The orchards were blossoming, young grass sparkling joyfully in the sun. Birds were singing. Such a profoundly familiar world. My first thought was: everything here is as it should be and carrying on as usual. Here was the same earth, the same water and trees. And their shapes, colours and scents were eternal. It was in nobody\u2019s power to alter a thing. But on the first day, I was warned: don\u2019t pick the flowers, don\u2019t sit on the ground, don\u2019t drink the water from the spring. Towards evening, I watched the cowherds trying to drive their weary cattle into the river, but the cows approached the water and turned straight back. Somehow they could sense the danger. And I was told the cats had stopped eating the dead mice, leaving them strewn over the fields and yards. Death lurked everywhere, but this was a different sort of death. Donning new masks, wearing a strange guise. Man had been caught off guard, he was not ready. Ill-prepared as a species, our entire natural apparatus, attuned to seeing, hearing and touching, had malfunctioned. Our eyes, ears and fingers were no longer any help, they could serve no purpose, because radiation is invisible, with no smell or sound. It is incorporeal. All our lives, we had been at war or preparing for war, we were so knowledgeable about it \u2013 and then suddenly this! The image of the adversary had changed. We\u2019d acquired a new enemy. Or rather enemies. Now we could be killed by cut grass, a caught fish or game bird. By an apple. The world around us, once pliant and friendly, now instilled fear. Elderly evacuees, who had not yet understood they were leaving forever, looked up at the sky: \u2018The sun is shining. There\u2019s no smoke or gas, nobody is shooting. It doesn\u2019t look like war, but we have to flee like refugees.\u2019 A world strange yet familiar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I clasped my head in my hands and paced about the orchard. There were so many apples! Everything\u2019s lost. Damn, it\u2019s all gone!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Radio Yerevan, a caller asks: \u2018Is it okay to eat Chernobyl apples?\u2019 The answer: \u2018Yes, but bury the cores deep in the ground.\u2019 A second caller asks: \u2018What is seven times seven?\u2019 The answer: \u2018Ask a Chernobyl survivor, they\u2019ll count it on their fingers.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\u2019re all longing to come here for Radunitsa. To the last man. Everyone wants to pray for their dead. The police will let in those who are on their lists, but no children under eighteen. People get here, and they\u2019re so happy to stand near their house, near an apple tree in the orchard. First they cry at the graves, then they go to their old houses. And there they cry some more and pray. Light some candles. They lean against their fences as if they were graves. They might put a wreath by the house, hang a white towel over the gate. The priest will read a prayer: \u2018Brothers and sisters! Have patience!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laugh and the world laughs with you. There\u2019s a Ukrainian woman sells big red apples at the market. She was touting her wares: \u2018Come and get them! Apples from Chernobyl!\u2019 Someone told her, \u2018Don\u2019t advertise the fact they\u2019re from Chernobyl, love. No one will buy them.\u2019 \u2018Don\u2019t you believe it! They\u2019re selling well! People buy them for their mother-in-law or their boss!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They\u2019re trying to frighten us! But we\u2019ve got apples hanging in the orchard, and leaves on the trees, potatoes in the field. I don\u2019t believe there ever was any Chernobyl, they made it all up. Tricked people. My sister and her man left. Didn\u2019t move far, just twenty kilometres away. They\u2019d been there two months, when a neighbour comes running: \u2018Your cow\u2019s radiation has got on to ours. The cow keeps falling down.\u2019 \u2018And how did it get on to her?\u2019 \u2018It flies around in the air, like dust. It can fly.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were driving along, and do you know what I saw? On the roadsides, in the sunlight, this barely visible sparkling. Some sort of tiny crystal particles glinting. We were driving towards Kalinkovichi, via Mozyr. Something was shimmering in different colours. We all talked about it, we were amazed. In the villages where we were working, we immediately noticed holes burned through the leaves, especially the cherry trees. We picked tomatoes and cucumbers, and there were tiny black holes in the leaves. It was autumn. The redcurrant bushes were bright red with berries, the branches were sagging to the ground with apples \u2013 and of course we couldn\u2019t resist. We ate them. They\u2019d warned us not to, but we decided to hell with it and ate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What stands out, what\u2019s burned in my memory?We spent the whole day running around between villages. With radiation monitoring technicians. And not one woman offered us an apple. The men were less frightened, they brought out the moonshine and the pork fat. \u2018Come and have lunch.\u2019 You felt bad about refusing, but the idea of dining on pure caesium didn\u2019t exactly fill you with joy. So you\u2019d down a drink, but no nibbles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I arrived there when the birds were sitting in their nests, and left when the apples were lying on the snow. There was a lot we didn\u2019t manage to bury. We buried earth in the earth. Along with the beetles, spiders and maggots, that whole separate nation. We buried a world. That was the deepest impression I came away with. Those creatures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw an apple tree in blossom and started filming it: the bumblebees buzzing, the bridal white colour. And there were people working, the orchards were blossoming. I held the camera, but couldn\u2019t understand. Something was wrong! The exposure was correct, the picture was beautiful, but there was something not right. Then suddenly it hit me: I couldn\u2019t smell a thing. The orchard was in blossom, but there was no smell. It was only later I learned that the body reacts to high radiation levels by blocking certain senses. My mum was seventy-four and, now I thought about it, she complained of losing her sense of smell. So then, I thought, now it\u2019s happening to me. I asked the others in my group, there were three of us, \u2018Does the apple blossom smell?\u2019 \u2018You\u2019re right, it doesn\u2019t smell of anything.\u2019 Something had happened to us. The lilac didn\u2019t smell either. Even the lilac! And this sensation came over me that everything around was fake. I was in the middle of a stage set. And my mind wasn\u2019t in a fit state to get to grips with this, it had nothing to fall back on. There was no map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We had the choice of moving away, but my husband and I thought it over and turned it down. We\u2019re afraid of other people; whereas here, we\u2019re all just the people of Chernobyl, together. We\u2019re not afraid of each other. If someone offers you apples or cucumbers from their plot, you accept them and eat them. We don\u2019t politely put them away in a pocket or bag and throw them away afterwards. We have a shared memory, the same fate. And anywhere else we\u2019re regarded as outsiders. People look askance at us, fearfully. Everybody is so used to the words \u2018Chernobyl\u2019, \u2018Chernobyl children\u2019, \u2018Chernobyl evacuees\u2019. \u2018Chernobyl\u2019: now that gets prefixed to everything about us. But you don\u2019t know the first thing about us. You\u2019re afraid of us. You run away. If we weren\u2019t allowed out of here, if they put a police cordon round us, many of you would probably be relieved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw an empty village, the apple trees in blossom, the cherries flowering. So luxuriant, so bright and cheerful. The wild pear blooming in the graveyard \u2026 Cats are running through the overgrown streets with their tails held high. There is nobody here. They mate. Everything is flowering. Such beauty and stillness. Then the cats run into the street, expecting someone. They probably still remember human beings \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We were leaving\u2026 I want to tell you how my grandma said goodbye to our house. She asked my dad to bring a sack of millet from the pantry, and scattered it over the garden, \u2018For God\u2019s birds.\u2019 She collected eggs in a sieve and scattered them through the farmyard, \u2018For our cat and dog.\u2019 She sliced up pork fat for them. She emptied all the seeds out of her little bags: carrots, pumpkins, cucumbers, her blackseed onions, all the different flowers \u2026 She shook them out over the vegetable plot: \u2018Let them live in the soil.\u2019 Then she bowed to the house. She bowed to the barn. She went round and bowed to every apple tree.My grandfather, when we were going away, took his hat off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There wasn\u2019t a single bunch of flowers. We knew by then there was a lot of radiation in flowers. Before school started, it wasn\u2019t carpenters and painters working like it used to be, it was soldiers. They scythed down the flowers, stripped off the soil and took it away somewhere in trucks with trailers. They cut down a big, ancient park, the old lime trees. Old Nadya \u2013 she was always called to the house when someone died, to do the keening and say the prayers \u2013 said, \u2018\u2019Twas not the lightning struck you \u2026 Not the drought that brought you low \u2026 The sea did not flood you \u2026 Yet there you lie like coffins black.\u2019 She mourned the trees as if they were human beings. \u2018Alas, my oak tree, my apple tree, gone \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
svetlana alexijevitsj <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The orchards were blossoming, young grass sparkling joyfully in the sun. Birds were singing. Such a profoundly familiar world. My first thought was: everything here is as it should be and carrying on as usual. Here was the same earth, the same water and trees. And their shapes, colours and scents were eternal. It wasRead more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2007,3847,974],"tags":[3828,3829,3830,3433,2043,2044],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63493"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63663,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63493\/revisions\/63663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imhd.nl\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
perspectief: \u2018a collage of oral testimony that turns into the psychobiography of a nation not shown on any map\u2026 the book leaves radiation burns on the brain.\u2019 \u2013 julian barnes
titel: a chronical of the future
bron: chernobyl prayer: voices from chernobyl (2016, transl. anna gunin and arch tait)
mopw: meerstemmige encyclopedie<\/a> \/ appel<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n