Novozybkov
Bryansk region, Russian
Federation
Novozybkov is a small town in the
south-west part of Russia, where the country meets both Ukraine and Belarus. It
is situated 170-200 km north-east of Chernobyl in Ukraine.
Novozybkov was founded 1701 by people who
because of their religion fled from the Russian tsar. At the time the area
belonged to Polen. The place where Novozybkov was built was originally a swamp
– and that is what zybkov means. And since it was new – as in novo – the town
was called Novozybkov.
Old Believers
The founders of Novozybkov belonged to Old
Believers which is a church of irregular status. They are also known as Old
Rithualists and came into existence, as mentioned
above, as the result of a schism within the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th
century. The Russian Church had adopted certain liturgical usages that differed
from those of the Greeks. Patriarch Nikon (1605-1681) introduced changes
intended to make Russian practices conform to Greek usage. This was offensive to
some Russian Orthodox who believed that it was legitimate for the Russian
Church to adopt its own traditions. Opposition coalesced around a priest named
Avvakum, who was burnt at the stake in 1682. His followers became known as Old
Believers, or those who followed the old rituals before the reform.
The Old Believers, who at one time
may have composed 10% of the Russian population, were harshly persecuted under
the tsars. Many fled into Asia in the 18th century and others were forcefully
exiled from European Russia. Many communities lived in almost complete
isolation for centuries. Since no Orthodox bishop had joined the Old Believers,
the group was deprived of a hierarchy. This, along with the fact that the
communities were spread over vast areas, caused them to split into as many as
12 groups, each with its own characteristics. But the Old Believers managed to
preserve traditional
Russian iconography at a time when
the official church supported more modern art forms.
The archbishop of Novozybkov and the Old Believers
beautiful blue church.
In Novozybkov there is also several Russian Orthodox
churches of different colours.
It was only after May 3, 1905, when
Tsar Nicholas II issued the Edict of Toleration, that Old Believers were
allowed to function freely in Russia. The situation of this community since the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 is poorly known, but there were attempts to
overcome the schism. Metropolitan Sergius and the Holy Synod took unsuccessful
measures to heal the rift in 1929. Meetings took place
in the period following World War
II which culminated in the solemn lifting of the anathemas in 1971. So far,
however, full communion between Old Believers and the Russian Orthodox Church
has not been re-established.
The Archbishop of Novozybkov
The largest priestly group of Old
Believers today is known as the “Bielaia Krinitsia” Church, a reference to the
village in western Ukraine where one of their largest communities is located.
The other significant group of priestly Old Believers is much smaller, and is
headed by Archbishop Aristarch of Novozybkov, Moscow, and All Russia, with
headquarters in Novozybkov. They obtained a valid hierarchy during the turmoil
of the 1920s and now have about 50 parishes. There are additional bishops in
Kamyshin, Kursk, the Urals and Burjatia, as well as in Georgia and Belarus.
The Old Believers are believed to
have substantially declined in numbers after the 1917 Soviet revolution. They
have now achieved legal recognition, and churches have been reopening at a
rapid rate, creating an acute shortage of clergy. Reliable figures concerning
membership are not available, but estimates run between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000
faithful.
Where the prices were
settled
Novozybkov very soon became a
famous little town with a great influence over business in Europe and with a
lot of culture. Before the revolution 1917 Novozybkov was a commercial centre
with a university, at least 11 library and several hotels. The town still has
its university and at least high schools specialised on arts, music and
athletics.
A great deal of the originally
population of Novozybkov was Jewish. Many were businessmen known to be very
honest. It is said about them, that they never used written contracts or
recites. They were so honest, that it was not needed. Business arrangements
were agreed just by shaking hands. Businessmen were coming from all countries
in Europe, since Novozybkov were the place where all prices were settled.
Before the revolution 1917 Novozybkov was
an important commercial centre where all prices for Europe were settled.
Then came the second world war, when Novozybkov
– in the Barbarossa Operation – were occupied by the Germans 1941.
Approximately 5000 Jews lived in Novozybkov at the time and all Jews who did
not escape were murdered. During one single night 400 families were killed.
The story of the Safonov family
Shortly
after the Germans occupied Novozybkov in the summer 1941 they rounded up all
the Jews for execution. It was then that the Safonov family decided they had to
do something. In their cattle-shed they dug a hole and hid nine Jews. Three
were from the Mogilevskyi family, neighbours of the Safonovs; three were from
the Gutin family; and three were from the Uritskyi family. At night the Jews
would come out of the hole for fresh air. The Safonovs fed and cared for them
for several months.
In the fall,
the Safonovs' children, Vasilyi and Nadezhda, went into the forest to make
contact with the partisans. One night Vasilyi and his sister led all the people
into the forest to the partisans, except Mrs.
Mogilevskyi, who was sick. She died at the Safonov's house and was buried in
their garden.
Mr.
Mogilevskyi and his son, who was later killed, fought alongside the partisans,
as did Nadezhda and Vasilyi. Vasilyi's parents were betrayed to the Germans and
were shot because they had hidden Jews. Mr. Mogilevskyi adopted Vasilyi as his
son; they went through the remainder of the war together. Vasilyi Safonov is
today in his 80s and lives in Novozybkov
Two hansom war veterans at the square in front of the Administration of
Novozybkov in April 1999,
when LC Järna, District 101, Sweden, delivered two ambulances to the
main hospital.
The Chernobyl catastrophe
Novozybkov recovered and began to bloom again
with several factories and an a great export of wood- and textile. Then came
the Chernobyl accident. It happened to rain that night April 26 1986, when the
radioactive cloud passed Novozybkov with the winds. Radioactive particles fell
down from the sky on streets, houses, lakes, rivers, forests, meadows,
agricultural soil and of course also people. From that day Novozybkov is
radioactive polluted, poisoned with deadly material like Iodin-131, Cesium-137,
Strontium-90, Plutonium-239 and about 20 other radioactive isotopes. No one
knew about it. At least not in Novozybkov. The Kremlin kept the Chernobyl
accident a secret, while children were outdoor playing in the radioactive dust.
In May 1986 a school teacher, who held a lesson
with a Geiger counter. He discovered that something was wrong. The Geiger
counter showed high values in the grass outside the school. The teacher went to
major Ivan Nesterov and asked him what to do. Major Nesterov called the Kremlin
and got the answer: Your Geiger counter is broken. In August came the
politicians first scientists to Novozybkov and the inhabitants finally got the
news that their town I poisoned. The visitors had clean food in their luggage
but told the people of Novozybkov, that there were nothing wrong with their
local produced food.
Novozybkov should have been evacuated – like
every other place were that have more than 15 Ci/km2 of Cesium-137. Low levels
like that are never seen in Novozybkov. The usual level in the middle of the
town is 20-25 Ci/km2 but the values are different everywhere. The radio
nuclides fell down to earth in spots, so there are houses with 150 Ci/km2 as
well where people still live.
The problem is, there is no where to go. So,
the 45 000 inhabitants where of 12 000 children still live in Novozybkov
receiving some 50 roubles per person and month just to keep calm. The price is
their health. The village Svjatsk outside Novozybkov
that was the home for about 1000 persons and some other places were, however,
evacuated, since the Geiger counter showed over 40 Ci/km2 on the best places
and over 1000 Ci/km2 on the worst. Some nine old woman returned and some
evacuated people used their old houses for vacations during the summer. Some
just returned to grow their vegetables in the radioactive soil. Other people
suddenly started to come to Svjatsk to steal radioactive bricks and
telephone-lines to use somewhere else. Other thieves plunder the houses and the
little church of its radioactive icons.
The factories of Novozybkov had to close for
good. Before the accident they produce for example matches for Iran and Turkey
and textile for England and USA. Today nobody wants to buy gods from
radioactive Novozybkov anymore. And since the inhabitants no longer have any
salaries to talk about, they cannot pay taxes. That means that the whole town
is bankrupt.
There are about 85 liquidators in Novozybkov.
All of them were taken away from their families in the middle of the night to
during three months liquidate the consequences of the accident. Most of them
were forced to work on the roof of reactor 3 were highly radioactive debris
from reactor 4 was thrown. Suddenly they were on duty in Chernobyl, a place
with an accident they had never heard of. The radiation was so dangerous, that
each man was only aloud to work there 1 minute per day.
The Environmental organization Living Earth:
In 1986,
their toxic rains fell most heavily on the light industrial and agricultural
area of Novozybkov. Many people were forced to evacuate and move away from the
region where their
families
had lived for generations. Cancers and related conditions have affected almost
the entire population and continue to create a legacy of pain, loss, hardship,
and grief.
The deciduous
forests surrounding Novozybkov, where regional culture evolved over
generations, are saturated with radiation and have been declared permanently
off-limits by the government--toxic essentially forever, at levels up to 100
times that of background levels. One village of 900 families at the time of the
disaster, is now home to just four remaining elderly residents, who subsist by
growing kitchen gardens and gathering mushrooms and berries from the
surrounding woods.
The radiation
levels shift and change in relation to environmental factors, such as the
presence of other environmental pollutants and chemical toxins, winds and dust,
and rains. Toxicity also shifts with changing weather, seasons, and other
conditions; different structures as well as open spaces hold unstable levels of
radioactivity. Soil, crops, cattle fodder, firewood, and building materials are
all contaminated in varying degrees, and new, unstudied diseases are emerging,
the product of radiation combined with other toxins.
Today the population in the Novozybkov region
is slowly growing, as economic and political conditions drive people from other
regions into areas where housing is cheap. It has been less than
twenty years since the disaster at Chernobyl,
but its devastating nuclear legacy will continue to unfold for generations
The Forgotten City
After the Chernobyl catastrophe Novozybkov became a forgotten place. Especially the Kremlin in Moscow wants to forget all about it. Those who could move moved. Many of them came back. If they had a place to go to, they did not get a job or vice versa. They had to return to be able to support themselves. Still, 18 years after the accident, Novozybkov is a place where children no longer can run barefoot, walk in the rain, swim in the rivers or eat wild mushrooms and fruit.
Mayor
Ivan Nesterov:
- The Kremlin said that they should
help us. We waited till 1991, then we understood that they had forgotten all
about us. In the beginning money came from Moscow. So we changes the water in
our two small artificial lakes and some 20 centimetres on top of our
agricultural soil. We berried everything that was radioactive in the forest.
But suddenly there were no more money. Two governors in Bryansk, the capital of
the region, took them. They were kicked out of office, but the money were
already gone.
Novozybkov is a very beautiful town
with small houses and typically Russia carpentry. There are fences between the
houses along the roads and behind the fences one can se the radioactive gardens
where they grow all their vegetables. Of course they do. They have to. And they
pick berries and mushrooms in the radioactive forests as well as they swim in
the radioactive river. The children are playing in the radioactive grass and
fishing in the radioactive lake. The try not to think about it. That is the
only possible way to live in Novozybkov.
The people are also victims to
businessmen without a conscience. While writing this paper, the following
telegram – as an example - from the newsagency AFP came in:
Ukraine-Chernobyl-nuclear
Clandestine canning company sold irradiated mushrooms and fruits from
Chernobyl
KIEV, Jan 28 (AFP) - A clandestine canning company in the northern
Ukrainian region of Jitomir has been shut down by authorities after it was
discovered that it sold irradiated berries and mushrooms that had been picked
near the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, a newspaper report said Wednesday.
The report in the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted police as saying that
the small company sold its contaminated products, including fruit juice, to
markets in the region and probably the capital Kiev.
Police discovered at the site more than two tonnes of irradiated mushrooms
and 600, three-liter cans of juice.
They said the level of radiation in the fruits and mushrooms was high
enough to harm someone who regularly used the products.
Authorities declared a 30-kilomter (18-mile) zone around the Chernobyl
plant off-limits after the 1986 nuclear accident there that led to the
explosion of one of the reactors and the contamination of a wide area. The
accident was the world's worst nuclear power disaster.
Clandestine canning company sold irradiated mushrooms and fruits from
Chernobyl
KIEV, Jan 28 (AFP) - A clandestine canning company in the northern
Ukrainian region of Jitomir has been shut down by authorities after it was
discovered that it sold irradiated berries and mushrooms that had been picked
near the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, a newspaper report said Wednesday.
The report in the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda quoted police as saying that
the small company sold its contaminated products, including fruit juice, to
markets in the region and probably the capital Kiev.
Police discovered at the site more than two tonnes of irradiated mushrooms
and 600, three-liter cans of juice.
They said the level of radiation in the fruits and mushrooms was high
enough to harm someone who regularly used the products.
Authorities declared a 30-kilomter (18-mile) zone around the Chernobyl
plant off-limits after the 1986 nuclear accident there that led to the
explosion of one of the reactors and the contamination of a wide area. The
accident was the world's worst nuclear power disaster.
(The city of
Zjitomir, that is the capital of the Volynien region in
Ukraine, is also polluted by radioactivity after the Chernobyl accident. In
other words: The inhibitants of Zjitomir already have what they need of
radiation.)
Many children in Novozybkov have
cancer, due to mayor Nesterov. Even young girls are forced to take away their
uterus, he says. A lot of children are mental retarded. Many children suffers
from asthma, gastric ulcer (because of radioactive food) and depressions.
Besides, a lot of the Novozybkov children have damages on nervous system, hart
and liver.
In Kiev, Ukraine, professor
Stephanova works at one of four Chernobyl hospital. She were the one to
diagnosed and define the Chernobyl Syndrome – a condition of damaged immune
system that leads to other diseases like for example cancer.
- There were no Hulken born after
the Chernobyl accident, she says. We have the same diseases and conditions as
before, but they are much more common and worse.
Dr Larisa Baleva at one of the
Chernobyl hospitals in Moscow says, that about 800 000 children in the
contaminated areas have health problems. Thousands have developed cancer and
hundreds of thousands are at risk to do so.
- They will be adults, she says.
They will be 20 years old but maybe not 30.
The world just has to help
The
Chernobyl nuclear disaster has caused suffering and hardship on an enormous
scale. But when people look at the facts for the first time (the number of
people who have died, the absence of any compelling evidence of genetic
deformities), their initial reaction is often to think that after all it is not
as bad as they originally thought. All too rarely have the media drown
sufficient attention to the scale and complexity of the consequences of this
one industrial accident. An ugly stain has spread over a big chunk of the
world. The psychological and social impact on the population and the toll that
it has taken on the various economies is immeasurable. This area might have
stood a good chance of emerging from the ashes of the Soviet Union as a
progressive and optimistic society, but Chernobyl has destroyed that chance.
The inhabitants of this area are still struggling to rebuild their lives. The
best reason for helping these people is that they are so easy to help. They are
the first ones to help themselves. Their education level is one of the highest
in the world, there are many well qualified people, and the infrastructure is
intact.
If, on 25
April 1986, one could have foreseen the break-up of the Soviet Union, the
region that would have looked the most promising in terms of its economic
future would have been Belarus, Ukraine and Western Russia. They should import
everything they eat, but of course they do not. That is why radioactivity for
the first time in history is to be found in the human biological system.
The latest
known nuclear accident at the Tokaimura reprocessing plant in Japan showed that
serious nuclear accidents can also happen in highly developed countries. There
is an enormous amount to be learned from Chernobyl about preventing future
nuclear accidents, and coping with them effectively when they happen. As
Tokaimura has shown us, the sad fact is that others will need this knowledge at
some stage in the future. It is vital to the world, and not only the afflicted
populations of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, that the rest of the world give the
Children of Chernobyl project our strongest support. The Chernobyl cause
qualifies for, and is in desperate need of help.
