 km wide.

East Ural radioactive trace

September 29, 1957 became a dark day in the history of the Urals and all of Russia. This is the day when the life of people in the Urals was divided into 2 halves - before the accident and after, just as then the normal life of Ukraine, Belarus, and the European part of Russia will be divided by another black date - April 26, 1986.

In order to eliminate the consequences of the accident - to actually wash the territory of the Mayak industrial site with water and stop any economic activity in the pollution zone - it took hundreds of thousands of people. Young men from the nearest cities of Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg were mobilized for liquidation without warning them of the danger. Entire military units were brought in to cordon off the contaminated area. Then the soldiers were forbidden to say where they were. Young children aged 7-13 years old were sent from villages to bury radioactive crops (it was autumn outside). The Mayak plant even used pregnant women for liquidation work. In the Chelyabinsk region and the city of nuclear workers after the accident, mortality increased - people died right at work, freaks were born, entire families died out.

Eyewitness accounts

Nadezhda Kutepova , daughter of a liquidator, Ozersk
My father was 17 years old and he studied at a technical school in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). On September 30, 1957, he and his other fellow students were loaded directly from classes into trucks and brought to Mayak to eliminate the consequences of the accident. They were not told anything about the seriousness of the dangers of radiation. They worked for days. They were given individual dosimeters, but were punished for overdosing, so many people left dosimeters in their clothing drawers so as not to “overdose.” In 1983, he fell ill with cancer, he was operated on in Moscow, but he began to metastasize throughout the body, and 3 years later he died. We were told then that it was not from the accident, but then this disease was officially recognized as a consequence of the accident at Mayak. My grandmother also participated in the liquidation of the accident and officially received a large dose. I never saw her because she died of lymphatic cancer long before I was born, 8 years after the accident.

Gulshara Ismagilova
I was 9 years old and we were in school. One day they gathered us and told us that we would harvest the crops. It was strange to us that instead of harvesting the crops, we were forced to bury them. And there were policemen standing around, they were guarding us so that no one would run away. In our class, most of the students later died of cancer, and those who remained are very sick, the women suffer from infertility.

Natalia Smirnova , resident of Ozersk
I remember that there was terrible panic in the city at that time. Cars drove along all the streets and washed the roads. They told us on the radio that we should throw away everything that was in our houses that day and constantly wash the floor. Many people, Mayak workers, fell ill with acute radiation sickness at that time; everyone was afraid to say or ask anything under the threat of dismissal or even arrest.

P. Usatiy
I served as a soldier in the closed zone of Chelyabinsk-40. On the third shift of service, a fellow countryman from Yeisk fell ill; when they arrived from service, he died. When transporting goods in wagons, they stood at the post for an hour until their nose started bleeding (a sign of acute exposure - author's note) and their head hurt. At the facilities they stood behind a 2-meter lead wall, but even that didn’t save us. And upon demobilization, we were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Of all those called up, there are only three of us left - all disabled.

Rizvan Khabibullin , resident of the village of Tatarskaya Karabolka

On September 29, 1957, we, students of the Karabolsk secondary school, were harvesting root crops in the fields of the collective farm named after. Zhdanov. At about 4 p.m., everyone heard a roar from somewhere in the west and felt a gust of wind. In the evening a strange fog descended on the field. We, of course, did not suspect anything and continued to work. The work continued in the following days. A few days later, for some reason, we were forced to destroy root crops that had not yet been exported...
By winter I started having terrible headaches. I remember how I rolled on the floor in exhaustion, how my temples were tightened like a hoop, my nose was bleeding, I practically lost my sight.

Zemfira Abdullina , resident of the village of Tatarskaya Karabolka
(Quote from the book “Nuclear Archipelago” by F. Bayramova, Kazan, 2005.)
At the time of the atomic explosion I was working on a collective farm. In a field contaminated by radiation, she collected potatoes and other vegetables, participated in burning the top layer of straw removed from stacks and burying the ashes in pits... In 1958, she participated in cleaning radiation-contaminated bricks and burying brick rubble. Whole bricks, by order from above, were loaded into trucks and taken to their village...
It turned out that I had already received a large dose of radiation in those days. Now I have a malignant tumor....

Gulsaira Galiullina , resident of the village of Tatarskaya Karabolka
(Quote from the book “Nuclear Archipelago” by F. Bayramova, Kazan, 2005.)
When the explosion occurred, I was 23 years old and pregnant with my second child. Despite this, I was also driven out to the contaminated field and forced to dig there. I miraculously survived, but now both I and my children are seriously ill.

Gulfira Khayatova , resident of the village of Muslyumovo
(Quote from the book “Nuclear Archipelago” by F. Bayramova, Kazan, 2005.)
The first childhood memory associated with the river (Techa) is barbed wire. We saw the river across it and from the bridge, then still an old wooden one. My parents tried not to let us go to the river, without explaining why, apparently they themselves didn’t know anything. We loved going up to the bridge, admiring the flowers that grew on the small island... The water was clear and very clean. But my parents said that the river was “nuclear”... My parents rarely talked about the accident in 1957, and if they did, it was in a whisper.
Perhaps for the first time I consciously realized that something was wrong with our river when I went with my mother to another village and saw another river. I was very surprised that that river was without barbed wire, that you could approach it...
In those years (60-70s) they didn’t know what radiation sickness was, they said he died from a “river” disease... It’s etched in my memory how we, as a class, worried about one girl who had leukemia, i.e. . leukemia. The girl knew that she would die and died at the age of 18. We were then shocked by her death.

Conclusion

This was a terrible disaster. But it was hidden. Only after the Chernobyl accident many in the Chelyabinsk region realized that now the same can be said about the accident at Mayak. And in the early 90s, more than 30 years after the accident, a report on it was published for the first time. In order to somehow compensate people for the harm caused, a law was introduced on the social protection of those who suffered from this accident. But no one will ever know exactly how many people died. To this day, the village of Tatarskaya Karabolka, in which there are 7 (!) cemeteries for 400 people, remains on the East Ural radioactive trail; the village of Muslyumovo, located on the banks of the radioactive Techa River, has not yet been resettled. Radiation causes genetic damage and the descendants of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th generations of people exposed to radiation will suffer and get sick.

50 years have passed since the accident. Mayak operates and receives waste and spent nuclear fuel from many nuclear power plants in Russia. People working on it and living near it are exposed to radiation and accumulate plutonium, cesium, and strontium in their bodies. As before, every second, every minute, and even at this moment, when you are reading these lines, the plant produces tons of radioactive waste that is formed as a result of reprocessing fuel from nuclear power plants. And he still pours all this into the water, now not into the Techa River, but into Lake Karachay. This means that everything can happen again... After all, the worst thing is not that such accidents happen, but that no conclusions are drawn from what happened, no lessons are learned...

In one of the villages that remained on contaminated land after the explosion, children wrote the following poems.

The Lighthouse sends out rays of salvation:
Strontium, cesium, plutonium are his executioners.