It was ready in Chernobyl. “My whole life was matched by the fact that dad wanted beakers for the pigs” [FRAGMENT]

On Thursday, February 24, at 3 a.m. Polish time, Russian troops attacked Ukraine. The soldiers struck both from the ground and from the air. The Ukrainian authorities report that 352 civilians, including 14 children, died as a result of the attack by Russian troops. Over 400 Russian mercenaries from the so-called Wagner’s group operates in Kiev; their target is the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and members of the Ukrainian government. The EU and NATO countries are rapidly increasing the supply of weapons to Ukraine, and severe sanctions are coming into force, which will affect the Russian markets. Over two hundred thousand refugees from Ukraine have already arrived in Poland. The situation is changing minute by minute, we are driving.

Witold Szabłowski “Russia from the kitchen. How to build an empire with a knife, ladle and fork”, WAB Publishing House – excerpt:

They took Ms Luba from the garden where she was roasting tomatoes. Mrs. Raja – or Raisa – from the apartment where she was raising three children herself. Mrs. Valentina told the store where she worked that she had to go the same day. And they immediately advised her not to try to discuss too much. What was there to do? She went.

Mrs. Nastia found out in line to see the doctor from a friend who worked in the human resources department. “But I’m sick, on sick leave” – ​​she was surprised. But her friend explained that it did not bother her at all.

And Mrs. Lidia, the head of the same human resources department, said: “Either you go, or pack your bags and come back home to the countryside”. So she left.

Ms. Olga cried for two hours and wondered what to do – she had a six-month-old child. She was afraid that she would infect them with something.

Only Ms. Tatiana that she was going to Chernobyl to cook for those who were fighting the catastrophe, found out, as befits a cook – with pots.

I managed to meet all seven.

How they took the next eight girls from the first group of cooks who went to Chernobyl right after the catastrophe, we will never know. They are dead. The first one died shortly after returning, the second one – a few years later. Three died after the tenth anniversary of the crash. Before the twentieth anniversary – one. Two more – a few years after her. Besides, out of the seven that are still alive, six are sick and have had several or a dozen or so surgeries of varying degrees of complexity behind them.

But let’s start from the beginning. From the village of Varash in Volhynia, where only a few houses are left. And memories.

Luba

Mrs. Luba is in her sixties, a dark vest is thrown over her shoulders, and a hat made of some animal whose species I cannot guess on her head. We meet in a cafe next to the Palace of Culture in Warsaw. Ms Luba still remembers geese running around and cows grazing there.

– It was a beautiful village, Varash. My father had pigs, cows, rabbits and ducks. He and his mother worked in a kolkhoz, but then the Soviets allowed their pets to be at home.

Mom and Dad had eleven of us. I was the youngest and I lived like a donut in butter. Everyone loved me very much. And when I went to the third grade, a commission came to my father to buy from him the house and the piece of land we had. They said that a nuclear power plant would be built in Varash and that there would be a reactor in the place where our cottage stands. It made a great impression on me. What reactor? What kind of power plant? What is that? Now everyone has heard about nuclear power plants, Chernobyl contributed to it, but then it was something completely new, they were just starting to build them.

Father did not like this idea. Our family has lived in Warasz for generations. We survived the war, collectivization and suddenly we are to sell the house and land and turn them into an apartment in a block of flats? But this commission began to convince my father that if he does not sell goodness now, then in the future they will take him away anyway, because when the secretary in Moscow decided that a power plant was to be built in Varash, I apologize, but the peasant in Volhynia has no chance to block such a decision.

So my father made an agreement that for our cottage he would get two apartments in blocks that they started to build here. About six months later, the workers came, built the blocks and we moved. Both parents got a job at a power plant that was still under construction: mom as a cleaner, dad as a janitor. And my father suddenly became a huge fan of nuclear energy! With their mother, they earned three times more than in a kolkhoz, and because they had a garden allotment, they kept breeding geese, pigs, a few ducks and a few rabbits there. They had to give up only the cows, because there was nowhere to graze them.

Until one day my father, who was always very resourceful, said to me:

– Luba, wouldn’t you go to the power plant for the cook? You’ve always liked cooking. Maybe it’s a good job for you?

“All right, Dad,” I replied. “Why do you think of it now?”

And it turned out that his friend’s daughter works at the power plant as a cook. And every evening in the evening all the leftovers that people will not eat are poured into buckets, the father drives up to the power plant with a tractor and takes it all for his pigs. My father dreamed that he, too, would have free pig food.

At first it made me a little angry that he didn’t think of me at all, only those pigs. Then – I started to laugh a little. But after a while I thought that maybe working in a power plant is not a bad idea. I went, I applied. The power plant was expanding very quickly at the time, so they accepted me overnight. And so my whole life was that my dad wanted a beaker for the pigs.

And so it lasted for several years: I cooked in the power plant, and in the evening my father would drive up the tractor and take his beakers away. I remember when he slaughtered the last pig, the first reactor was already working. In the bathroom in our block of flats with a neighbor, she slaughtered her so that she would not have to be carried around meat. Sausage, brawn, ham, we made everything with my mother on our own. This is where a reactor is being built, the atom will be split, you can see it all through the window. And in the bathroom, the father and the neighbor slaughter a pig.

In the end, the reactor was located in a different place, not on our soil. And they changed our name from Varasha to Kuznetsovsk. In honor of a communist who was a spy among the Germans during the war. Only when independent Ukraine came, they changed it back to Varash.

(…)

They put us on a bus outside our restaurant; We went to Rafaliwka, a town four kilometers away, with railway tracks. They introduced us to our foreman: Walentyna Timofiejewna Sawicka. Good morning, good morning, we all knew her because she was the manager of a store near the power plant. She made a good impression on us from the very beginning. She would do anything for another human being. You will say that something does not suit you – Wala is already running to organize better for you. You have a problem? Wala half night will not sleep, just to think about how you can help.

In Rafaliwka we took the night train to Kiev, in Kiev they served us breakfast and took us to the boat which we sailed towards Chernobyl. We got out of the boat, walked a bit more, to the last bus, now there.

I saw the reactor then, only one time. It was still on fire then and it was very smoky. It looked terrible. Later we sat in the middle of the forest for a month and the reactor was covered with trees.

They took us to a former pioneering center in the middle of the forest. It was called the Fairy-tale Forest. Nice, right? Wala told us to go to bed early, because we were supposed to wake up at six in the morning. But we couldn’t sleep for a long time. And then the soldiers woke us up at four. Why so early? By our friends. For the first two days there were cooks from another power plant. They were supposed to prepare breakfast, show us the kitchens, cold rooms, water intake, familiarize us with the equipment, and at twelve they had a planned return transport. But instead of waiting, they fled in the middle of the night through the forest.

Back then, I was furious with them because we had to do everything for them. I didn’t understand how to behave like this. Today I just feel sorry for them. Everything in the forest was the most irradiated. They wanted to save their lives, and probably none of them are alive today.

(…)

Valentina

Never in my life have I worked harder than then in Chernobyl. I started the day at three in the morning, because then we were leaving for supplies. I went to get it all alone, because there was my signature on each form, so if one piece of butter was lost, they could accuse me of theft. Besides, they chose me well for this job, because I’m a bit of a hubbub, and a supplier should be like that. Here to jump in the queue, here to talk, there to talk to someone nice, but in order to get something done. Previously, I was doing the same job in a store in Varanasi, so it was easy for me. Once, before the Victory Day, on May 9, they sent me to get beer for our employees, and the manager in the warehouse in Lutsk said that the factory was down and there would be no beer. I told him that if he wanted to, but without the electricity that we produce, neither the beer factory would be built, nor would he open warehouses. And if people in our city do not get a beer, I prefer not to imagine what could happen. I talked him over so much, I charmed him so much that we were the only ones in the region to have beer for our veterans.

Such skills were counted on by my bosses, making me the chef of cooks – and the chief of supplies – at the Fairy Tale Forest. It was known that it would not be easy. And it was known that if anyone had to deal with it – it would be me.

Every day I went to the distribution base near Pripyat to buy food – there I was driving one big truck for vegetables, fruit, cheese, milk and bread. Here my fairy tales were of no use: there were three canteens like mine back then, so there were only three cars to load. And since the state treated Chernobyl as a priority, the base was very well stocked, you didn’t have to wait for anything, everything happened very quickly.

But once a week I got an extra truck and I went to Kiev for meat, cold cuts, flour and pasta. And that’s where the problems started, because although I was coming from a highly irradiated area and I was irradiated myself, they directed me to the same base where supplies from the city’s canteens and restaurants stood. It was going smoothly, so I never fought, I just waited with everyone. Until in the third week something strange happened. When I showed up, other drivers cut us off and wouldn’t let us go to the base. I went out to find out what was going on, and in response I heard a bunch that such a thing, go back to your Chernobyl, instead of infecting us.

My Chernobyl?

“People,” I said, “I’m not even from there!” I help put out the fire, otherwise we will all die, both me and you.

But they wouldn’t listen.

I went to the accounting office and said the other drivers wouldn’t let me in. They replied that they would deal with them, but I said:

– Look, people have a right to be scared. There was a van in front of me that was taking milk to kindergarten. How are they to know that I will not irradiate this milk for them?

– What are we supposed to do? – they asked.

– Let me go through a separate entrance, without a queue.

And so they did from then on. I have not waited even once. And I did not meet anyone at the entrance. Was I sorry? Witold, I was always task-oriented, not emotional. I was even glad that I wouldn’t have to stand in line.

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