Without receiving anything promised them by authorities, people return to their contaminated native land
After the Chornobyl disaster, residents of Obikhody, a village in Zhytomyr oblast, were evacuated and settled in Nemyriv district, Vinnytsia oblast. They named their settlement in Podillia Novi Obikhody. The people living here have never been abroad, but they have experienced homesickness firsthand. They live with it, longing for their home village. “It’s hard to think back to that time. I can’t tell you how much I want to return to where I was born and spent my childhood, youth, lived through my first love, and first went to school. I left it all there,” says Maryna Sobchenko, a village schoolteacher resettled from the Exclusion Zone.
The experience is even harder on the elderly. “My mother is 80,” joins in Lidia Yarmolenko. “She cries every day. She wants to return home. And I dream of our home every night.”
The Chornobyl victims evacuated from Polissia are Ukrainians who live in Ukraine as though they were emigres. They were resettled in Vinnytsia oblast ten years ago. Since then every day of their life has been marked by the Chornobyl tragedy. “We miss our native Polissia so much; I think it’s the best place in the world,” says Vasyl Yarmolenko. Their native land is a scenic combination of forests and rivers, so when they arrived in Vinnytsia oblast they tried to find a place like that for their new village. After the nuclear disaster the Soviet state seemed eager to make amends. New spacious homes were built with asphalt roads, telephone lines, and natural gas supply.
Yet the residents of contaminated Obikhody in Zhytomyr oblast did not want to live in Novi Obikhody. Then Vasyl Melnyk, chairman of the local kolkhoz, showed an example, sending his pregnant daughter there. “I was like a Decembrist. Everybody was scared to resettle and they would all stay if daddy didn’t make me go,” recalls Maryna Sobchenko. Eventually, all Obikhody residents followed suit. Now one of Novi Obikhody streets bears her father’s name. But all this would happen later. It all started with disappointment that would become a tragedy. When they resettled they discovered that the authorities had not kept their promise. “When we were leaving the district and regional authorities promised help, telling how well we would live in the new place. A land flowing with milk and honey.” Of course, no one expected anything like that, but expected adequate living and working conditions.
There were no employment opportunities. Twenty families have already returned to their old contaminated homes. “People mostly return because they can’t find jobs here,” explains Nina Kovalchuk, Novi Obikhody village council chairperson. “Young people refuse to stay in the village. Here they have no work and nowhere to spend their leisure; there’s no club, no place for a discotheque.”
Recently the local young people found a way to entertain themselves, gathering in front of the village council chairman’s building at the end of the day and chanting “Give us a club!” Nina Kovalchuk says she knows how they feel, but there is nothing she can do at the moment. They built only the homes and the school, not even a store. At one time people had to travel to a neighboring village to buy bread. Eventually, the resettlers opened four private stores. Their owners get their merchandise in the district center (Nemyriv is 25 kilometers from Novi Obikhody), but if you want to fix your shoes or get a haircut, you have to go to Nemyriv. There is a bus three times a week.
People try to live with what they have, but they can’t put up with the authorities’ indifference and health is the most sensitive topic for the Chornobyl victims. “As we were resettling they promised we would have a hospital and a special drugstore. Nothing yet. We had to organize a first aid station in an apartment building,” says Yuri Tereshchuk, family doctor at Novi Obikhody’s dispensary. “Besides, there’s too little financing of treatment and diagnosing. This dispensary lacks basic equipment, so I can’t diagnose anything at an early stage, while not everyone can or will go to the district center — especially the elderly.”
The Chornobyl residents of Novi Obikhody mostly suffer from cardiovascular, respiratory, articular, and spinal disorders. Yury Tereshchuk is also a resettler. He says that people like him are especially susceptible to catarrhal diseases. His dispensary does not have a single ambulance, not even basic means of sterilization. In response to all their petitions, officials shrug and reply that there are no funds.
The lack of jobs over the past decade is explained the same way. These people have worked on a collective farm all their life. They were promised that they would do so in their new place of residence, but they received no farm equipment, and construction of the farm was never finished. They only took care of the cattle the resettlers had brought with them, taking away 300 cows and transferring them to other farms. After that the local authorities seem to forget all about the Chornobyl victims. “Our life here might be different if we had jobs. As it is, our life is very hard. After so many years none of us is permanently employed,” complains Lidia Yarmolenko.
The new settlement was attached to a [state] farm providing the army with food. The resettlers were promised not only plots and farmsteads, but also employment. But then the army began to practice tenders, so now food is purchased not from that state farm, but where they could buy it cheaper. The farmlands, however, remain under the Defense Ministry’s control, so they cannot be parceled, meaning that a resettler cannot have more than a private garden. “At present, in view of strict limitations on Chornobyl financing, all construction has stopped,” explains Vitaly Bondan, head of the Vinnytsia regional Chornobyl relief department. “It is true that there is no club in Novi Obikhody, and that there are no other social facilities. Perhaps with time their state farm will be subordinated to our ministry. Then there would be hope for some allocations and the construction of the cowshed would be completed. Then people would have jobs.”
There are plans and promises. The resettlers know only too well what these are worth. “I think they will never finish construction. We could expect something if they didn’t ruin what we have,” says Vasyl Yarmolenko.
One-third of the apartment buildings and a commercial center remain unfinished construction projects. The shopping center and ten homes have been sold by auction. Such structures are bought to be dismantled to have construction materials. As for the administrative building, it needs only internal works to be completed. “It doesn’t take that much money, and we could use the premises for the dispensary, club, and other institutions that have been in apartment buildings for the past decade. If these works aren’t completed the building will fall apart in a couple of years. Perhaps the state will remember our needs and will have at least the administrative building finished to commemorate the village’s tenth anniversary.”
The administrative building was supposed to accommodate a daycare center. There are fifty children of preschool age in the village. They tried to organize a daycare center on school premises, but the parents refused. “As Chornobyl victims, they are paid 80 hryvnias [a month] for childcare, so if their children are enrolled in a daycare center they will stop receiving the money. These people are unemployed and they don’t want to lose it,” explains Ms. Kovalchuk, adding that “it also means that their children cannot normally develop, communicating with other children and being prepared for school.”
Childcare money is not the only source of income for the Chornobyl victims. Those with more initiative earn something working at the capital or district center. And everybody lives hoping for the best. But the elderly do not. They have long lost all hope. “I have no hope for a better life,” says Vasyl Yarmolenko. “For ten years they have promised to fix the road, and I don’t think I’ll live to see it fixed or anything else done in this village.”
The authorities have kept one promise. Once a year the resettlers are taken to their home village. It is their happiest day, for they can visit the cemetery, but they realize that their graves will not be there. When their time comes they will be buried in a strange land.
