an executive director at innocence matters. now personally that has a for now for more on the stories we covered please go to r.t. dot com slash usa and check out our youtube page at youtube dot com slash r.t.m. america have a great evening and we'll see i. think you'll. feel think think think think.

it's. twenty five years ago the entire fifty thousand population over ukrainian town of

previous lives was evacuated within three hours. would you please step aside and working and you getting in my short thank you they left most of what they had here as they were thought they were leaving only for a couple of days but none of them has ever returned go thing they saw people losing their homes around what the poor of the. devastated by powerful explosion. where we going numb to let you know we need to go to previous post office. we recently i received a notification to pick up a letter here in three parts the left that's impossible that post office isn't working for twenty five years i don't think it's for real. show me. strange but according to the stamp

this really has come from here you know where this post office is yes i know the back. of. the for. a few. of the few little fiddle still all these trees that you see they've all grown since the accident and right now we're going to be passing the house where i was born. feel that. we came to the chernobyl exclusion zone to investigate

a very strange story this place has been deserted for a quarter of a century but recently some people started receiving post notices telling them to pick up letters at this post office in people that are holding one of those here and indeed the stamp here proves that it came from the ghost town he thinks. frankly speaking i don't know what to look for. many of. these notices have no addresses nor names of those who had sent them. you know. usually when you go on

a sleep speaking i don't think we're going to find anything here. most of the things that remains here and in the apartments were later buried we. didn't keep them because they were very radioactive. stuff. and the rest was stolen by scavengers. so you should look here's a letter with someone for you to send from here. there is a photo inside. looking you. would miss all the times i've been here i've never seen anything like this. this or this refused to do so phones work here. they work at the

nuclear power plant and sometimes they work here hello hello how i look forward to the who we are calling our high time work tonight can you pick a daughter up from kindergarten comes running to scuse me who is it my calling and your pardon i must have that the wrong number. i don't get it. our investigation brings us to one of pete's kindergartens and this one is truly a horrifying scene most of the things one can see here have been left untouched ever since the catastrophe at the site which gives probably the best description and most dramatic one of the chernobyl tragedy is that children's toys are laying literally side by side with military gas masks.

this is my kindergarten. i used to go here. we used to be many children in p.p.s. . specialists from all over the soviet union came here to operate the nuclear power station. mostly young people in the store and they thought that they were waiting for a bright future. so this town experienced a baby boom. almost no one used the gas masks look out there because the catastrophe happened on a saturday. they'd been kept here and were left untouched. what was in that letter you found. there is a photograph inside. here have

a look. in the book to the proper trickle it seems it was written by a child a small girl. trust me your or try their history i was so glad having received your letter so i decided to reply it was my mom got me a new doll she's so beautiful that i'm sometimes afraid to play with her when i go to school in the morning i put her by the window and make the best for her in the evening i love her dearly the weather has already been very warm here we'll be having a holiday soon my parents and i will go to a rally will be inflating balloons and after that there will be a concert in the house of cultural activities my sister will be dancing there even though she's small she's already a great dancer or missing you're very much please come and visit us in this country we're missing you very much please at least come visit us in the summer leisure and

disappear when they are supposed to be mentions the first may vents in the previous house of culture and kids from this kindergarten work your former the concert there . when was that letter written. to push there was a date on the envelope as it was meant to be sent into the store just a day before the catastrophe. nothing nobody on the eve of the catastrophe many celebrations had been closed for saturday and sunday why did they always schedule a wedding celebrations and children's concerts for the weekend but with even when the tragedy happened we didn't call off the festive events of the love that children were breathing the c.e.o. as it was a hard day and the events were out in the open the many people were in the parks

and i know that there were weddings in the house of culture in the end we were informed that it was very serious and that we were to go home and pack up for evacuation. may the first was one of the biggest communist holidays in the soviet union the labor day previous house of culture still has a collection of posters with soviet leaders they were meant to be carried at a traditional demonstration and the stage over here was meant to become a venue for a holiday concert. they say it's not focused on look what i found it's a fireman suit. so could it be that it belongs to one of those firefighters who fought the blaze at the nuclear

power plants. then you hear them salute lina know these questions for you that most of them died just the water till their gear was so radioactive was thrown that it was destroyed almost immediately afterwards. the rest of the you know there used to be an amateur theatre here maybe it's there's got to be honest i feel we're stuck with a stick and you got any ideas where we could go next. well there used to be a library here you can check out the rangers profile cards. you know this it was very beautiful work but it was meant to be kind of

a role model for others. like the best place communist society could ever build perfectly planned and constructed. a queer believe was meant to be a paradise for those building communism. ready wait a minute i found a note inside a stick shook it looks like a page from someone's diary. is dated april the twenty fifth nine hundred eighty six we're preparing an experiment at the station we'll be bringing the reactor to a store where we have some heated debates and most of us assure that we're doing everything right but still cannot control conclusion the times it seems we're talking on different languages can both make it come from nowhere was a confrontation of the word before more workers did not want to keep the unstable reactor an operational maybe are pretty good or even the flu from for creature

according to conversations and documentation that have been published already from the reactor was out of control. on the twenty fifth of april employees were saying that it was cold and flu surely but the bosses demanded that they should finish the experiment you know they were performing only unstable reactor. that should be in your stomach when i saw a picture and daughters are good with a babylonian tower i joked that we have now finally built it that people are going to have the story. i'm on top of the tallest building it is the best vantage points to see the chernobyl nuclear power plant straight after the disaster it was covered by steel

lead called the sarcophagus underneath it are still tons of radioactive fuel and deadly levels of radiation but if you don't know that from here almost looks a life. what if there are those that would know the apartment we're looking for should be somewhere here. do you know where this drawing came from. it appears here several years ago actually i don't know the elevator shaft is open so be careful we need to go this way or let's go. i turn sion. i turn shannon. i knew my eye tension was rather more than you. got up the council of

the town reports it was a usual saturday and it was a very warm day we did not feel like studying. after the second lesson teachers were called for a meeting and left us to ourselves at the time we heard that something bad had happened at the reactor. many of the children's parents worked there and they talked about what they had heard from them. and i learned that there had been a blaze of a station and several people were injured with the hole but all we could not imagine how serious it was felt that a fire was nothing to be afraid of at school we were told but atomic energy was the safest in the world. and the good. it was still a kid when the tragedy happened we played outdoors with to the rooftop and saw the blaze at the station there was smoke coming out of the building from the explosion radiation levels were already extremely high. course everyone young and old was

exposed to huge radiation doses. and still works. yes there's almost nothing left here. i noticed that when you look through your archives maybe there is some information about this person there yes just a second yes now yes i have something he was one of those who was supposed to be performing an experiment at the station which means that during the moment of the explosion he should have been there all of the workers who were working at the fourth block were immediately sent to a hospital as they were severely irradiated from what we could go to the hospital maybe we can find something there. that is a good idea that's the limits. of what about his family. i don't know if. i have no information on them.

the injuries were different to me but the majority were exposed to the fourth radiation levels. and received third or fourth degree burns and. one patient died of burns that me and the others were treated at zero medical facility. and then they will board to moscow. shows with the fourth

level of radiation grimshaw disoriented and the rest. i know the injured are being brought here from the power floor and they are all covered in radioactive dust and. we are receiving strong those disappeared and we are completely i'm ready for what has happened i don't believe in all this at that it just can't be happening this is real hell. what's that word because i know i found it inside but with the operations record card.

we need to leave what's happening we are leaving. wealthy british style.

markets why not. come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cars or there are no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to kaiser report on our keep. bringing you the latest in science and technology from around russia. we've got the future coverage. it should make your decision quicker the radiation levels are very high here.

the bank. just the tip of the please tell me what is this cross doing there. it's a protective cross there are four of them in the ukraine was and they form

a square in the south in the east and in the west this is the northern one. cell phone work yet the people with no there's no signal whatsoever. well then we're stuck. here hold this book. there's a village not far from here. now for story corps griot on the other side of the river a few elderly couples living there tell a form they might have a radio phone the great if god and at least we can stay overnight.

in.

ok. as we walked through the field i saw a herd of wild horses where they come from being who they were brought here straight after the catastrophe in the ninety's and it was an experiment to see how they would survive the radiation and well they've grown into a huge population the same happened to all the other animals on which there's no people here because when they've. safe walking.

what is this is a village who lives here there's a couple of elderly people that live here and there's the way they live they were evacuated out of the catastrophe one day why are they here they were history so well they came back they resettled here of their own free will oh hello my carry on and you go right now hello hello they're looking for how do you live here on your own there's no transportation or facilities passport thank you the other provide us with a free bus to the city hope was there you know you want when we need something from the market it used to be once someone think of how often we were until now this is a chance for them but now it's less often. over this course is used by everyone in this election when they need to carry on something that i personally know what.

must they do i don't know that most again we sleep over there near the stove maybe . just about because i will give you blankets and pillows them at the time i didn't think it was a blanket or something and set ourselves up. i still don't understand me those close notices. of your member of the old men who very disagree as the river. apparently he's opposed to man. and once

a fortnight you cruises up and down the river and delivers mail. so you think he did it for. you maybe i don't know his new will be somebody else maybe it was a mistake. it's interesting that a lot doesn't support chemistry at first but there's such an easy solution as a. little more from researchers we have seen do you think anyone will ever come back here. i don't know what. business are going to get they've built in one nine hundred eighty six it was in temporary they said it was temporary because it would last for twenty to thirty years now they're building a new one. this one's supposed to last one hundred years and you know it's funny when they also call it temporary means that both you and i and our children will be gone and it'll still be standing there after all who will. and haven't looked at

these pictures i still don't understand why you describe this town as beautiful to me it looks like an ordinary soggy town typical buildings and planning there were thousands of towns like that across the country it was beautiful because we've lived here you know i've been having this feeling that you just cannot let go of all that happened here. if you continue fighting the zone ok how can i forgive it if you. no i would just maybe try talking to the zone. it's not sending me letters in order to well those i received were not directed to me either yes when you want to know if you did they were not meant for you. and you would never have found them or read them in the first place.