Probably, today there is no person who would not be familiar with one of the most famous places on Earth - Chernobyl. Information about Chernobyl today can be found not only in books, but also in numerous Internet resources. This word is primarily associated with an explosion at a local nuclear power plant. The Chernobyl disaster occurred on April 26, 1986, perpetuating the city. Its history is actually much more ancient.
Where did the name come from
First you need to understand why Chernobyl was called Chernobyl. Who and when gave the city this name? There is an opinion that the name is associated with the Chernobyl, or the wormwood, more known to us. The thing is that this plant is very common in the area where the city was founded. Wormwood here literally grows in whole fields. There are other versions of why Chernobyl was called Chernobyl. The accident at the nuclear power plant in 1986 caused mystical legends and conjectures. This is the prophecy of the ancients. "Black reality" - a gloomy combination, a harbinger of trouble.
Ancient history of the city
When and where was the name Chernobyl first mentioned? The history of the city begins with a mention in the annals dated 1193. It is from there that the now famous history of Chernobyl begins. This mention was connected with the Kiev prince, who was just hunting in the vicinity of the town. There are no earlier references to the village.
At that time, the city of Chernobyl was famous for the fact that representatives of various faiths coexisted peacefully in it. There were Catholics, Jews, and Orthodox.
The thousand-year history of Chernobyl holds another interesting fact. On the Pripyat River, at its confluence with the Dnieper, in the thirteenth century, the combined Lithuanian and Ukrainian forces inflicted a crushing defeat on the governor of Batu Khan himself - Kaidan. The governor went to the region of Pripyat in order to collect tribute. After the attack, Kaidan barely took his feet off the battlefield. He never returned to the city of Chernobyl and its environs for a tribute.
City during World War II
This terrible war was the bloodiest in the history of mankind. It is known that the war claimed more than 60 million lives. The total number of victims is calculated by historians to this day.
Chernobyl did not pass by World War II either, which by the time of the Nazi invasion was already a fairly large city with good infrastructure and prospects.
The Germans with great zeal tried to capture the city. The area on which Chernobyl is located is on a hill. In addition, it is surrounded by the Pripyat and Uzh rivers, which for the enemy troops seemed beneficial from the point of view of military tactics. From this section, all transport routes were perfectly controlled, from land to river.
August 25, 1941 the city was occupied. He was recaptured only during the repeated offensive of the Red Army on November 17, 1943. Today, in memory of those tragic events, the Glory Park was created with memorial signs and monuments installed in it for the brave inhabitants of Chernobyl.
Post-war fate
The city was considered a strategically important object, therefore considerable forces were thrown at its restoration. The enterprises that were evacuated at the beginning of the war were returned as a matter of priority, residential buildings and objects of social significance were rebuilt: kindergartens, schools, hospitals. The military and families were sent to the city in a hurry for work and permanent residence. Just a few years later, Chernobyl again became a flourishing city.
NPP construction
When planning the construction of nuclear power plants, various sites were considered, including in the Kiev, Vinnitsa and Zhytomyr regions. But this region was chosen for the construction of the station. Is this not the answer to the question "why was Chernobyl called Chernobyl"? Still a prophecy? But everything is much more prosaic. The choice fell on Chernobyl, as the land at the site of the future station was practically barren. In addition, the high clay content in the soil made it possible to build such a large-scale complex as a nuclear power plant. The area had the necessary resources for water supply, met all the requirements of the traffic intersection and, most importantly, provided a sanitary protection zone.
May 1970 - a grand construction began. Construction equipment began to dig a pit for the future of the first power unit, the construction of which was completed in 1977. Then it was launched. Then, from 1978 to 1983, the remaining units were completed and put into operation, including the infamous fourth power unit.
By the way, it is impossible not to mention that in the same 1970, party representatives drove a peg at the site of the future satellite of the station, the city of Pripyat. Moreover, the construction of this town was carried out in parallel with the work at the station.
Typical day
Chernobyl, April 26, 1986 . For residents of the city, it was the most ordinary day. In the evening, when the next shift on duty left and the other arrived, the station was in normal operating mode.
The employees changed into work robes and took their places at the control panels. On this day, at the fourth power unit, the reactor’s “run-out” turbine tests were planned. The essence was to check whether the station will be able to maintain its work for some time after an emergency or emergency power outage due to the residual rotation of the generator turbine. The chief engineer of the station A.S. Woodpeckers.
Chernobyl explosion
As the time came and all the necessary preparations were completed, the test began. Then events began to occur, which led to a terrible disaster. For unspecified reasons, the reactor power was lowered to very low values - 500 megawatts, while the regulatory act ordered testing at capacities from 700 to 1,500 megawatts. The second mistake was to leave too few graphite rods that were used to control the reaction. At the time of the explosion, there were only four of them in the core, which ultimately led to overheating of the reactor and its explosion. A follow-up investigation over the course of several years established the inadequate design of the absorbent rods.
Some more specific points were noted, which together could cause the disaster in Chernobyl. Many now call this explosion atomic, but this is not the case. The explosion was thermal, and such a force that the reactor protection (weighing as much as 500 tons), like a lid from a kettle, flew into the air and collapsed back.
The Chernobyl explosion was simply gigantic. Frightened, the country's leadership for a long time hid the true extent of the accident. Only when reports began to arrive from other countries about a sharp increase in the radiation background, the Soviet leadership had to admit the fact that there was a grand catastrophe in Chernobyl, which was not equal in the whole world.
Chernobyl accident liquidators
The explosion immediately killed 2 Chernobyl employees, another 31 employees died within a few weeks from radiation sickness. Of all the employees who were at the station at the time of the accident, only 6 survived.
Immediately the firemen arrived at the scene of the explosion, who showed real heroism, courage and courage. Knowing the mortal danger, they stood against a blazing radioactive fire and extinguished the fire, despite multiple burns and worsening health. In fact, they became a human shield on the path of deadly radiation. Six firefighters who extinguished the radioactive flame died from burns and acute radiation sickness a few weeks after the accident.
Helicopter pilots from the air dumped sand and boron carbide into the wreckage to extinguish the remnants of the reactor and prevent it from exploding again.
Scientists, understanding the risks involved, carried out the necessary inspections and measurements directly in nuclear hell so that the liquidators had accurate data for the effective conduct of decontamination work.
When robots were used to dump the luminous pieces into the active zone, then all microcircuits simply burned from a large amount of radiation. Then the soldiers had to work, who dumped the wreckage into the collapse of the active zone, using ordinary shovels.
Doctors, police, military, workers, miners, drivers, researchers - in total, more than 600 thousand people took part in the liquidation work over several years. The Chernobyl disaster, in addition to official employees, attracted more than a million volunteers who helped to eliminate the terrible consequences of the accident. People cleared the forest and burned damaged trees, dumped radioactive soil into mines, poured water on nearby territory to reduce radiation levels, helped with evacuation, and provided first aid.
After the crash
Official sources kept silent about the true scale of the Chernobyl disaster and the real disastrous consequences. The next day, the city lived its usual life. A stream of townspeople rushed to the market, schoolchildren went to school, someone went on vacation to a forest or a river, many went to their dachas. Cafes, shops, cinemas, and a wedding palace worked. The accident, of course, could not go unnoticed by ordinary citizens, but few understood the true extent and appreciated the possible terrible consequences of the explosion. Those who understood this immediately left the city with their family. The overwhelming majority felt anxiety only when cars began to drive around the city and water sidewalks with water to reduce the radiation background.
Only the next day, an urgent need to leave the infected city was announced. Then, probably, many thought once again why Chernobyl was called Chernobyl ... More than 500 thousand residents of the city were taken out per 1000 buses. The USSR did not remember the evacuation of such proportions.
The city of Pripyat with a population of almost 70 thousand people depopulated literally in a matter of hours. In parallel, villages were evacuated, some of which were later destroyed, and their remains were buried in order not to spread radiation. At first, in order to avoid panic, people were told that they were leaving for a while, although scientists and the military understood that no one would return here.
Exclusion Zone
Autumn, Chernobyl 1986. After the debris was removed and the surrounding area was decontaminated as much as possible, work began on the Shelter object, better known as the Sarcophagus. With the help of it, later it was possible to close the wreckage of reactor 4, which was dangerous in terms of radiation. Work to strengthen emergency facilities and disinfecting activities are carried out to this day.
Scientists from all over the world come to Chernobyl to study the effects of critical doses of radiation on living organisms, to develop methods to eliminate the effects of a nuclear explosion.
Around the station formed a special zone, which is today known to everyone under the name of the Exclusion Zone. In total, it was divided into three parts: the first is the station and the city of Pripyat itself, the second captured most of the villages, and the last ring passed in the vicinity of the city of Chernobyl.
The devastating consequences of the Chernobyl explosion
All, without exception, were affected by the liquidation of the Chernobyl accident. Tens of thousands of people died over time from excessive doses of radiation, many became disabled. In subsequent years, statistics noted a sharp increase in mortality from cancer, a general weakening of the health of the nation. Such a high mortality rate is caused, first of all, by the untimely evacuation of residents, negligent and criminal connivance on the part of officials, the desire to shut up and hide the truth.
Today Chernobyl is an object of extreme tourism
How does Chernobyl live today? Photos confirm that this is a lifeless and deserted place. Of course, people who work in the exclusion zone currently live in abandoned apartments. Here is one of the offices of the Ministry of Emergencies.
For extreme tourists, the Chernobyl Tour organization operates. Here you can book a one-day or several days trip to the Exclusion Zone. There you can take a brochure called “Chernobyl. History of the city ”, which briefly describes the past and present of this settlement.
People can see with their own eyes the place where many years ago one of the largest disasters broke out, not only in the twentieth century, but in the whole history of Russia. A sculptural composition dedicated to the firefighters heroically fighting the flame in the reactor was installed here. On the territory of the city, the St. Elias Church operates , where every year on April 26 a large-scale service is held in memory of all those who died from the Chernobyl accident.
Tourists can travel all Chernobyl, photos are allowed to take without restrictions. For some, this trip is simply a satisfaction of curiosity, for some it is a tribute to the memory of the fallen heroes and proof of how destructive a “peaceful” atom can be.