april 26, 1986 was a beautiful saturday. i was thinking about whether i should go to the university to my department or to a party and economic asset scheduled for 10:00 in the morning at the ministry. this is a transcript of the tape recordings that academician valery legasov kept almost like a diary all his life years after the chernobyl accident. these unique testimonies will form the basis of the book that margarita legasova will write about her husband. here, a real chronicle, disasters, the practice of keeping diaries, and recording dictaphones. he always had her. when, for example, he was preparing for some kind of serious speech, yes, he would dictate to himself scientifically, then he listened to himself and collected only after that he gave the transcript to the secretaries. they ciphered it all, gave an impressive presentation. that is, it was accepted. naturally, after he first got into this hell of chernobyl, he

immediately began to dictate. these records miraculously survived after death. academician's entire archive, seized by the investigator. details. catastrophes have been classified as secret for a long time. everything was confiscated from the house, his notes were confiscated from his diaries , and the dictaphone records were confiscated, and some of his scientific, uh, records, everything was seized for analysis of the investigation, and uh, when the investigation was completed, uh, to us. naturally, all this was returned home. they brought it, but we never checked what was taken away. -some papers when the records were returned to relatives academicians have become, clearly in front of them a unique evidence of what happened at the chernobyl station. in fact, my mother herself

deciphered without involvement. any secretaries. she deciphered all his notes and thank god that it has survived, because it is historical, the truth is the composition of the government commission to investigate the circumstances in the chernobyl accident. according to his own words, academician legasov got, almost by accident, the ministry told him that none of the nuclear physicists could be found, because this saturday, because it is the canon of the may holidays. many took let go, who went to the country? who where and the father ended up in moscow and he was told that he was included in the first government commission to investigate the causes of the accident to eliminate the consequences of the accident, but very soon he would. it is clear that if it were not for valery legasov, the consequences of chernobyl could have been much more terrible , and there were many developments not only in the civil, but also in the military field of scientific development. this meant that he had a fairly large number friendly people in our

law enforcement agencies and the military and in the state security committee, and, accordingly, these acquaintances of his allowed him to speed up the process of obtaining help, that is, without waiting for movement through the top. he convinced the gap first of all that the situation. uh, critical that this is a catastrophe on a planetary scale - these are his words. they spread all over the world and people still use them boris shcherbina deputy chairman of the council of ministers of the ussr and head of the government commission, together with valery legasov arrived at the scene of the accident. on the evening of april 26, 8:00 p.m. they ended up in pripyat immediately. the father demanded that helicopters be provided and helicopters arrived. on the same evening, under the leadership of general antoshkin, an e-e point from the kiev military district. it was on the seventeenth that the airman on duty called us and reported. comrade general, something happened in

chernobyl at the power plant and the leadership of the republic is asking for a helicopter to conduct reconnaissance for several months to live from three degrees in pripyat general antoshkin arrived when, after the explosion in chernobyl, not even a day had passed at the entrance. it was already clear that a column of smoke was burning, well, it seemed 300-400 meters away. you can rise higher. this fire is visible. so, at the entrance to pripyat, i gave a command. i say, connect our fifth gazelle group. he connected the arrow hesitated, and how it became in this direction, this stream of radioactive radiation. there were some more of these . apparently thrown away. it was on the edge of the

city. pripyat is just the stadium there. that's it the stadium through the stadium is in the direction of belarus in general. everything is gone. in the early morning of april 27, the first military helicopter from the record of academician ligasov will rise at the chernobyl station. overflights, external inspections of the state of the fourth unit began. on the first flight. it was seen that the reactor was completely destroyed. the upper plate sealing the reactor compartment. it was almost in a strictly vertical position, but at some angle it was clear that it had been opened the upper part of the reactor hall was completely destroyed on the roofs the machine room on the site of the territory were lying around. your blocks are either solid or destroyed by the nature of the destruction, it was clear that there was a volumetric explosion and its power was from 3 to 4 t 3 liters of tollol, it was after the assembly of the helicopter

that valery legasov saw what happened to the reactor , he was the first to declare the need for an urgent evacuation of residents . in pripyat, he himself, together with helicopter pilots, flew several times around the place of the explosion. it was important for him to understand and see with his own eyes. how does it look from the air, because no one is already not seen from the air. this is a terrible picture and it was very important for him to understand what it is. and when he saw it that same evening, and he would immediately tell all the right commissions about it. they sidorenko began to insist on the evacuation of people after they raised the government to a commission. they sat down there and discussed how they say they made a mistake and immediately decided it was the evacuation of the city. even after some time. you have announced that the citizens are evacuating for several days. take the most money, there paperwork products at first case and so on, what after a while,

kind of come back, that is, they first of all, what they did they saved people, it was important. and when they took out such a danger from under the blow, and the entire civilian population of pripyat, leaving only those who served the nuclear power plant, these are the people who were supposed to stay there. only after that they were divided into six groups. shcherbin divided the entire government commission into six groups and appointed a leader, and each of these groups and, uh, gave specific tasks to each of them, the group that headed by academician legasov, it was instructed to localize the accident. no one knew exactly how this could be done . this means that in the first days everyone had dosimeters before winter, and, accordingly, when they appeared, so it was simply pointless to use them, then, of course, in the first few days he did not know exactly what he was receiving, but he received there from 400 to 600 roentgens per hour is, well, already that dose, if

it works out, uh, for a few days quite regularly. this is a dose of already incompatible life, in order to understand how strong the radiation around the fourth block was, it is enough to look at these frames, taken on april 28, 1986, explosions on films that you see not technically, brother, this is the camera's reaction to the off-scale level of gamma radiation at this height, as then scientists owe us. i thought the whole thing was less than three and a half thousand roentgen levels of radiation. this is a terrible instant death to a person, depending on health, with a half thousand x-rays. a little more than 800 x-rays are already irreversible processes for humans. it was from this height that they worked, and well , they received a lot of x-rays, of course, for each academician of the ligases immediately understood from the funnel

of the fourth block destroyed by a powerful stream. there is radiation, 2.5 tons of graphite burns, and if it is not extinguished, then it will blaze for 240 hours. these deadly radioactive particles. the wind will blow thousands of kilometers around, this khan will not know how many tens or hundreds of kilometers there are. there is so much radioactive fuel there, one and a half thousand. he, in my opinion, radioelectrography. she should have been. i do not know the month to burn out, and therefore closed and left. to stop burning, and after that get to work to get close to the power unit. it is possible that the hot power unit begins to throw substances that can stabilize the temperature inside the carbide, bora clay and lead sand tried everything, but by the ninth of may, smoldering hearths were still fixed.

over two thousand tons were thrown there, only lead out of a total of 5,000. well, each time i reported a little less than 1.200. he threw a report to the law i threw thousands or 500, that is, what the carp threw reports 500. why i was afraid, he doubled me and that we would not complete the task, i would put the aviation on me there . for some reason even sometimes. designated, i say boris evdokimovich, you are already out of me. i'm sorry but i deceived you. he says, in what sense i say, we threw more, but we needed to report less. why were we afraid that we would not complete the task. he laughed and said expressed such

words, if everyone did, since you did more, reported less. we probably would have already lived under communism that it was all this time that happened at the station close to valery legasov, we could only guess these days were the most difficult, because we must understand that at that time there was still no mobile communication. the connection was completely different. and uh, he called, he rarely did, but he called , i know that everyone is worried. he certainly called home, my mother reassured me. rita is fine. we are working, everything will be fine. i will fly, and there e, not worry about me. i will fly soon, he told her, but she understood the price of all this, the price of these words. and uh, of course she was very worried. he flew in 10 days later, the doctors said that the dose of radiation that academician legasov received was already life-threatening, he flew in and was taken to the

institute of atomic energy. they washed him there, took away all his clothes, but destruction. and so we felled, and the mother with the driver handed him fresh clean suit shoes. well, everything, down to underwear. eh, and only he was washed from there, but they brought him home, and he was you understand, what that's like a burnt person. so, when a person tans, in the sun unexpectedly, yes, it turns out like this, and such a very strong tan is completely healthy. here he had a tan, almost black , almost black, it was, uh, a tan, which all those who came across liquidators remember. this is what they had. here is a black terrible deadly tan. the composition of the government commission was urgently updated. it was clear that it was deadly dangerous to spend more than several days at the station in a row, but when the updated team of experts was already ready for we told valery legasov to fly out, but we cannot replace you, comrade academician, because

shcherbina hang yevdokimovich. he continued to surrender to the leader. this is a government commission, and for the first period of interaction with his father , he, uh, understood, uh, who he was dealing with, and he practically considered him his right hand. yes , in fact, with his right hand, he read, probably, his inner one. he probably thought that this is the person who pulls the situation out of the records himself. academician legasov. it was clear to me that there is a huge amount of unusual work to be done to build the shelter of the fourth block. to do this, it was necessary to work out the delivery of concrete to evaluate. what a good technique. and what is unsuccessful in these conditions, since the sarcophagus itself was still in the first stage of the project, it seemed to me very important. at this stage, start debugging the mechanism for entering people, that's from may 20, we started working. well, before that they came. so, when our specialists began to understand, here are the pictures of the drawings

for us by the one who designs. here they are. here you see, even here the scale is indicated below, so that we can draw together drawings. look what happened there and make a decision. what are these drawings? according to such photographs that were taken both from the satellite and from the helicopter in the official documents of the sarcophagus, which it was decided to arrange on the fourth reactor, was called the shelter object. here it was necessary to find a solution, there were 28 projects. then 18 projects remained. actually, then they stopped. and when they looked at all these pictures. we searched. uh, what designs are left untouched, that is, what structures are the

structural elements of the building could be used in order to close this eruption of this radiation of substances such, that is, this is a volcano, or something, a source of radiation, and in general came to the conclusion, uh conclusion that you need to look for support. put load-bearing beams on these supports and cover them with sticks with such shields. this is how the work to eliminate the accident requires constant monitoring, but every week academician legasov is forced to fly to moscow when his father came home. it happened during these four -something months, but with a certain regularity. well, after uh, 5-7 days later, he flew home, because he needed to report on the situation at the institute as well. e, and it was necessary to interact with your colleagues and in the ministries and he was called endlessly, like the cpsu and the council of ministers there, that is, there

were a lot of organizations that were crossed in this situation. it was necessary to give information, the chernobyl nuclear power plant is not the only nuclear power plant. it was urgent to understand what exactly happened in the beginning. how to avoid similar disasters at other facilities. of course, what led to the tragedy was a human factor or a system error. here is what he writes in his book. the widow of academician valery alekseevich is very sparing. only to the closest people, literally with tears in his eyes, he told that amazing unpreparedness for an accident was everywhere in those days, no one could accurately read the number of victims, but he clearly understood that the lack of respirators, clean water supplies, clean reserve food products, drugs, delay with iodine prophylaxis will do their terrible job, the number of those affected will increase. the main thing is that they did not understand when they began to give

explanations. oh, when they began to give explanations, uh representatives, uh and employees of the chernobyl nuclear power plant uh hmm because how they behaved and co-co what algorithm they acted it turned out that they were conducting some experiments, an experiment to remove excess heat, huh? yeah, and for him it was also incomprehensible , it was incomprehensible who authorized this experiment. why was it held? uh, and uh, how is he was carried out, that is, there were a lot of incomprehensible questions. all incomprehensible and unpleasant questions had to be answered by the station staff and its director viktor bryukhanov. well, nevertheless, the investigation began. in this way, uh, they recognized that the main cause of the accident was the human factor. this experiment was unsuccessful in removing excess heat, and, unfortunately, these people were judged by the arrests in the case of the accident at the fourth unit of the chernobyl nuclear power plant will begin on august 13, 1986,

on this very day the main engineers of the station were detained nikolain, as well as its director viktor bryukhanov this is how he recalled that day. on august 13, at 10:00 am, they were invited to the prosecutor general's office and talked with the investigator until one in the afternoon, then he left for lunch. and announced you are under arrest. i asked why arrest me, because i will not run away, i heard the answer for you. it will be better and i was sent to the kgb pre-trial detention center. viktor bryukhanov was waiting here in the pre-trial detention center. freedom director of the chernobyl nuclear power plant will be released in 5 years at the end of the summer of 1991. even when he came back from prison, he went to prison

for a couple of days, then he was sent to kiev for chemistry - this is forced labor for the unchained after serving half the term viktor bryukhanov filed a petition on early release, and it was granted, but with the condition of compulsory labor under supervision. you had to live in a special hostel to work at a special enterprise for non-compliance with the rules, you can return to prison for years five in this zone prison and a year there or as much as possible two in chemistry. that is, he lived in a hostel. somewhere he worked in them. he went to check everything, and then even when he arrived, when he was released, he went to the police station every month or every week . he will come back a completely different person. it was hard for him to remember, very hard,

the former director of the chernobyl plant will try to forget the accident. like a terrible dream. in that. my father and i are already in kiev, i don’t remember this. what year. well, he's probably in his 60s. but his birthday is a photo of his birthday. he was 60 years old. well, i'm 205 24 flowers and all congratulations. his rapidly deteriorating health will constantly remind him of the darkest day of his life. now he is lying now he is in bed, and then, well, as usual people, but she was worse all the time worse worse stroke one second third, until a lump. viktor bryukhanov tried to prove that the catastrophe had happened. it's not his fault, because everything kept silent about all the levels of radiation. everything everything they are silent only on the new ukraine before chernobyl. there are no more chernobyl victims and there was no case. the first five-seven. you can even say 10 years. we

were in sight. we were under attention, we were under the tutelage of the state, then the social articles of this law began to be emasculated almost every year . well, what about pensions and compensation for the loss of health? at least your minimum pensions and benefits are chernobyl victims. they even went to the rally near the walls, they tried to remind the verkhovna rada of themselves, but they were told that the ukrainian budget would not be able to do it directly. so survive somehow yourself the law could be said, more often than not, social protection was completely destroyed, and we were forced to appeal first to the constitutional court of ukraine a. then in the european way the right person and 3 years ago one of the vice presidents. the union of chernobyl of ukraine spoke at this court, and we won this court and the court

ruled to restore the tripod of the law for 14 years, and already for the 20th, nothing will be restored. this is a history under the heading. top secret disaster, of course, it would be a very big disaster inside the history of the chernobyl disaster was. another one that could become a global tragedy, and about which for many years they preferred to remain silent, after all, the truth is not needed by anyone. i say on my own behalf that everything is satisfied with some accepted version of the truth, oh, society. an emergency that was not advertised almost claimed the lives of several hundred people with it as a fireman, but could have killed and maimed millions of destruction. but this glow and a huge level of radiation, even 35 years later, they know about that emergency

only a few. i don’t remember when i found out, but that’s all, as if it were already sounding more and more often. it is clear that, in some kind of narrow circle, so that the secret would not become clear to all witnesses, they convincingly asked to remain silent for many years, and we never told and somehow got used to it that, well, well, well i was recognized by my uh, relatives. well, here are some circumstances, just now, maybe there is just a year today for the first time they will tell everything guessing lately well, yes, an accident that could the second time to lead to an explosion at the chernobyl nuclear power plant was potentially much worse than the first disaster. it happened on may 23, 1986, almost a month after the explosion at the fourth

power unit of the chernobyl nuclear power plant, moreover, an almost minute-by-minute coincidence . these were the very days when the work to eliminate the consequences of the first accident was in full swing, thousands of people were mobilized from all over the country , and suddenly a signal came to the control panel of the duty officer, and new alarm, open fire radiant radiation fourth power unit. rescuers immediately understand this news can turn into a disaster for the whole world. alexander gudkov will never forget his first chernobyl impressions in every room. somewhere here or here you are walking through the garage, the fire. i've

been walking on it all my life anyway, and now the kitten is playing in the garage, and then after a few days you go, and from the moment of the first accident, he was constantly drawn into the mode of operation that a new monstrous threat was approaching, no one knew on the eve of the state of emergency everything seemed to be, as usual, a completely ordinary day, so the unremarkable may 22 day passed normal. i say is this some kind of joke? no, i hung up, i say, volodya fire

on the third block, let's go, suddenly the call again no , sorry. uh, the information is being specified by the fire department the fourth will be. what could turn into a new fire alexander gudkov understood immediately in a moment was alert has been declared. i immediately document mikhailovich, he was already dressed, as he heard the alarm. he immediately dressed with nothing quickly; this was done by a fireman with great experience. that's what this information is, the fourth block is on fire, let's go. we sat down throwing a partner. that's how many places there were 12 or what? i don't remember the officers right away. everyone got up and sat down and went to lieutenant colonel vladimir maksimchuk. he graduated from it, people are dying there, that was his phrase, the key, as he said, trump,

people are dying. and you again, and i say again, no need don't eat. don't go, stay at home. i realized chernobyl radiation will go. i realized that i have a technical education before, and the station, and i have lovi mikhailovich. uh set the task, what did he tell me? i 'll go from the side of the blinker. and you, please, come on the reverse side from the side of the block from the side of the vector branch. well, that is, it goes there. that's what i did what i did the chernobyl nuclear power plant consisted of four power units, the first two were a separate building. but the third and fourth were actually merged, that is, the reactors different. but the construction itself around them is common on the night of may 23, 86, alexander gudkov and vladimir maksimchuk. they moved from different sides towards each other. to reconnoiter the situation, it turned out that the room of the circulation pumps between the third and

the main emergency fourth power unit was on fire . it may become inevitable. i understand that the situation is very difficult, very serious. so, uh, he made a decision, he made a decision to get everyone out. then, well no one understood, no one could, but it is not clear, not to justify not to explain. i knew that this was done in order not to kill people in the first place in a matter of seconds. vladimir maksimchuk made a decision that was contrary to all instructions. and for himself, all the charters that dealt with military operations and service threatened with serious consequences. uh, fire department. well, what about the postulate?

ah, the forces must be increased, that is, new ones should be brought out. there were no such tricks to reduce, decrease , and, of course, maksimchuk in this matter. well, being, then, in general, still quite a young man, and in general only a deputy head of a department. he made a decision that involved, well, a global catastrophe, and he accepted it and took it upon himself. vladimir maksimchuk takes all his subordinates 2 km from the reactor, then he sends teams of five people to the fire site to put out the fire and get on armored personnel carriers. the time of work in the zone of maximum radiation damage is strictly limited to exactly 10 minutes immediately after the

task is completed by the first group to replace it the second is sent, then the third, it was necessary to act quickly. they could not cope with the fire for 12 hours, only by 14:30, on may 23, the fire was finally extinguished. he felt bad there any area.