Chernobyl liquidators’ deserve better

On April 26, 1986, a reactor at a Ukraine nuclear power plant exploded. Many of the men who were sent in to secure the disaster zone have since died from radiation exposure, but there are some who live in Israel today and are fighting for greater disability rights

By TAL ARIEL AMIR
ILIYA CHAIMOV521 (photo credit: Courtesy: Asaf Klieger)
ILIYA CHAIMOV521
(photo credit: Courtesy: Asaf Klieger)
Iliya Chaimov still remembers the strange feeling he had as he stepped off the bus with the sealed windows next to Reactor No. 4 in Chernobyl.
His wavy hair fluttered in the slow breeze that was saturated with radiation, as if he were standing in the middle of a hurricane. At that moment, he knew that an intense wave of radioactive fallout was rolling over him, entering his body through his pores and destroying every healthy cell.
Chaimov, 63, was among 200,000 citizens who are known as the “Chernobyl liquidators” – people who were forced to help put out the 1986 fire at the nuclear reactor in Ukraine and to build an iron and concrete dome over it to prevent more radioactive waves from escaping.
The strength of the nuclear disaster was measured at 250 times the quantity of radioactive material at Hiroshima and Nagasaki together.
As an officer in the reserves, Chaimov could not refuse this order.
As if he had been condemned to death, he entered the bus that took him to the reactor so that he could help pump out the radioactive water that remained after the explosion.
Chernobyl was the biggest ecological disaster of the 20th century. The young, robust officer has transformed into a person who is merely a shell of his previous self. Due to the incredibly high amounts of radiation he was exposed to during the six months he worked at the reactor, Chaimov’s backbone became twisted and he is now confined to a wheelchair.
Nowadays, he only has the use of his right hand.
Chaimov, who made aliya 15 years ago, is one of 1,300 liquidators who currently live in Israel and who are overwhelmed by the financial burden of medications, medical treatments and the disability. Most of them left the former Soviet Union in the late ’90s, leaving behind extensive benefits and generous compensation due to them as liquidators according to Soviet law. They dreamed of living as Jews in a Jewish country, but in actuality found that they were practically invisible in Israeli society.
In the first decade of the 21st century, the Knesset recognized the liquidators’ contribution to humanity and ruled them eligible for a NIS 5,000 annual grant, which was less than what they were receiving monthly while still in the Soviet Union. For people who are suffering from serious diseases, some of which have not yet been classified by the Israeli medical community, this is not enough to survive on.
RECENTLY, A nonprofit organization in Israel called the Chernobyl Liquidators Pact decided to fight to receive more funding from the state and to increase public awareness of their plight. “It’s important that Israel aid us and give us what we deserve,” said Alexander Klantariski, the organization’s chairman. “The state must raise the amount of funding allocated to our organization. As of right now, Chernobyl liquidators only receive enough money to purchase two months’ worth of lifesaving medication.
“We need help in the bureaucratic fight against Russia and Ukraine, who sent us to clean up for them and for whom we sacrificed our bodies and our health so that people throughout the region could live safely. As long as we lived in these countries, we received amazing subsidies, but the moment we made aliya, we gave up these rights.
Many liquidators are literally starving and cannot afford legal aid. None of us understands international law.
“We made aliya because we are Zionists, but we have found ourselves being marginalized. Even the insurance companies are not willing to ensure Chernobyl Liquidators. Do you understand the significance of this? It means that our lives aren’t worth anything.”
About two weeks ago, during the Annual Liquidators Conference, Klantariski approached MK Yoel Razbozov (Yesh Atid), who is the chairman of the Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, and asked him to push forward an amendment to the law that supports those who helped neutralize damage from the Chernobyl disaster.
Razbozov chose to step up to the challenge, but he chooses his words carefully. “Granted, Israel did offer the Chernobyl liquidators a pension and benefits, but some of the tasks have not been carried out properly. For example, they are denied National Insurance Institute payments for the months they receive funding from the special grant,” he says.
“I am going to investigate their claims further and then we will see how we can improve their lives.”
Klantariski, 72, has welcomed Razbozov’s initiative and notes that he has been instrumental in getting the liquidators the help they need. “More than 1,800 of these courageous people live in Israel, and their mortality rate is far above the national average,” he says.
“Maybe it’s convenient for the state to ignore this problem, since every year that passes, there are fewer of them to make noise and demand their rightful compensation.”
The Chernobyl disaster, which occurred on April 26, 1986, in the early hours of the morning, is widely considered to have been the worst nuclear power plant accident in history.
An experiment was being carried out in Reactor No. 4, and a sudden and unexpected power surge caused the temperature to rise considerably, creating 10 times the amount of energy that was usually produced. This led to the rupture of a reactor vessel and a series of steam explosions. Due to erroneous planning and non-compliance with procedures, the nuclear fuel rods melted and steam pressure led to the explosion, which ruptured the reactor’s roof.
The radioactive fallout, which was 30 times stronger than a normal nuclear bomb, spread out over a huge area and polluted Chernobyl, Pripyat and Kiev, as well as the nearby rivers from which drinking water was pumped.
Even today, 27 years after the disaster occurred, a large area around the reactor remains contaminated by radioactivity.
In the beginning, the Soviet Union tried to cover up the disaster and did not even cancel the May Day parade, in which tens of thousands of children and adults participated. Just two weeks later, following high levels of radiation that were discovered in Sweden, Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev was forced to admit that the terrible accident had occurred.
THE CONSTRUCTION of a large concrete sarcophagus, which was erected to seal off the reactor, lasted many months. First, the site was covered with lead and other metals to prevent radioactive material from escaping into the air. Then, 1.8-meter-thick concrete slabs were added on. The work was carried out by the military, security forces and volunteers who worked without sufficient physical protection.
“Do you know how many people died there?” Chaimov asks angrily. “The Soviet Union sent us in knowing that none of us would be immune to injury.
I saw with my own eyes people being ordered to go up to the highest places in the reactor, where the radiation level was strongest.
“One moment a man was standing next to me, talking with me. Thirty minutes later he was lying on the ground dead, with blood coming out of his ears and mouth.”
Chaimov came to Chernobyl from Uzbekistan. He was 37 years old and had two small children. He and his work companions traveled the long distance first by train and later by buses that were covered with lead, which was meant to protect them from the intense radiation.
“When the door of the bus opened, I saw that we were inside Reactor No. 3.
The only thing that separated us from Reactor No. 4 was a wall,” Chaimov recalls. “I couldn’t see anything but eight-meter-high walls.”
“The first thing I felt was the electricity in the air. All of the hairs on my body were bristling. After a few days, I also felt a strange taste in my mouth, as if I had just eaten iron. But other than this, you don’t feel the radiation, because it has no smell. My job was to construct machines and pumps that were used to pump out the radioactive water that was collecting down below. They were worried that this water would leak into the ground and contaminate the Pripyat and Dnieper Rivers, from which drinking water was pumped.”
When asked if he wore protective gear, he says: “Are you kidding? I wore my army uniform.”
As far as worrying about the health risks involved and whether he was scared, he explains, “I couldn’t think about anything, because there was no time to think. We grew up in the Soviet Union where we were taught to follow orders. We learned that it was best not to ask questions, and to carry out our orders. Even when we were at Chernobyl, we behaved like robots. If anyone thought about escaping, there was no way to do this since there were soldiers with guns around us all the time.
“We didn’t have time to be scared while we were working there. The first time that I remember feeling scared was when I began getting headaches. I was sure that they were due to the radiation and that I was going to be sick. In February, six months after I arrived at the reactor, I had an epileptic fit. I was hospitalized in Kiev and they discovered that my veins were full of radiation.
It was obvious that I was going to get cancer, so they replaced almost all of my blood. I had hoped that I was cured, but the doctors told me I wouldn’t live past 1990. When I heard that, I decided to gather my family and make aliya.”
After moving to Israel, Chaimov divorced and later met Rima, whom he is still married to today. Rima was a doctor in Moscow who found a job caring for sick and elderly people. “I was sure that the radiation would not touch me,” Chaimov says in a soft voice.
“I worked for many years as a crane operator and I brought home a decent salary. But then I started getting terrible pains in my legs. I spent four months in the hospital while the staff carried out one test after another. The doctors told me that due to the radiation, my spinal vertebrae were mutated and growing inwards. We didn’t know how I would react to surgery, so we decided to wait, despite the fact that it was clear that I had spinal degeneration. I already knew that the radiation was connected to the problems I was having with my bones. When I started walking with a cane, I was fired from my work. I haven’t worked for the last 15 years.”
Chaimov now lives in a rental unit in Or Akiva. The small house is extremely cluttered and quite small for its four occupants. Rima works very long hours to feed her family, and her two children are in school until 4 p.m. Chaimov spends most of the day by himself. Since he cannot move around on his own, he spends most of his time in a shabby electronic chair, watching concerts on TV.
Chaimov is one of the most seriously injured Chernobyl liquidators. He has not been able to lie down flat on a bed for years now, since this position is very painful for him. Rima’s bed is right next to his chair. She cares for Chaimov, helping him use an electric lever so that he can shower. She gives him pain relievers and massages his legs, which have swelled to monstrous proportions due to the severe edema in his feet.
“Sometimes it seems as if no one knows that we are alive,” Chaimov sighs. “I do receive compensation from social security, as well as disability benefits, but it is not enough. I made a mistake 30 years ago when I took a loan of NIS 30,000.
I succeeded in paying off half of it, but then I was forced to stop working. Now the amount I owe has snowballed to NIS 1 million, and three years ago the bank froze my account and seized my car, which was specially outfitted for my handicap. Since then, I stay at home all day. It’s like living in a prison.
“I’m not suited to deal with such bureaucracy, because we’re always just trying to survive. We barely had enough money to buy food these last few weeks.
And it is only due to Mayor Simcha Yosipov that we haven’t starved to death. How would I get the money necessary to pay a lawyer if my entire pension goes to medication? I think that the Knesset needs to amend the law and to pay us more than NIS 5,000 a year. They could also help us with the legal battle against Russia and Ukraine. These countries cannot shirk their responsibility to care for us just because we made aliya to Israel.”
When Chaimov talks about the law that aids liquidators who were harmed by the Chernobyl disaster, he sounds as if he has given up hope.
The law was passed in 2001, 10 years after a group of them made aliya following the initiative of the late former MK Yuri Shtern. The law was amended in 2007 at which point the annual stipend was set at NIS 5,000, in addition to assistance with housing and medication.
THE ORGANIZATION is currently working on another amendment that calls for the stipend to be increased by 60 percent. Former diplomat and current businessman Danny Gachtman is spearheading the fight to increase the stipend. Gachtman has volunteered his time to help the cause and spends his time talking to MKs in an effort to persuade them to take it on.
“I have been living in Israel since 1990. I left behind a life filled with amazing benefits that let me live as if I were making a very good salary – $2,500 a month.
I was paid by the state to not work,” Klantariski of Chernobyl Liquidator Pact says. “I was sure that in Israel I would also be taken care of and that they would understand the huge contribution we made to the world. Very quickly I understood that things were going to be difficult, so I formed a nonprofit organization that would unite all of the liquidators.
“I am very disappointed with the result. I thought for sure that people would care about us. If not to give us money, at least to help us in the legal battle. They should help us sue Russia.
“I am so insulted. I feel completely unwanted here.
If we don’t receive the assistance we need, we will take to the streets and protest outside Finance Minister Yair Lapid’s house.”
Asked if he regrets making aliya, he says, “Sometimes I do. If I were to return to Russia, I would start receiving the stipend again. I don’t have a pension since I didn’t work enough years here, and the stipend I receive from Israeli National Insurance only covers my medication.
When I run out of money, I don’t buy the medicine.”
Klantariski worked as the chief engineer of a construction company that is part of the Atomic Affairs Ministry in Russia. He remembers the exact moment he first heard about the explosion at Chernobyl as if it happened yesterday. Since he worked in the field, he understood immediately that an immense catastrophe had occurred.
Klantariski also spent about six months in the vicinity of the reactor. He was in charge of building the sarcophagus around the debris. He knew what the ramifications of such a situation were, and that no one could escape harm from such massive exposure. When he started getting pains in his stomach, Klantariski recognized that his time at the reactor had come to an end. He was hospitalized for over a month in an effort to stop the bleeding in his stomach. After eight months, his teeth and hair fell out, too. At the same time he was diagnosed with cardiac arrhythmia.
Today, Klantariski is allergic to almost every kind of food due to the numerous ulcers around his stomach. In addition, one of his elbows has become deformed due to the radiation. The hardest thing for him though, is the strong Israeli sun. If he spends more than 15 minutes outside, his mouth fills up with a strong bitter metallic taste, leftovers from the radiation that he absorbed. He goes about his day only after he has checked that each of the places he intends to go to are well air-conditioned.
Boris Gerstein, 62, Klantariski’s deputy, still feels intense pangs of guilt. He arrived at the reactor just two days after the explosion from a nearby city. Gerstein was the commander of the municipal firefighting unit that was brought to the site to put out a number of fires that had broken out due to faulty cables. He ordered three of his officers to construct a hose through which the radioactive water could be removed.
“I ordered these three men to submerge themselves in the water because I knew that someone had to do it,” he says, “I knew that they wouldn’t come out of this experience unscathed, because I knew that coming into contact with radioactive water was harmful. But I did not expect the results to be as bad as they actually turned out to be. It was really awful. Within three weeks, all of them had to have their legs amputated – and I still have a hard time dealing with the knowledge that I was the one responsible for this.”
Asked if he stayed in touch and apologized to them, he says, “I still think about them every day. When I still lived in Ukraine, I kept in touch with them and tried to help them any way I could. But the three of them didn’t live long.”
Gerstein lives alone in Bat Yam and spends his day dealing with his various ailments. He suffers from terrible stomach pains, but heart problems are his biggest worry. He has had a number of heart attacks, as well as a stroke. “From the moment I arrived at the nuclear reactor I knew that I was entering a death machine,” he says. “I knew that I would never be healthy again, but we had received our orders.
At first I was quite scared, and anyone who says he wasn’t is lying.
“We were all deathly scared. We knew that we had been given a death sentence.
“Despite the fear, I did high-quality work until they dismissed me from my position. One of the commanders claimed that I had disobeyed orders since I had remained at the site more than the allotted amount of time, and that my radiation gauge was showing abnormal results. I wanted to go back to work in the nuclear reactor just because of the embarrassment of being fired, but I didn’t last more than another two and a half weeks there.
I was hospitalized with acute stomach bleeding and changes in heart rate and blood pressure. I couldn’t believe that I, who had been an amateur boxer for years, and an expert archer, had become so fragile. I couldn’t even hold a wrench because it was so heavy. My teeth were crumbling, my jaw had to be reconstructed and I spend every day going to doctors.
“I spend my entire pension on medication. My condition does not allow me to fly, so I can’t even go visit my daughter who lives in the US.”
MK Razbozov has a hard time listening to these sad stories and promises to check with the Foreign Ministry to look into suing Russia for compensation.
“I very much want to do something for these people,” he says. “And I am sure I will succeed in helping them before my current term ends. I promise that I will be more assertive than my predecessor.”
But promises do not help Chaimov. It is so difficult to see him suffering so much. Despair has become a routine part of his life.
Asked if anything makes him happy these days, he replies, “When I wake up in the morning and I see my wife and children, I am very happy. I also enjoy seeing the sun shining, even though I only see it through the window. I’m really not asking for very much – just for socialized housing. I’m not disabled for the fun of it.
I’m like this because I was sent to help save hundreds of thousands of people knowing that I would be hurt as a result.
“We are victims.” ■
Translated by Hannah Hochner.


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