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5Still, all my life I did not think that I would have to at least be at the age at which I am now, having just lived through my fiftieth birthday, to turn to essentially a memoir of some part, moreover a part of the tragic, in many ways confusing and incomprehensible .
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7But there have been such events, of such scale and such participation of people of conflicting interests, mistakes and victories, successes and failures, and there are so many different interpretations here because what happened and how it happened, then, probably, to some extent it is my duty to say that I know how I understand how I saw the events.
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9April 26, 1986 was Saturday, a beautiful day, I wondered whether I should go to the university to my department to finish something for the department, or I could give a damn about everything and go with Margarita Mikhailovna, my wife and friend, where I couldn’t rest whether or go to the party-economic asset, which is scheduled for ten in the morning at the Ministry, which owns the Institute of Atomic Energy. Kurchatov?
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11But, of course, according to my character, according to my long-standing habit, I called the car and went to the party-economic asset. Before it began, I heard that some unpleasant accident had occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The head of the 16th Main Directorate, Nikolai Ivanovich Ermakov, informed me of this.
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13Namely in the subordination of this Glaucus and this person was our Institute. He reported this somehow calmly enough, albeit with annoyance. The report of the Minister of Slavsky Efim Pavlovich began.
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15The report was, frankly, boring, standard
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17We have all become accustomed to the fact that this elderly, but demagogically very active, actively loud and confident voice for over an hour sets forth how wonderful and wonderful is in our department. All indicators are good in its presentation: the best state farms, the best enterprises, we carry out all the planned tasks, and, in general, all this was in the nature of such victorious reports. At some points that deserved it, he stopped and scolded some of the leaders, specialists, either because there was a high injury rate somewhere, or for some financial omissions, or for some specific, technically inaccurate operation carried out in one place or another of our numerous Ministry. As always, this time, singing a hymn to nuclear energy, the great successes in the construction of which were achieved, he said with a patter that now, however, some kind of accident happened in Chernobyl. The Chernobyl station belonged to the neighboring Ministry, the Ministry of Energy. Well, he said with a tongue twister that they had done something there, some kind of accident, but it would not stop the development of nuclear energy. Next is the traditional report, which lasted a total of two hours.
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19About 12 o'clock a break was announced, I went upstairs to the room of the scientific secretary Nikolai Sergeyevich BABAY, but in order to discuss the main positions of the report during the break. Immediately, Alexander Grigorievich MESHKOV, the First Deputy Minister, looked into this room and informed that the Government Commission on the Chernobyl accident had been created, that I was also included in it and that the Government Commission should meet at Vnukovo Airport by four in the afternoon. Immediately I left the asset, got into the car and drove to my Institute. I tried to find one of the reactors there. With great difficulty, I managed to find the head of the department, who designed and operated the RBMK-type reactors, and it was such a reactor that was installed at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, Alexander KALUGIN, who really already knew about the accident, informed me that an alarming serious one came from the station at night a signal encrypted in accordance with the routine in nuclear energy when, in case of any deviations from the norm, the station informs the Ministry of Energy or the Ministry to which it belongs, in an encrypted manner about what happened. In this case, the signal 1; 2; 3; 4 was received, which meant that the situation with a nuclear hazard arose at the station; radiation hazard; fire hazard; and explosive hazard, i.e. all possible hazards were present. It would seem to be the most difficult situation, but at the same time he told me that a team was determined in advance by appropriate orders, which, depending on the type of accident, should immediately gather, either staying in place, directing the actions of personnel at the facility, or flying to the place.
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21That the corresponding team was assembled at night and flew to the scene about three to four hours later. But while they were flying there, signals began to come from the station that the reactor, and that was the reactor of the 4th unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, was generally controlled. The operators are trying to keep it cool, however, it was already known that one or two people had already passed away. Moreover, one died from mechanical damage under the rubble of destroyed structures, and the second died from thermal burns, that is, from a fire. Nothing was reported about radiation injuries and there was little understanding in this information. But she still brought some reassurance. Having taken all the necessary technical documents and from Comrade KALUGIN, I got some idea about the structure of the station, about 3 possible troubles that might be there, I popped into my house. At this time, the driver brought my wife, as we agreed, from her work, we had to dock there, somehow solve some of our family problems, which, of course, were not resolved. I briefly threw her that I was leaving on a business trip, the situation was incomprehensible, I did not know how much I was going and flew to Vnukovo. In Vnukovo, I learned that the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina, the chairman of the Bureau for the Fuel and Energy Complex, was approved by the head of the Government Commission. He was outside Moscow, was at that time in one of the regions of the country, conducting a party and economic asset there.
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23We learned that he flies by plane from there and as soon as he arrives, we will load into the already prepared plane and fly to Kiev, from where we will go to the scene by car. The first commission approved, now I am saying this from memory, included, in addition to Comrade Shcherbina, the Minister of Energy MAYORETS, Deputy Minister of Health Evgeny Ivanovich Vorobyov, who also arrived from Vnukovo from another region of the Soviet Union, a little earlier. The Deputy Chairman of Gosatomenergonadzor Viktor Alekseevich SIDORENKO, a long-time employee of our Institute, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was included in the Government Commission. Besides us, Comrade SOROKA, the Deputy Prosecutor General of the USSR, as well as Fedor Alekseevich SCHERBAK, the head of one of the important units of the State Security Committee, was included in the Government Commission, and the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Ukraine was also included in the Government Commission, who was to be waiting for us in place, comrade NIKOLAEV and Chairman of the Executive Committee of Comrade. Ivan BIT. Here is the approximate composition of the Government Commission, which I remember first. As soon as Boris Evdokimovich flew to Vnukovo, he immediately transferred to a prepared plane and we flew to Kiev.
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25In flight, conversations were disturbing
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27I tried to tell Boris Evdokimovich the accident at the Trimaialen station, which occurred in the USA in 1979. To show that most likely the reason that led to that accident has nothing to do with the events in Chernobyl due to the fundamental difference in the design of the apparatuses. In these discussions, guesses, an hour-long flight passed. In Kiev, when we got off the plane, the first thing that caught my eye was a cavalcade of black government cars and an alarming crowd of Ukrainian leaders, headed by Comrade Council Chairman of Ukraine Comrade Lyashko Alexander Petrovich. Everyone’s faces were disturbing, they didn’t have accurate information, but they said that things were bad there. Since we did not get any specific information here, we quickly plunged into the cars and I ended up in the car with Comrade. A WITCH. Let's go to the nuclear power plant. It is located 140 km. from Kiev. The evening road was. There was little information, we were preparing for some unusual work, and therefore the conversation was so fragmentary with long pauses and, in general, everyone was in tension and each of us wanted to quickly get into place, to understand what really happened and what the scale of the event that we must meet.
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29Recalling this road now, I have to say that it didn’t even occur to me then that we were moving to meet an event of a superplanetary scale, an event that, apparently, will forever go down in the history of mankind as an eruption of famous volcanoes, say the death of people in Pompeii or what don't be close to that. On the road, we did not know this yet, we just thought about what scale the work was waiting for us. It will be simple or difficult there, on the spot, in general, all our thoughts were directed at what awaits us. A few hours later we reached the city of Chernobyl, although the nuclear station is called Chernobyl, it is located 18 kilometers from this regional city, very green, very pleasant, so quiet, rural, it made such an impression on us when we passed it. It was quiet, calm, just like in everyday life.
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31We turned onto the road leading to the city of Pripyat, but the city of Pripyat is already the city of power engineers, the city in which the builders and workers of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant lived. I will tell about the station itself, the history of its construction, its operation a little later, so as not to interrupt the chronology of events. There was already alarm in Pripyat, we immediately approached the building of the city party committee located on the central square of the city. In a word, a pretty decent hotel was nearby and here we were met by the leaders of local authorities. The MAYORETS was already here, he flew there earlier than the government commission. There was also a group of specialists who arrived there on a primary alarm. The first meeting of the Government Commission was immediately organized.
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33To our, or at least to my surprise, the Government Commission was not informed of the exact situation that developed both at the station and in the city. It was precisely reported only that this happened on the 4th Chernobyl NPP unit during a freelance test of the operation of the 4th unit turbogenerator in the free-running mode. During this experiment, two explosions occurred in succession and the reactor building was destroyed. A noticeable number of staff were affected. The figure was not yet accurate, but it was clear that hundreds of people received radiation damage. It was also reported that two people had already died, the rest were in the hospitals of the city and that the radiation situation at the 4th block was rather complicated. The radiation situation in the city of Pripyat was significantly different from normal, but still did not pose a significant danger to the radiation damage to people in Pripyat. The Government Commission, the meeting of which was very energetic, 5 but, in its usual manner, was led by Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina, immediately assigned all members of the Government Commission to groups, each of which had to solve its own problem. The first group, led by Alexander Grigoryevich MESHKOV, who was also a member of the Government Commission. This group was supposed to begin identifying the causes of the accident.
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35The second group, led by Comrade ABAGYAN was supposed to identify and organize all dosimetric measurements in the station area and in the city of Pripyat and the surrounding areas, and then civil defense groups. And at that time General IVANOV appeared, who headed the civil defense service of that region and had to begin preparatory measures for the possible evacuation of the population and primary decontamination works. General BERDOV, who headed the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic, had to act in terms of determining the order of people in the affected area. I myself went in and headed a group whose goal was to work out activities aimed at localizing the accident.
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37The group of Evgeny Ivanovich VOROBYEV was assigned to deal with the sick and the whole range of medical measures. Already when we drove up to the city of Pripyat, the sky hit, eighty kilometers from Pripyat. A crimson, or rather crimson, glow stood over the station, which made it completely unlike a nuclear power plant. It is known that at a nuclear power plant with its facilities, with its pipes, from which usually nothing follows in a visible way, the structures are very clean and very neat. And to the eye of a specialist, a nuclear power plant always seems to be an object that has no gases. This is its distinguishing feature, if not to talk about the specific design features of such stations. And here it is suddenly like a metallurgical plant or a large chemical enterprise, over which there is such a huge raspberry glow in the mid-sky. This worried and made the situation unusual.
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39It immediately became clear that the leadership of the nuclear power plant and the leadership of the Ministry of Energy, which was present there, were behaving contradictory
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41On the one hand, most of the personnel, station managers, the Ministry of Energy management, who arrived at the place, acted boldly, were ready for any action. Say, the operators of the first and second block did not leave their posts. The operators and all those working on the third block did not leave their posts, and the third block was in the same building as the fourth block. The various services of this station were in readiness, i.e. there was an opportunity to find any person, there was an opportunity to give any command, any assignment. But what commands to give, what instructions to give and how to accurately determine the situation before the arrival of the Government Commission ?! She arrived 26 at 20 o’clock. 20 minutes.
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43There was no clear and conscious plan of action by this time. All this had to be done by the Government Commission. Well, first of all, the third block 6 received a command to shut down the reactor and damp it. The first and second blocks continued to work despite the fact that its internal premises already had a rather high level of radiation pollution, measured in dozens, and at individual points, by hundreds of millientgen per hour. This internal pollution of the rooms of the first and second blocks occurred due to the supply ventilation, which was not immediately immediately turned off and the polluted air from the site through the supply ventilation entered these rooms. And people continued to work there. And so, on the initiative of Alexander Egorovich MESHKOV, the first team that went there was to immediately begin to dampen the first and second blocks. This command was given precisely by Sacks, and not by the management of the station and not the leadership of the Ministry of Energy. The command began to be executed immediately.
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45Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina immediately called up a chemical army, which arrived quite quickly led by General PIKALOV and helicopter units located nearby in Chernigov. A group of helicopters arrived led by General ANTOSHKIN, who was the chief of staff from the corresponding division of the WWES. Overflights and inspections of the external state of the 4th Chernobyl NPP unit began. In the first flight, it was clear that the reactor was completely destroyed. The top plate, the so-called “Elena”, which seals the reactor compartment, was located in a strictly vertical position, but at a certain angle, i.e. it was evident that it was opened, and for this a fairly decent effort was needed. So the upper part of the reactor hall was completely destroyed. On the roofs of the machine room, on the site of the territory, lay pieces of graphite blocks, either intact or destroyed.
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47One could see quite large elements of the fuel assemblies. And right away, by the state, by the nature of the destruction, for example, I could see that there was a volume explosion and the power of this explosion was on the order of so, from experience from other works, as I could estimate, from three to four tons of trinitrotoluene so in TNT it can be was to evaluate. Such a white column of combustion products, apparently graphite, was constantly flowing out of the mouth of the reactor for several hundred meters. Inside the reactor space, a powerful raspberry glow was visible in separate large spots.
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49At the same time, it was unequivocally difficult to say what caused this glow by the glowing graphite blocks that remained in place because the graphite burns evenly, releasing whitish products of the usual chemical reaction. But still visible light, which was then reflected in the sky, it was a glow of glowing graphite. Such a powerful glow of graphite blocks. Radiation powers were quickly determined at various points in the vertical and horizontal planes. It was clear that there was a lot of activity outside the 4th block, but the first question that worried us all was the question of whether or not the reactor was working or not working, i.e. whether the process of producing short-lived radioactive isotopes continues. Since it was necessary to quickly and accurately establish the first attempt was made by a military armored personnel carrier belonging to chemical forces, sensors were mounted that have both gamma measurement channels and neutron measurement channels. The first measurement by the neutron channel showed that there is supposedly powerful neutron radiation.
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51This could mean that the reactor continues to operate. In order to figure this out, I myself had to go up to the reactor on this armored personnel carrier and find out that under the conditions of the powerful gamma fields that existed at the object, the neutron measurement channel, like the neutron channel, of course does not work, because it senses those powerful gamma fields in which this neutron channel as a meter is simply inoperative. Therefore, we obtained the most reliable information about the state of the reactor by the ratio of short and long relatively living iodine isotopes 134 and 131 and, by radiochemical measurements, quickly enough to verify that the production of short-lived iodine isotopes does not occur and, therefore, the reactor does not work and he is in a subcritical state. Subsequently, over the course of several days, repeated appropriate analysis of the gas components showed the absence of expiring short-lived isotopes. And this was for us the main evidence of the subcriticality of the fuel mass that remained after the destruction of the reactor.
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53Having made these initial assessments that the reactor is not working, then we began to worry about the following questions
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55This is the fate of the population, the number of personnel that should be at the station and which should serve even the first questions in this situation. Prediction of the possible behavior of the fuel mass that remained after the destruction of the reactor, the determination of the geometric dimensions and all possible situations and the choice of the mode of action. By the evening of the 26th, all possible methods of filling the core were tried, but they did not give anything except a rather high vaporization and water distribution through various transport corridors on the neighboring block. It was clear that on the very first night firefighters eliminated fires and fires in the engine room, they did it very quickly and accurately.
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57Sometimes people think that a significant part of the firefighters received high doses of radiation because they stood at certain points as observers to see if new fires would arise and some condemned them for this, believing that this decision was illiterate, incorrect. This is not so, because in the engine room there was a lot of oil and hydrogen in the generators and there were many sources that could cause not only a fire but also explosive processes that could lead to the destruction of, say, the third Chernobyl unit. Therefore, the actions of firefighters in these specific conditions were not only heroic but also competent, correct and effective in the sense that they provided the first accurate measures to localize the possible spread of the accident.
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59The next question arose before us when it became clear that a rather powerful stream of aerosol gas radioactivity was carried out from the crater of the destroyed fourth power unit. It was clear that graphite burned and each particle of graphite carries a fairly large number of radioactive sources. This means that we have faced a difficult task: the speed, the usual burning rate of graphite, is somewhere around a ton per hour. In the 4th block, about two and a half thousand tons of graphite were laid. Therefore, 240 hours, with normal combustion, this mass could burn, taking away with the products of its combustion the radioactivity that it could gain and spread to large areas. In this case, the temperature inside the destroyed block would most likely be limited by the burning temperature of graphite, that is, in the region of one and a half thousand degrees or slightly higher, but would not rise higher.
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61Some such equilibrium would have been established. Consequently, fuel, uranium oxide tablets, could melt and not give an additional source of radioactive particles. But this multi-day removal of radioactivity with combustion products means, of course, that would lead to the fact that vast territories would be intensely contaminated with various radionuclides. Since the radiation situation assumed some effective actions, it seemed possible to make them only from air and from a height of not less than two hundred meters above the reactor, then the corresponding technique, which would allow, say, to traditionally complete the quenching using water and foam and other means there was no graphite. We had to look for unconventional solutions, and we began to think about these unconventional solutions. I must say that our thoughts were accompanied by constant consultations with Moscow, where, say, Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov was constantly at the RF apparatus.
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63A number of employees of the Institute of Atomic Energy, employees of the Ministry of Energy actively participated in our discussions. Each service, for example, firefighters, for their part, kept in touch with their Moscow organizations. On the second day, various telegrams and offers were sent. From abroad, they generally proposed different options for influencing burning graphite using various mixtures. The logic of decision making was this. First of all, it was necessary to introduce as many boron-containing components as possible, which would ensure a sufficiently large number of effective neutron absorbers in the crater of the destroyed reactor during any movements of the fuel mass, in any unexpected situations.
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65Fortunately, a rather large amount (forty tons) of boron carbide turned out to be unpolluted at the warehouse, which was primarily thrown from helicopters from above into the mouth of the destroyed reactor. Thus, the first task, the task of introducing a neutron absorber of maximum size and quantity, was completed quickly and efficiently. The second task is the task associated with the introduction of such means, 9 which would stabilize the temperature, causing the energy released during the decay of a powerful fuel mass to be spent on phase transitions. The first sentence, which, let’s say, occurred to me, and which I proposed to throw the maximum amount of iron fraction into the reactor.
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67At the station there were quite a large number of
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69This is an iron shot, which is usually introduced into concrete during construction to make it heavy, but it turned out that the warehouse in which this iron shot was stored was firstly covered with a passing primary cloud after the explosion and it was practically impossible to work with heavily infected shot . Secondly, we did not know the temperature at which it was possible to stabilize, for example, let’s say that the average mass temperature there would be substantially lower than the melting temperature of iron. Then the introduction of iron in this sense, well, would not be enough. At least because we would miss the moment of possible stabilization of the temperature at a lower level. Therefore, two components were proposed as such temperature stabilizers and after numerous consultations and discussions: lead and dolomite.
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71The first one clearly melts at low temperature. Firstly fusible metal. Secondly, it has some ability to extract radioactive elements. Thirdly, it is capable of hardening relatively in cold places to create a protective shield against gamma radiation and therefore this solution is correct. Of course, there remained the danger that the temperatures were much higher, then a noticeable part of the lead could evaporate and somewhere there at an ordinary temperature of 1600-1700 degrees, and then, in addition to radioactive contamination, lead contamination of the area could occur and, from the effective side of the role, this component does not will play.
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73Therefore, a group from Donetsk, owned by the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine, was put at my disposal. They had the Swedish company (company "Ada") equipment, thermal imagers, began constant overflights of the fourth block, fixing the surface temperature. The task was not easy because semiconductors serve as sensors in these thermal imagers and it was necessary to manage to correctly interpret the result, bearing in mind that the powerful gamma radiation incident on the semiconductor significantly distorted the measurement results. Therefore, I proposed, along with such thermal imaging measurements of the temperature of the 4th block, made from the air, to supplement these measurements from the ground with direct thermocouple measurements. This operation was carried out by Evgeny Petrovich Ryazantsev together with helicopter pilots. Thermocouples were lowered on long halyards. It was also a difficult job to measure the surface temperature. And finally, since graphite continued to burn, I suggested that air samples should be taken at various points in the destroyed reactor and sent to Kiev to determine the components of CO and CO2 and their ratio, which, although not very accurate, can still be done. It was to judge the maximum temperatures in which the destroyed 4th 10th block is located. The totality of all the data led us to the fact that in the reactor zone there are, but small areas of high temperature, the maximum that we were able to detect, were two thousand degrees. Well, the main surfaces showed themselves in the temperature range not exceeding three hundred degrees Celsius.
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75Therefore, in this sense, casting lead could be effective. After such evaluations, an appropriate decision was made and 2,400 tons of lead in its various forms were introduced with high accuracy and with great skill by helicopter services. The amount of lead added increased day by day. I was amazed at the pace, the scale at which all the necessary material was delivered to carry out this operation. But, given that there were high-temperature areas, it was decided to use carbonate containing rocks, in particular dolomite, the purpose of which was the same. Where it was possible to stabilize the temperature by spending energy on the decomposition of dolomite components, let’s say, Magnesium OA Oxite remained, which conducts heat fairly well and, like lead, which falls into place, expands the heat-emission zone, and heat emitted from all metal structures. But magnesium oxide is certainly not metal. Its thermal conductivity is fatless and more, and the resulting oxyt in nature violated the oxygen concentration in the combustion zone and contributed to the cessation of combustion.
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77This entire group of metals, according to this, approximately, logic, was introduced into the zone of the destroyed reactor. Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov very advised us to start introducing clay, which are good sorbents for the released radionuclides. The introduced clay and a large amount of sand, just like a filter layer, can delay the case coming out there, if the tablets with uranium dioxide begin to melt, the radioactive components begin to release, so that some of them at least can be retained inside the reactor. It is clear of course that the discharge of any objects from a 200-meter height created a difficult situation around the 4th block, because each discharge of gravity weighing more than 200 kg. from a height of 200 meters a dust cloud lifted up after an impact and this dust carried a lot of radioactivity with it, but the particles formed at that time rising to the top were agglomerated, enlarged and fell somewhere in the zone of the 4th block, or at least station site. And in this sense, even the cloud itself played the role of a defense so that small aerosol particles would not move at significant distances than the area of ​​the station itself.
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79Judging by the nature of the removal of radioactivity from the zone of the 4th block, both in magnitude and in the dynamics of this removal, all these measures turned out to be quite effective and a significant part of the activity was localized, did not spread over large distances, with the exception of, say, some cesium and strontium are the most low-melting fuel components. So, in general, in the sum of measures, it was possible to somehow clog the fourth block, create a filter layer, prevent the fuel itself from melting due to the possibility of carrying out a sufficiently large amount, that is, not carrying out the natural passage of a sufficiently large number of endothermic reactions. And all this made it possible to limit in a noticeable way the zone of the spread of radioactivity from the region of the 4th block of the station to the most remote territories. These are localization related activities. These decisions, according to this scheme, were made on the 26th in the evening, and they were implemented from April 26 to May 2, inclusive. This is the main period when a very intensive casting of all materials was carried out. After May 2, the casting was stopped, there was a pause for several days, then, somewhere after May 9, when a flaming spot was discovered during the flight of the 4th block.
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81So, either graphite masonry, or some kind of metal structure of a sufficiently high temperature
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83An additional 80 tons of lead were dumped there. This was the last massive discharge of materials into the zone of the 4th reactor. In addition to such materials that were intended to stabilize the temperature inside the 4th block, or to create the necessary filter layer in the zone of the 4th reactor, at the suggestion of Boris Veneaminovich Gidaspov, corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences, who came to the aid of the group working there (it was later, somewhere after May 10), dust suppression operation was carried out. Corresponding solutions containing dust-forming materials were poured into plastic bags, thrown into the reactor zone, where they burst when dropped, the solution covered a significant surface of the destroyed block and polymerized, solidified there too. Additionally, such a filter layer was created on materials capable of dusting and further spread. All these were the events scheduled, I repeat, on April 26 in the evening. In general, in its entirety, it lasted until about 12, maybe May 15, and the loading of basic materials was completed, as was said on May 2.
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85This line of accident localization. Naturally, these measures were accompanied by constant reflux of air onto the filters by an estimate of the amount of radioactive components carried out from the 4th block and dynamics was visible. If the initial amount of activity, I do not mean the first primary radioactive cloud that was carried out at the time of the explosion, and the removal of radioactivity under stationary conditions was 1000 curie per day, then, say, by the time I left Chernobyl, the second departure, on May 12, this value was already did not exceed 100n curie per day and then it decreased more and more. There was, of course, a lot of controversy over the accuracy, correctness of sampling, the accuracy and correctness of measurement and calculations, which were made on the basis of the measurements. All this suggested that even simple dosimetric measurements of high culture at all points at which they would not have been carried out were not. But a few words will be said about this experience a little later.
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87So I described the work before and after the localization of the consequences of the accident, but the population issue was an even more significant element of the decision of the Government Commission on April 26th. Immediately after the decision was made to cool down the 4th block, a decision was made to discuss the issue of the city of Pripyat. On the 26th evening the radiation situation in it was even more or less favorable. Measured from milli-roentgen per hour to maximum values ​​of tens of milli-roentgens per hour, of course this is not a healthy situation, but it still seemed to allow some thought.
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89In these conditions, on the one hand, repeated radiation measurements, on the other hand, in conditions when medicine was limited by the established procedures, instructions, according to which evacuation could be started if there would be a danger for civilians to get 25 biological x-rays per person for some period of time staying in this zone and such evacuation became mandatory only if the threat of 75 public x-rays per person about the time spent in the affected area. And in the range from 25 to 75 x-rays, the right to make a decision belonged to local authorities. It was under these conditions that discussions were going on, but here I have to say that physicists, especially Viktor Alekseevich SIDORENKO, sensing that the dynamics would not change for the better, insisted on a mandatory decision to evacuate, but, therefore, the doctors here, or something, they lost to physicists and somewhere at 10 or 11 o’clock on the evening of April 26, Boris Evdokimovich, after listening to our discussion, made a decision on mandatory evacuation.
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91After that, representatives of Ukraine: comrade BEACH and comrade NIKOLAEV began to immediately prepare for the evacuation of the city the next day. This was not a simple procedure, it was necessary to organize the necessary amount of transport. It was called from Kiev. It was necessary to precisely reconnoiter the routes along which the population should be led, and General BERDOV led the work in identifying them and informing the population so that they would not leave stone houses. Unfortunately, this means that the information went through verbal information through entrances, posting all sorts of announcements and, apparently, didn’t reach everyone, because on the morning of 27 on the streets of the city one could see mothers carrying their children and children in wheelchairs, moving around the city and generally some, so to speak, signs of such an ordinary Sunday life.
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93We were eleven in the morning already officially announced that the whole city would be evacuated by 14 o’clock. All the necessary transport was completely assembled, the itinerary was determined, and right at two, two and a half hours, practically the whole city, with the exception of the personnel also identified, which was only necessary for the functioning of the city's public utilities and for those 13 people who were connected with the station, the rest of the population of the city left. The personnel who were supposed to service the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were relocated to the Skazochny pioneer camp, located ten kilometers away. from the city of Pripyat.
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95All this evacuation was carried out quite accurately, quickly and accurately, although it took place in unusual conditions.
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97Separate punctures, inaccuracies, unfortunately, were. Well, for example, a separate group of citizens appealed to the Government Commission with a request to evacuate in their own cars, and there were several thousand of them in the city, well, and after some thought, such permission was given. Although, probably, it’s wrong, because some of the cars in which people were evacuated were polluted, and the necessary dosimetry posts checking the quality of the cars and their level of pollution were all organized a little later. Thus, in the city, things that people took with them (though they took minimal quantities, hoping that evacuation for a short time for several days) spread pollution beyond the limits of Pripyat.
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99But I repeat that the evacuation took place at a time when the level of pollution in the city itself was still not high, therefore the level of pollution of objects exported by people and the level of pollution of people themselves were not high. Practice later showed that none of the civilian population of the city of Pripyat who were not at the station at the time of the accident, and this is almost 50 thousand people, no one received any significant damage and exposure. This was the second line of defense of the people. Then they began to be carried out more carefully organized by the services of the State Hydrometeorological Service and the services of General PIKANOV, station services and the services of physicists, who, at our call, appeared at the station. More and more thorough dosimetric monitoring of the situation was carried out, the isotopic composition was already more thoroughly studied. I must say that, of course, the dosimetry services and the military did a good job, but we received the most accurate information from the radio institute's laboratory, which was deployed in the affected area, the group of which was headed by the first to come here. PETROV.
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101For example, here is the dosimetric activity of NIKIET, whose service was led by Comrade. EGOROV, here they certainly gave us the most accurate data both on the isotopic composition and on the nature of the distribution of activity, and based on their data we were based on the adoption of certain decisions. It was clear that all the first days, due to a change in the nature of the movement of air masses, due to dusting in the area of ​​the 4th block itself, which accompanied the discharge of objects and masses into the reactor, all this changed the situation and the radioactive propagation zone both due to wind transport and dust transfer account, clipping. A few words about the conditions under which the Government Commission worked, a few personal impressions of that period. First of all, I want to say that probably the choice of Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina as Chairman of the Government Commission turned out to be successful.
102
103Because he possesses such a quality as a mandatory appeal to the point of view of specialists, he quickly grasps these points of view and is immediately capable of making decisions. He is not characterized by slowness, timidity, in making certain decisions. It was just noticeable in an emergency setting. I will give only one example when, through complex reasoning about lead, for example, according to what we say when Alexandrov spoke to me, for a very long time he did not understand why and why lead was needed. I explained to him that it was not possible to introduce, firstly, the iron fraction, for the reasons that I have already mentioned, but to wait for the station to appear, it means to advance in advance to stabilize the temperature at a very high level, but we still wanted to stabilize it at significantly lower level. According to my first estimates and estimates, a batch of 200 tons was ordered, but I told Boris Evdokimovich that 200 tons did not solve any problems.
104
105At present, it would be necessary and fearless to give a figure of 2,000 tons for placement in the womb of a destroyed reactor. He listened to me (it seemed to me that this figure is very large and difficult for the state to deliver such a quantity in a day or two) and, as I later found out, he immediately ordered 6,000 tons of lead, because he thought that we could be in the calculations we are mistaken and thought that it is better to have an excess and not to have a deficit in the material than not to complete the work as it should have been completed. This is just a private example. Surprise caused the staff of the station itself. He left very conflicting ideas. I have already said a few words about this. We found people ready for any action in any environment. Then, in separate films, in separate memoirs, in stories, I read that there were people, including those from the station, who deserted, left their jobs. But the situation was difficult. Especially after the evacuation, many people did not know where their children, mothers were, because they evacuated people in different directions. Someone remained in the villages and towns where they were brought, and someone immediately got tickets and left for their relatives, but to whom and where.
106
107This all psychologically complicated the picture.
108
109And, nevertheless, all the station workers from the most ordinary and high-ranking, employees of the Ministry of Energy were ready for the most active, the most furious, as I say, desperate actions. But what actions were needed, what needed to be done in this situation, how to plan and organize this work, in this regard, no understanding of the necessary sequence of actions was revealed to the owners of the station and the leadership of the Ministry of Energy, and I would say beforehand in such an exposition and studied form, say in options that would have been born right here, the Government Commission had to take on this function of determining the situation and conducting the necessary actions. Such confusion even in trifles attracted attention. I recall the first days when the Government Commission was still in Pripyat, there were no necessary number of protective respirators, individual dosimeters, so-called TLDs, and even not very reliable pencil counters that they would show. All this was not enough and not enough for everyone involved in the work. In addition, most of them were either not charged or people were not instructed on how to use them precisely at what point in time it is necessary to recharge the corresponding dosimeter. That was quite unexpected.
110
111You could bite your elbows there, because there were no external dosimetry machines at the station that would automatically provide telemetry information about the radiation situation in a radius of, say, 1, 2, 4 10 km. Therefore, it was necessary to organize a large number of people for intelligence operations. There were, say, radio-controlled aircraft equipped with dosimetric devices, and therefore a fair number of pilots and helicopter pilots had to be used for measuring for reconnaissance purposes. It is clear that a person is indispensable in those cases when it was necessary to carry out some technological work.
112
113The dumping of cargo or the implementation of some other operation related to large-sized devices placed on board the helicopter. People are needed here, but the simplest and often performed operations would seem to be carried out by unmanned small-sized radio-controlled means, flying. This equipment was not available. So, there was no elementary culture. In the early days, at least because in the city of Pripyat, in a room where April 27, 28 and 29 were quite dirty, they brought the necessary amount of food, what about sausage, cucumbers and tomatoes, bottles of Pepsi-Cola, fruit water, all this was delivered to the rooms, and then it was cut with bare hands and was eaten. Those. such even hygienic culture in the early days, for proper eating, was not. This is only later, after a few days, when more or less organized, the corresponding dining rooms, tents, and appropriate sanitary and hygienic conditions appeared.
114
115The truth is quite primitive, in which at least it was possible to control the hands of people who took food and quality, in terms of pollution, the food itself. In the early days, all this was of course not organized and all 16 were astounding. These are everyday episodes. The government commission worked in the city of Pripyat for the first few days. The headquarters was located in the city party committee. If it was possible to spend the night, people spent the night in a hotel located next to the city party committee. When the evacuation was completed, the Government Commission was in Pripyat for a couple of days, and then it moved to the district committee of the party of the city of Chernobyl, as a place of work and in one of the military units in the barracks town. After some time, her living conditions were created for work. Here is the household part of the housing for the Government Commission was placed in the city of Ivankovo, which is already 50 km. from Chernobyl. But it was clear that during such movements there were no suburban control points there, no deployed points where you could carry out managerial work in such a difficult situation, nothing was prepared and all this had to be invented on the move together, successfully and unsuccessfully.
116
117On the second day of my day or the third, I immediately proposed to organize an information group as part of the Government Commission. I invited two or three experienced journalists to it, who would receive information of a technical, medical, radiation nature from specialists to the extent that it was necessary in full or in part, limited form, but in partially limited form when we ourselves did not have it’s completely clear that there wouldn’t be any inaccuracies and to publish daily, or maybe several times a day, the corresponding press, which could be broadcast in TASS to newspapers on television. What and how is happening, what is the situation, how to behave to the population.
118
119This was not rejected, but so, in my opinion, until today, such a press club has not been created. On May 2, the Government Commission was already located in the city of Chernobyl. Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov and Yegor Kuzmich Ligachev appeared in the zone. Their trip was of great importance. On the eve of their arrival, the government commission decided to continue the evacuation of the population not only from the city of Pripyat but also from the 30-kilometer zone of the surrounding Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On the basis of intelligence work, the forecast of the spread of radioactive particles, such a decision was made on the eve of May 2.
120
121When our senior leaders arrived, they started the trip precisely from the locations of people who had already been evacuated
122
123On May 2, they held a meeting in the Chernobyl district party committee, along with Comrade. Shcherbitsky (this was his first appearance in the disaster area). Prior to this, the entire government of Ukraine was very successfully and actively represented by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Ukraine NIKOLAEV. This meeting was significant. First of all, from our reports, and I had to act as a speaker, they understood the situation, understood that this was not a special case of the accident, that it was a large-scale accident that would have long-term consequences, and that huge work was ahead to continue the localization of the destroyed unit, that it is necessary to prepare for large-scale decontamination works, that it is necessary to design and build shelter for the destroyed 4th unit, carefully assess the situation at the station itself, assess the possibilities of commissioning the 1st, 2nd and 3rd blocks. Assess the possibility of continuing construction work on blocks 5 and 6.
124
125Then all these questions were already looming. In addition, on May 1 and 2, background values ​​and the radiation level in the city of Kiev and other cities increased, which is located quite far from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. All of this, the leaders of our party and the government were very worried and they came to deal with all the things on the spot, but after the reports, after we explained the situation as we understood it, we made coordinating decisions that determined the organization and scope of this work for the whole subsequent period. The scale of this work, the attitude of all departments, enterprises, and leaders of our country towards it. A task force was created under the leadership of Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov, and practically all the industry of the Soviet Union was connected. From that moment on, the Government Commission became only a specific managerial mechanism for that enormous state work that was carried out under the direction of the Operational Group of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee.
126
127The task force met regularly and was informed of all the details and the state of the radiation situation at each point that was monitored and evaluated, all the provisions for certain events. In general, I did not know a single minor or major event that would not be in the field of vision of the Political Bureau operational group. The task force included, in addition to Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov and Yegor Kuzmich Ligachev, included Comrade. SCHEBRIKOV, included comrade VOROTNIKOV, Minister of the Interior Comrade. VLASOV, Vladimir Ivanovich LONG secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, who, directly on behalf of the Central Committee, was responsible for monitoring all the activities carried out in the Chernobyl zone and in nuclear energy as a whole. It seems to me that he was engaged in this business every day, without discounting the need to carry out all the other work that was entrusted to him.
128
129I must say that on several occasions, while attending meetings of the Focus Group, that its meetings and its decisions were very calm and restrained. They tried as much as possible to rely on the point of view of specialists, but in every possible way comparing the points of view of various specialists. In general, for me it was such an example of properly organized work. You know, I initially could not assume that such volitional, purposeful decisions could be made there that would deal with the situation as quickly as possible, somehow diminish, maybe the significance of what happened was nothing like that. The work was organized as in a good scientific team. The first careful study of information, preferably from information received from various sources, and there have often been cases when information issued by the military differed from information received by other civilian scientific services. This was especially true of the magnitude of activity emissions from the 4th block.
130
131Different scientific groups provided different information in the early stages.
132
133For example, as early as the month of June, different scientific groups differently estimated the value of activity thrown out from the 4th block. For example, from GEOCHEM them. Vernadsky, based on her measurements in a report approved by academician Velikhov, provided data according to which more than 50% of the contents of the reactor jumped outside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. They gave a colossal area of ​​plutonium abundance, for example, on the territory of the Soviet Union. The second group of specialists, which was commissioned by Lev Dmitrievich Ryabev, consisting of specialists from the Minsredmash radiation institute, carried out measurements simply on the basis of the total activity manifested in various hydrophysical points around the fourth block, distributed fuel proportionally to the activity manifested in different areas. Of course, this was wrong, because self-absorption, and many other processes, were not taken into account.
134
135Nevertheless, it was not on the basis of such an initial review of the situation that they concluded that approximately the same half of the fuel is in the shaft of the reactor, and the rest is outside this reactor. Finally, the third group of specialists, which carefully examined all the cards that the Goskomhydromet gave, integrated all the activity that was recorded by ground and air reconnaissance, comparing with the data that began to come to us from abroad, they could not find more than 3 -4% of activity outside the fourth block. And this information came to my subgroup and was of practical importance from the point of view of how to act and what efforts should be made for burial, for decontamination work. I had to create such a commission and ask Anatoly Petrovich to be an arbitrator. Search for errors. In the end, it turned out that the GEOCHEM group was inaccurate, since plutonium measurements were carried out under conditions in which plutonium and weapons of origin of the period of nuclear explosions were sampled.
136
137These inaccuracies have been clarified. But the approach was not entirely accurate. In the end, everyone came to a single figure: 3.0 3.5 4.0 percent of the fuel released outside the 4th block. But at that time it created a rather nervous atmosphere. But the Task Force itself did not show any nervousness at the same time. She simply insisted on additional measurements, on additional refinements and did her best to understand the true state of things. At the same time, in my decisions, the Task Force, I repeat, as a witness to it, tried to go all the time along the path of maximum protection of the interests of people, based on possible pollution options, to establish the amount of monetary compensation that would be required for the evacuated people. They made all kinds of decisions exclusively in favor of the people affected by this accident. It concerned each case. The task force also amazed me by the fact that it did not show any desire to conceal earlier decisions. Let’s say, decisions of some sort were made, say about the launch date of the first and second blocks and at the time of completion of the construction of the sarcophagus or the work on the 5th and 6th blocks, or the primary decisions which were planned to mothball the city of Pripyat immediately. And such decisions were made.
138
139But if new experimental data suddenly appeared that showed that the city of Pripyat might not be mothballed, that when the situation became calmer, it could be deactivated and populated in some part, of course, for living and in some part you could organize normal monitoring of this city, the operation of its utilities, the Task Force changed the decisions taken earlier and did not see any crime in this. Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov has repeatedly visited the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was necessary at the Task Force to take decisions more than once and to accept or not accept the foreign assistance that was offered during this period of time. That’s how I just wanted to say it out loud, but now, returning to those May days, I have to say that after Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov and Yegor Kuzmich Ligachev visited the disaster areas, assessed the situation, a command arrived: to change the first composition of the Government Commission and replace it with a second one.
140
141Boris Evdokimovich remained the head of the Government Commission, but a decision was made to continue work on the spot with duplicate squads and the first group left for Moscow, and a duplicate squad appeared on the spot, headed by Deputy Stepovmin Ivan Stepanovich Silaev. The whole group of the first Government Commission flew away, but Shcherbina invited me and Comrade to stay. SIDORENKO in order to complete the work: SIDORENKO to find out the causes of the accident, and I to finish the work on localization of the accident on the 4th block. But formally, in the Silaev’s team, Evgeny Petrovich Ryazantsev was to be replaced by the deputy director of our Institute of Atomic Energy. He arrived in this group and unexpectedly appeared in it, and Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov really don’t know which team.
142
143Here I must say a few words
144
145Evgeni Pavlovich Velikhov, having seen enough of the films “Chinese Syndrome”, arrived with a concern, which I reported to Ryzhkov and Ligachev, which in principle worries us about the uncertainty in the geometric position of the reactor residues. It is clear that heat release from this mass of fuel continues. Warming up continues and some vertical movement of this mass and fuel can be observed. At the same time, we were concerned about two circumstances: could this movement lead to the fact that in some local area a critical mass will again be created and short-lived isotopes will start to be produced again. First of all, it worried us, but somehow we hoped that a large quantity, about 40 tons, of boron was introduced and we hoped that they were mixed fairly evenly with this mass, but still the threat of local reactors was completely removed not allowed. First problem. But it also worried us that temperatures could turn out to be quite high in these heat-generating masses. Some structural elements of the lower part of the reactor may not withstand. May not withstand high temperatures concrete.
146
147Maybe part of the fuel can get into, say, brobaters in the upper or lower, we did not know by that time whether there was water there. They were afraid of powerful vaporization. If some noticeable mass of hot fuel goes there, then powerful vaporization, which will disrupt the additional amount of aerosols and pollute additional territories. These problems worried us. Therefore, Ivan Stepanovich Silaev, who replaced Shcherbin, the decision was made: firstly, to find out if there is water in the lower brobarter. It was a difficult operation, which the station workers heroically carried out. Then it turned out that there is water. Necessary operations for its removal were arranged. I repeat again that the removal of water was carried out in order to prevent large vaporization. At the same time, it was already clear that no second powerful steam explosion could occur, but simply intense vaporization with the removal of radioactive particles could take place. Therefore, just in case, the water had to be removed and, if necessary, the introduction of cooling when the mass had already gone into these rooms, water could be introduced into these rooms again, such a cooling factor. These decisions were made and recorded.
148
149But at that time Evgeny Pavlovich appeared and began to talk about the possibility of the Chinese syndrome, that these lower and upper brobers would be melted and that some part of the fuel could get into the ground and further, melting the ground, it could reach aquifers . The aquifers under the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, and in this sense it was very unsuccessfully delivered, at a depth of 32 meters and, of course, even if some part of the fuel got there, there would be a risk of contamination of a sufficiently large basin that feeds a significant part of Ukraine with radionuclides located in this mass of nuclear fuel. The probability of such an event seemed extremely small, but nevertheless, after some hesitation, they nevertheless took it as a preventive measure, although most experts certainly doubted the need for large-scale work of this kind and, nevertheless, Evgeni Pavlovich insisted that 21 lower pallets of the reactor foundation plate were constructed. To do this, miners worked very actively, led by their Minister, who worked actively and desperately there.
150
151Minister of Coal Industry Comrade SHADRIN and specialists, led by his Minister Comrade Brezhnev from the Ministry of Spetsyazhstroy, who were working on the creation of appropriate tunnels for the foundations under the base plate of the 4th block, so that later in these tunnels it would be possible to lay concrete slabs, and concrete slabs with the possibility of cooling them. All this was designed and made in a fairly short period of time, but of course it turned out to be useless because no fuel had ever got there and had never to be cooled. Somewhere in the 10th of May Vyacheslav Dmitrievich SVETLY appeared at the call of Velikhov with a suitcase of various samples of materials that were simulated, by laser or by some kind of molten mass, burned over deep distances. All of this, psychologically, as it were, had an effect on Ivan Stepanovich Silaev and he allowed these works. But, in general, of course, these works were redundant. But at that time it was possible to understand that this was still a preventive measure, just in case, and suddenly some kind of mass would really break through. She psychologically quite significantly acted on the population, as an event protecting the subsoil waters. But, from my point of view, why I was not an active supporter of it or actively opposing these works.
152
153Because they allowed at this stage to concentrate a large number of equipment. It was clear to me that there was a huge amount of unusual work to be done to build the shelter of the 4th block. To do this, it was necessary to work out the delivery of concrete and determine which equipment was successful and which was not successful in these working conditions. Create points for washing equipment and determine whether it is laundered, and with what safety factor it is necessary to deliver, and in what conditions there may be people working in this area. And, since the projects, and the sarcophagus itself was just beginning to be designed, was still only in the first stage of the project and it was unclear what equipment was needed, how much of this equipment was needed. And how to build a foundation slab it was more or less clear. It seemed to me very important at this, in general, such, of course, preemptive, or something, stage, they began to debug the mechanism for bringing people in, solve everyday issues of their placement, gain experience in organizing such large-scale construction works. Therefore, in this sense, probably, all decisions were made correctly.
154
155Another thing is that when Yevgeny Pavlovich proposed already under the collapse of the 4th block outside the building and it seemed to him that a lot of fuel was available, to build another similar stove, and for this it would take ten thousand metro builders to bring there to carry out such a work, here, of course, I could not stand it and together with Anatoly Petrovich wrote a sharp letter 22 categorically opposing the completely unnecessary excessive involvement of metro builders who would receive high dose loads, constructing a second protective plate. At the same time, of course, there was no reason for carrying out these works, because they more or less accurately knew the distribution of radioactivity in different zones of the reactor. But water protection has become one of the urgent problems. Somewhere in the May days, right away. Since Pripyat itself already represented a noticeable water basin. She flowed into the Dnieper.
156
157But what is the Dnieper is not necessary to say. I repeat that the subsoil waters were not deep under the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. And now, when it became clear that the number of victims of the accident was limited to several hundred people, with dozens of people being seriously injured people and the rest being curable, the main problem was to secure the population living along the Dnieper basin. It was such a central and very acute task. Of course, measurements were made of the level of pollution of the water itself. (Cassette N 1, side "B", section 2. is finished).
158
159
160
161Cassette number 2
162
163
164
165Immediately, all these days, various solutions were offered. The first solution that was proposed, in the development of which many experts from the Goskomhydromet and controlling organizations participated, and the Minvodkhoz organizations played such an active role, of course, was the first decision to create a wall in the ground, i.e. the whole territory contaminated by the Chernobyl industrial site and dig the necessary trenches, concrete them and make some kind of cube that would limit the possibility of active water going outside this industrial site.
166
167For this, Italian equipment was originally even purchased that would allow the corresponding work to be carried out with high intensity. But then more accurate studies, more accurate estimates of the radiation situation on the water, the migration of radionuclides in the water, showed, along with testing the Italian technology itself and assessing its performance, that this solution was not justified and the Ministry of Water Economy proposed a more effective solution, due to the fact that to surround the entire dirty territory with a sufficient amount is about 1,450 wells, some of which would be exploration wells, in which the radioactivity of the water coming from these important.
168
169Then, if necessary, with appropriate devices, radioactive water, if it appeared there, should be pumped out, preventing its passage in the direction of subsoil water. Practice later showed that this was the right decision, because all the wells were built and there was practically no penetration of radioactive water into the depth, according to exploration wells.
170
171Therefore, for example, to this day I do not know that at least once water had to be pumped out because of its contamination. Therefore, in the ground, the wall was built on only one site, the most polluted, and this was limited. Wells that are standing, observed and in working condition.
172
173Since the Chernobyl NPP was a cooling pond, since after the release part of the radioactivity fell into the water, the next measure to protect, say, the Dnieper Sea and the entire water basin was to build protective dams, which included cyolites, i.e. substances capable of adsorbing radioactive particles and radionuclides if they appeared on water on all small and large rivers. Such protective dams were constructed and they played a positive role. So that the water pollution anywhere did not exceed the maximum permissible concentrations. It should be directly said that the Ukrainian comrades initially came up with a project to create a bypass channel in general, which would divert all the waters of Pripyat from the Dnieper Sea. This is a billionth-worth construction and such a canal was supposed to pass through the territory of Belarus.
174
175It would have to be very expensive. But of course he would guarantee that no polluted waters would fall into the Kiev Sea. But again, a commission was carefully set up with comrade VOROPAEV at the head. She carefully assessed the situation. Even before the work of this commission, I was instructed to make an assessment of this project, on the basis of the simplest assessments that I was able to make, it turned out that this event was redundant, since the well system, the system of dams, and therefore, naturally the exchange of activity between water and silts those at the bottom should not create any serious threat to the Dnieper Sea. But then the commission conducted all these works more carefully and came to this conclusion. Therefore, the application was not accepted and practice has shown that this event would not be economically feasible and would not bring any additional benefits in terms of protecting the Dnieper basin. Kievans at this time took the right measures. They began to prepare for the possibility of using another source of water from the Dniester to power the city and in every possible way developed work to create additional artesian wells.
176
177In this case, if the Dnieper waters were contaminated with radionuclides above acceptable concentrations so that the city could be fed by other sources of water, all the preparatory work went very quickly, very organized. It was prepared. But practically it was not necessary to use it. Since neither before the spring flood, nor after it, the waters of the Dnieper basin did not contain pollution exceeding the maximum permissible concentrations, which would somehow threaten human health. From these words it follows that in general no pollution occurred in the river basin. The first days in separate sections of water basins up to 10 minus the eighth degree of curie per liter contained in separate samples of water, it must be said, secondly, silts, including those in the Dnieper basin, were contaminated. Silts were most heavily polluted in the cooling pond, near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, but also further along the Pripyat and the Dnieper. The content of radionuclides in the sludge was significantly increased today. But fortunately, nature arranged that the radionuclides of individual particles in the sludge are held firmly enough and a thorough study of the questions is currently underway: does any part of this radioactivity fixed in the sludge get into living organisms living in rivers.
178
179Such work is underway.
180
181It will be conducted for a sufficiently long period. The first conclusions are that bottom fish, of course, carry some part of the radioactivity in themselves, but no alarming symptoms are found. And the second circumstance: the protection of the coast and small and large rivers, the coastline, from the removal of meltwater of various debris contaminated with radioactive elements: wood chips, needles, which fell off in the infected forest, could lead to rather significant radiation damage. Therefore, the problem of protecting the rivers from getting these dirty objects here was a big problem, and here the Soviet army played a big role in minimizing the possibility of these polluted objects getting into the rivers and the problem of cleaning and collecting such contaminated sites.
182
183It was a serious problem and was resolved by the army with great intensity. Since I’ve already talked about the army, it must be said in succession that from the moment the work was entrusted to the Soviet Army, the scope of work was very large, but the chemical troops that were commissioned were primarily supposed to be engaged in reconnaissance and determining the territory of contamination. Work was assigned to the shoulders of the army both at the station itself and at 3 km. zone for decontamination of villages, towns and roads. They did tremendous work.
184
185If individual researchers proposed various dust suppression compounds, in the summer of 1986 it became one of the main problems to prevent the spread of contaminated dust over long distances. To do this, we tested a wide range of chemical compounds that could be produced, cover contaminated sites, and by passing water through them, but not allowing noticeable dust removal in the creation of such compounds, their testing and the organization of work on their introduction over large areas. All this work fell on the shoulders of the army. This work was organized very carefully. Huge work was carried out by the army to decontaminate the city of Pripyat.
186
187Somewhere around the end of August, September, October, when the city was in such a state that it would be possible to preserve it, one could be in it. This does not mean that the city could be inhabited normally, but the fact that this city no longer represented a particular danger was the September and October army operations that led to this condition. Of course, the decontamination of the premises of the first and second units in preparation for the launch is also the army units, they took an active part. The decontamination of internal premises, cleaning of the territory, and cleaning of roofs was carried out extremely actively and in difficult conditions, subject to such requirements that not one of the soldiers or officer involved in this work would receive a dose load exceeding initially 25 rem.
188
189Then this dose was reduced both in general and in general
190
191This was observed and carried out. Although, of course, there were annoying such funny and bitter cases that I had to observe with my own eyes. Such annoying cases included, for example, a situation in which, say, a group of working soldiers had only their chief of officer or officer the only dosimetric device and the number of dose loads received by a particular soldier was determined by his commander. These were not frequent, but rare cases, but they were. When the commander, a well-functioning soldier put more dose loads, as an incentive, something to work and as an opportunity to finish his stay in this zone faster, and a less-working soldier put less dose loads. But when it was possible to observe such cases. There was a scandal. Everything, of course, changed, but such cases, unfortunately, were.
192
193I have never managed to witness a case 4 when the experts called up to the SA or just any citizens of the USSR somehow tried to mount their work or felt forcibly involved in difficult and dangerous work. Maybe there were such cases somewhere, but I have never been able to observe them. On the contrary, I myself had to go to quite dangerous sections of the 4th block several times in order to clarify the intelligence data or to imagine a possible front line for certain operations and always had to take soldiers to help. I always asked when they brought me a group of soldiers, I explained the conditions under which they would work and asked what I would like only with those who voluntarily can help me go to work and there have never been any cases, and the number of such there were many cases when, no matter how they say it, remained in the ranks and did not take a step forward. In order to enter our scientific team and help us in carrying out a variety of, and sometimes really difficult, work.
194
195And here the soldier did not differ from the civilian person who participated in these works. At the suggestion of General DEMYANOVICH, a military center was quickly organized in the area of ​​the accident zone, where military specialists, in order to ensure that the work of the military units for decontamination and measurements and any operations that the army ceased to do, acted out not by fumigation, not by trial and mistakes, and more consciously, a military center was organized, which was engaged in the selection of appropriate measuring equipment, the most appropriate situation and the choice of the route, testing technological methods for deactivation civil work.
196
197The presence of such a military center played a big positive role in the fact that the work went quickly enough and with minimal dose loads, although in general the integral dose loads were certainly quite large due to the huge amount of work, due to the huge number of people involved in these works. But all the same, they were minimized through the activities of this military center, which worked in collaboration with scientific organizations of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Atomic Energy and Kiev research organizations. So, here this center played a big role. Amazingly, not only decontamination works were going on, amazingly fast was the construction of new residential villages where evacuated people moved. The construction of the settlement "Cape Verde" was amazingly fast, where the employees of the Chernobyl NPP of the first and second units were to work, who were forced to work on a rotational basis.
198
199The work went not only quickly, but they tried to carry out it with sufficient quality, and I would say, with taste. Here in this place I would like to say that especially the first period of time, in spite of the tragedy of the situation, in spite of such despair, I would say a lack of technical means, lack of proper experience in eliminating accidents of this magnitude, confusion and uncertainty could easily arise some solutions, 5 but it was not so. Somehow, regardless of positions, regardless of the tasks that people solved, all this was a well-tuned team, especially in the early days. The scientific part of the team, on whose shoulders lay the responsibility for the correctness of the decision, made these decisions without the support of Moscow, Kiev, Leningrad.
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201Support in the form of consultations, in the form of some experienced inspections, the immediate arrival of any specialists called there. When we came to some reasonable scientific decisions, the leadership of the Government Commission was able to instantly with the help of the Focus Group or its individual members get for some fantastic short time, literally days, and sometimes hours, all the necessary materials that we needed to carry out the corresponding work. So I remember that when Vitaly Andreevich, Chairman of the State Planning Commission of Ukraine, was working from Ukraine when he was part of the Task Force located on the spot in Chernobyl.
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203It was an amazingly calm person.
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205Vigorous. Which caught literally with a half-word. He always listened to our scientific conversations, that we were discussing what we would need and would react instantly. We needed liquid nitrogen to cool the unit, and when we came to the conclusion that we were dealing with a cyst, he said with a grin that the required number of compounds had already been ordered. The same is true for all those materials, for example, magnesium, containing carbon monoxide, all of it from the metallurgical plants of Ukraine or somewhere else, all this huge amount of materials arrived and arrived. It is difficult to overestimate the work of the supply group, which on behalf of SOLOV Vitaliy Andreevich, chairman of the State Planning Commission of Ukraine, was handled by the chairman of the Gosnab of Ukraine, who, sitting on the spot in Kiev, simply showed miracles there to ensure all the work that was carried out on Chernobyl with all the necessary material, although the amount needed was certainly fantastic big.
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207Both technological and simple materials required a huge army of people brought into the zone to feed, drink, dress, change clothes, organize laundry, wash, control. It was a colossal work, which was organized even now, it’s hard to imagine how, of course, it all reminded me of the war period, since I remember from my childhood memories from the memoirs of the military that this work is rear, organizational work it certainly mattered neither almost no less, and maybe even more than the work of those people who were on the front line and carried out the very decontamination, measurements, diagnosed, did something. Here is the job of providing all the necessary materials, living conditions. She played the most important role there.
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209If we just talk about such impressions, such comments, then I can’t be silent about the fact that I was struck by two circumstances on the very first day of my stay in Chernobyl: I’m used to treat people working in the State Security Committee by the nature of my activity as people who keep state secrets, organize the control of those people who are allowed to work in secret and especially important work. Organize services that allow you to save all documents, technical documentation, correspondence, which ensure that state secrets are kept. From this point of view, I mainly knew the KGB, but from stories and literature I knew about that part of this committee that is engaged in intelligence or counterintelligence work. In Chernobyl, I had to deal with highly organized, very clear-cut young people who performed the best functions of the functions that fell on them there. And they laid down functions that were generally not simple: the first organization of a clear and reliable communication. This was done within literally days.
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211Through all the channels, and quietly, calmly, very confidently, I saw a circle of young people who were headed by Fedor Alekseevich SHCHERBAKOV, who was also working there. But all this was done simply amazingly clearly and quickly. In addition, care was taken on their shoulders so that the evacuation problem would go away without panic, so that there would not be any panic moods, any excesses that would interfere with normal work. And they did such work, but how they did it, how they did it, I still can’t imagine, because I knew only the result of this work. Indeed, there were no manifestations that impeded the organization of this, in general, not ordinary, difficult work, and in this I was simply delighted with the technical armament and culture of the literacy of this group. The direct opposite of the activity of this group was the activity of, say, Civil Defense in that structure in the composition in which they acted in the early days.
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213It just hit me
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215Here, it would seem that we all often learn, retrain, a huge number of brochures are issued, time is wasted at all enterprises, but it means taking power into our own hands on all those issues that fall within the scope of the Civil Defense, General Ivanov, who initially commanded this business, in my opinion, it simply did not succeed, they did not know what to do, and even if they received direct instructions, they did not show any kind of influence channels, control levers, or the ability to correct the situation.
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217I do not want to say all the time that these are personal impressions. This is how much they felt, for example, in an inconspicuous way, but the Chekists' work was felt, how much they were not felt, the positive was not visible, but the negative helpless part of the Civil Defense was visible in the early days of these events. But I would not have been able to say this, say. In the early days of the Chernobyl tragedy, a defect in our information service was very striking. Despite the fact that we have Atomenergoizdat, it used to be Atomizdat, there are medical publishers, the society there is Knowledge, it turned out that the finished literature, which could be quickly distributed among the population, to explain what dose loads are extremely dangerous for humans, how to behave in conditions when a person is in the zone of increased radiation hazard.
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219a system that could give the right advice: what to measure, how to measure, how to behave with vegetables, fruits, the surface of which could be contaminated with betta, gamma, alpha emitters, all this literature was in complete absence. There were many books for thick and correct, competent specialists who were in libraries, but it was precisely such brochures, leaflets, such as the Japanese that accompany their equipment, watches, voice recorders and VCRs, that’s what you need to do in a given situation, which button to press, how long to wait there was practically no such literature in the country.
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221I have already mentioned that I proposed from the very beginning to create such a press group under the Government Commission and which would correctly inform the population about the events. I would give the right advice; for some reason this was not accepted. After arriving in the disaster zone, Ryzhkov and Ligachev were allowed journalists. And a large army appeared there. But you know, even it’s hard for us to say now. It is probably good that it was allowed, but bad that it was not organized properly. Why? Journalists are coming. Different. Most of the very good journalists. For example, the Pravda brigade and the well-known head of the science department GUBAREV, ODINET, many good Ukrainian journalists and documentary filmmakers appeared there. But I saw with my own eyes how they ran up to the most famous people who were there, took a button and took some private interview on a particular issue. Sometimes they managed to ask the chairman of the Government Commission or one of the members of the commission on a particular particular issue.
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223Most of the time they spent of course in the field
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225We talked with people who were evacuated, or with people who worked on the 4th block, on decontamination and this information was broadcast. What they collected, what was printed, of course in the historical, in the archival sense, is of tremendous importance, like living documentary material. And it is necessary and obligatory. But at the same time, due to the fact that the information was each time presented in a certain private form, the whole picture was daily, or maybe even weekly by the state of events, the country did not get such a complete picture. Because information was obtained: such-and-such, such-and-such separate blocks are going on: the miners heroically work there.
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227But at the same time there was no information: what is the level of radiation where they work, and what happens nearby in the Brest region, and how and who measures it and, therefore, along with so many very accurate descriptions and comments, for example, there were many inaccuracies. For example, the press devoted a lot of time to the so-called needle, with which they fiddled for a long time. It was an integral device, which was supposed to be put in the womb of the destroyed 4th block and give constant information about the temperature there, about radiation fields and some other parameters. But, practically, the efforts expended to bring this needle to the right place from a helicopter were enormous, and practically no information was received from this needle.
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229There was zero information, but it confirmed only what was obtained by other simpler and more reliable methods. This episode of the installation of the needle was painted very carefully and very, so to speak, in detail. At the same time, when there was a lot of work by dosimetrists, the modest work of the guys, say, from the Kurchatov Institute headed by SHEKALOV or BOROV or VASILIEV, the work of the Ryanovsky group, headed by PETROV, the work of KOMBANOV, who was there many times, tested his compositions, which would allow dust suppression. This means the logic of all the work, the analysis of the projects that were done, all this was not described properly, and mainly, such a consistent dynamics of the events themselves were not described. In such situations, a lot of people, someone heard something and exaggerated rumors were born.
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231Naturally, the number of people affected by radiation sickness and the levels of pollution, say the city of Kiev and the extent of the affected area. Any stop during the subsequent construction of the sarcophagus was very often interpreted as some kind of catastrophe, as the collapse of some kind of structure, as the appearance of new emissions, as evidence of the operation of the reactor there, which suddenly started working again, etc. etc. Here on these issues such proper systematic information was not delivered and this of course gave rise to all sorts of incorrect and panic, and sometimes, maybe not panic, but incorrect ideas.
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233The state of emissions of the 4th block was debated for several months, and even in scientific circles. The fact is that the specialists had accurately (specialists working directly at the station, Hydromet specialists) measured emission dynamics. The first, most powerful emission, which millions of curies of activity in the form of noble gases and iodine threw at high altitude and this emission was felt by almost all countries of the world. Then a few days of active emissions of radioactive particles, fuel, mainly due to the burning of graphite. Then the cessation of emissions of these fuel particles, somewhere from the second of May, then the heating of the fuel due to the pillow, which was there and the release of already separated particles, such as cesium, strontium and their distribution until about May 20-22 with known distribution areas and known areas of pollution and a constant decrease, starting from May 3-4 to May 5 of the total level of activity emitted from the 4th block. But, since the previously thrown out activity, a huge amount of technology that spread activity on different wheels, dust transfer in dry summers, it increased 9 a certain number of affected areas, all this was due to the fact that the reactor lives and continues to throw radioactivity out of itself in increasing quantities. This created, so to speak, a nervous mood for those who worked there, who carried out decontamination work.
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235As long as something stands out from the 4th block, redundant projects have arisen, such as: put a tube in the 4th block. The project that I struggled with, starting in May, this project is completely meaningless, nevertheless, such work was carried out by different organizations, various projects of such an outer shell were created that, if it were set up, would only complicate subsequent work on the construction of a shelter and from the point of view of the removal of aerosol radioactivity, it would not give any effect. But these conversations were so strong, in that the reactor "chad" all the same emits radioactivity in appreciable quantities, then commands were received for the manufacture of various kinds of such coatings. They were created, tested, but the matter ended with the fact that one of the last structures, raised by a helicopter, immediately collapsed to the ground during the tests and was completely removed. We refused these projects. Under the influence of rumors, inaccurate information, these projects were born and tried to be implemented, and God forbid, if they were implemented, it would only complicate the work.
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237Here, then, the ability to combine
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239I remember how during the war there were two kinds of daily information that appeared in our newspapers TASS where we recaptured the points occupied by the Germans, where we retreated, where we took a large number of prisoners, where we suffered some kind of private defeat, it was accurate, official information that gave an idea of ​​joyful or bitter events at the front. This was accurate TASS information, and along with this there were many journalistic essays about specific battles, about specific people, about heroes of the rear workers, etc. So, our press gave a lot of information of the second grade about people, about their impressions, about what was going on there, but very little information was given, such as the TOSS regular, what happened and how it has changed today. This, in my opinion, was a defect in the information system, firstly and secondly, there were few speeches by specialist scientists.
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241I recall, perhaps, the only one speech by Professor IVANOV from the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute, a large article of which was placed where he was simply trying to explain: what are these rems, millentgenes, at what level they represent a real threat to human health, at what level they do not constitute a real threat, how can you behave in conditions of some kind of increased, some kind of increased radiation backgrounds. This was perhaps the only article, if I didn’t forget something, that produced a useful, sober effect on others. But the number of such articles could certainly be increased.
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243It seems to me that it was written too modestly and cautiously about what happened in the station itself, why the accident occurred, what was wrong here and whose fault and reactor or some personnel actions were out of the ordinary. Of course, a lot has been written about this and I myself was involved in the description of those events that preceded the accident. But in fact, the whole picture of why, how it happened, it seems to me not a single person yet, really knows. In general, this emergency showed that not a trivial situation is a tragic situation, a difficult, large-scale situation, it requires not only the mobilization of large information resources, but also a very creative, very competent use of these resources to ensure that the population in the right sequence and in the right amount received information about what was happening, which would relate to information with full confidence and, most importantly, with the ability to use this information for some practical actions, or for what would be shown there de need to worry, and where necessary, on the contrary, to calm down, that it was a fairly regular basis and not unexpected. In general, all these were extremely important issues. Sometimes it even seems to me that an event of this magnitude could have a special television and newspaper heading, which consists of two parts. Chernobyl: part of this heading should be purely official from the government commission to give accurate information there, by the time this heading comes out; and the second part is the emotional part, descriptive with personal points of view.
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245In general, this is a serious question about how, on what scale, to cover such large, very unpleasant and difficult events, affecting, worrying almost the entire population of the country, and not only our country. Since I touched on a bit of information, touched on the reactor a little, it may be that moment when it is possible to express some personal impressions of how side I got into this story, how I was connected with it, how I understood the history and quality of nuclear energy development and as I understand it now. It’s rare that any of us has spoken frankly and accurately about this. I graduated from the Engineering Physics and Chemistry Department of the Mendeleev Moscow Institute of Chemical Technology. This faculty, which trained specialists, mainly researchers, who were supposed to work in the field of nuclear industry, i.e. be able to separate isotopes, be able to work with radioactive substances, be able to extract uranium from ore, bring it to the right condition, make nuclear fuel out of it, be able to process nuclear fuel that has already been in a reactor containing a powerful radioactive component so that useful products highlight. Dangerous and harmful components also highlight. To be able to somehow compact them, bury them in such a way that they would not be able to harm a person, and maybe some part of the radioactive sources for the national economy, medicine, maybe. Here is this group of special questions that I have been trained. Then I graduated from the Kurchatov Institute in the field of nuclear fuel processing.
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247Academician KIKOEV tried to leave me in graduate school because he liked my graduate work, but my comrades and I agreed to work for a while at one of the plants of the nuclear industry, in order to have some practical skills in the area that would later become the subject of our research . I was kind of an agitator for this idea, and therefore I could not accept the offer of graduate school, and I went to Tomsk. In one of our closed cities, where I had to participate in the launch of one of the radiochemical plants.
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249It was very interesting. Lively period of entering the practice of a young man
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251I worked for about two years at this plant, and then I was dragged out, with the consent of the party organization (I have been a communist since college time), for postgraduate studies at the same Kurchatov Institute. Under the influence of my friend and comrade Vladimir Dmitrievich Klimov, who worked there, I passed the candidate exams there at the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute and left for the candidate exams to pass the candidate exams. My first candidate work was proposed to me to deal with the problem of such a gas-phase reactor, which would contain gaseous uranium hexochloride and some problems, namely, the problems of interaction at high temperatures of uranium hexochloride with structural materials, I investigated these issues. And having received a lot of data, he wrote a large report, which could be the basis of the dissertation, or maybe it was a finished dissertation. But at this time, my friend, graduate student Viktor Konstantinovich POPOV, informed me that in Canada, Professor BARBITA had done an excellent and astonishing chemist work to obtain the true compound of xenon (one of the noble gases).
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253This message captured my imagination and I devoted all my subsequent professional work to synthesis, using various physical methods, such unusual compounds that would be powerful oxidizing agents, possessed a number of unusual properties, which I would be happy to work on and from which I could build a whole a number of technological processes. And in this regard, my professional activity was going on, which created opportunities for me to defend successively: Ph.D., then doctoral, dissertations, then, with the development of these works, their evaluation was carried out during my election to the Academy of Sciences. The scientific part of the work was evaluated by the State Prize of the Soviet Union. The applied part is appreciated by the Lenin Prize. This was my own professional activity to which I managed to attract interesting young people who, with taste, with a good education and understanding, still develop this interesting area of ​​chemical physics from which, I am sure, very many important for practice, for cognitive process, events.
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255Side “A” is finished (3) Successful activity in this area attracted the attention of the director of the institute and he brought me closer to himself and made me deputy director of the institute. Scientific functions were limited to my own scientific work. On the distribution of responsibilities that existed in our directorate, and still exist, it was written down for me: the task of chemical physics, radiochemical physics and the use of nuclear and plasma sources for technological purposes. This is the circle of those professional matters that I was engaged in. When Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov was elected President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, he made me the first deputy director of the institute, entrusting a wide range of questions on the management of the institute, but did not change my scientific responsibility. There are no new topics for which I would be responsible. As before, Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov was fully responsible for the largest piece of the Institute’s activities in plasma physics and controlled thermonuclear fusion.
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257Vyacheslav Dmitrievich WRITTEN began to answer for laser technology. The questions of nuclear physics and its special applied applications were also answered by the clever and talented person Lev Petrovich FEOKTISTOV. Anatoly Petrovich had a deputy for nuclear energy, first Evgeny Petrovich Ryazantsev, before him the director of the department of nuclear reactors was Viktor Alekseevich SIDORENKO, now PONOMAREV-STEPNOY is the first deputy director for nuclear energy, who were involved in reactor engineering. Of course, spinning in this circle, I chose my task. I was just curious: what proportion of nuclear energy and for what reasons should be present in Soviet energy. I managed to organize such systematic studies related to: what type of stations should be built; for the intended purpose; how they should be used wisely; whether they should only produce electricity or should they produce other energy sources, in particular: hydrogen. That hydrogen energy has become the area of ​​my close attention.
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259All this was some unusual questions that complement nuclear energy. Since Anatoly Petrovich himself was a reactor, the creator and participant in the creation of many reactors, then I needed him not as a reactor, but as a person who from the outside can give some unusual advice, find non-trivial solutions, but all these solutions and tips, They didn’t concern the design of reactors, which I had never done, but concerned the possible areas of use of all those components that are contained in a nuclear reactor.
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261Since the safety issues of nuclear energy are most acute in various areas of international public opinion, I was just interested in comparing the real dangers, the real threats that nuclear energy poses with the threats of other energy systems. I did the same thing with enthusiasm, mainly figuring out the dangers of other sources of energy alternative to nuclear energy.
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263Here, approximately, the range of issues that I had to deal with professionally
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265Well, and help Anatoly Petrovich, in an active form, given his employment at the Academy of Sciences, in the management of the Institute: planning the work of the Institute, some mode of its work; I tried a lot to create such elements that the institute would be united by a common Kurchatov Council, an all-institute seminar, the release of various publications that would fall on the table of researchers on their orders, so that they could quickly receive news from their fields; I tried to somehow organize such opportunities for comparing different points of view, different approaches to general physical, energy problems. I did this quite a bit and with enthusiasm. As for the physics and technology of reactors, it was a forbidden area for me, both in my own education and in the taboo that was imposed by Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov and his subordinates working in this area. They did not like outsiders to interfere in their professional affairs. I remember once Lev Petrovich FEOKTISTOV, who had just started working at our institute, tried to conceptually analyze the issues of a more reliable reactor, a more interesting reactor, which would exclude (then this problem worried) the production of such fissile materials that could be removed from the reactor and used in nuclear weapons. But his proposals were met with hostility. As well as the proposals that came to the Viktor Vladimirovich ORLOV Institute about a new safer type of reactor.
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267They were somehow not perceived by the current reactor community. Since I did not have administrative power over this unit, I generally understood many specific details of what was happening, and although I had a concern about the fact that I began to propose to the reactor environment not a physical approach to solving problems, but somehow then I naturally could not change this picture. And Anatoly Petrovich had such a humanly understandable and even attractive trait, namely reliance on people with whom he had worked for many years. So, he once trusted in certain people engaged in naval apparatus, occupied by station apparatuses, special apparatuses and really did not like the appearance of new faces there who could somehow disturb him or make him doubt the decisions made earlier. That's just about the thing and went. And in scientific terms, I chose an interesting area for myself, which I already mentioned, chemical physics related to the creation of unusual substances, the creation of systems that would allow hydrogen to be obtained in one way or another, to attach hydrogen production sites to nuclear sources and with enthusiasm, with the involvement of external organizations, he was engaged in this area.
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269She occupied a very small share at the Institute, both in monetary and in human relations. The people there were active, interesting, offered a lot of such unusual solutions that caused discussion, so it seemed that quite a lot of attention was paid to this, but in fact it was the activity of new people who came to a new industry. And the resources, in the form of buildings, employees, financing, which went to this area, of course, they were absolutely not measurable with the costs that went to ... (record was deleted). I was a member of the Scientific and Technical Council of the Ministry of Medium Engineering of the USSR, but I was not a member of the reactor section of this Council, so I did not know many details, specific discussions. Conceptual issues of the development of nuclear energy, but very rarely technical aspects, were often discussed at the Institute's STC. the quality of a particular reactor; fuel quality; problems that stood. These issues were discussed either at the reactor sections of the Ministry or at the scientific and technical councils of the respective units. But, nevertheless, the information that I had available, it convinced that not everything was successful, as it seemed to me, in the development of nuclear energy, because with the naked eye it was clear that our devices were fundamentally little different from Western ones, let's say, in their conception , in some matters even surpassing them, but they were poorly impoverished by good management systems, were extremely impoverished by diagnostic systems. In general, let’s say, the fact itself, when I learned that the analysis of the safety of nuclear power plants by the American RAMSOMSON (he consistently looked for possible sources of some troubles leading to accidents, systematized them, made probabilistic assessments of this or that event, estimates of how likely this event can lead, let’s say, to activity going outside) we learned this from foreign sources.
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271I have not seen a single collective in the Soviet Union that would put up and consider these issues in the least competent way
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273Viktor Alekseevich SIDORENKO was the most active advocate of nuclear safety in our country, but it seemed to me that his approach to safety issues was serious, because he really knew the picture associated with the operation of the plant, with the quality of the equipment manufactured, with the troubles that sometimes occurred at nuclear stations. But his efforts were mainly aimed at coping with these tricks: firstly, organizational measures; secondly, a system for improving documents that should be at the stations and at the designers; thirdly, he was very worried about the creation of supervisory authorities to control the situation. All this he called such organizational measures. He and his associates showed great concern about the quality of equipment that was supplied at the station. Recently, we all began to show concern about the quality of education and training of personnel who design, build and operate nuclear power plants, because the number of facilities has increased dramatically, and the quality of the personnel involved in this process has likely decreased and decreased before our eyes. So around these issues, I would say that Viktor Alekseevich SIDORENKO was the leader of people who were anxious.
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275He did not receive the proper support in our Ministry, every document, every step was given with painful work and the same, this can be psychologically understood, because the department in which we all worked was built on the principles of the highest qualifications of people performing any operation with the highest responsibility. And, indeed, in the hands of qualified people, well leading their work, our devices seemed both reliable and safe to operate. In this circle, concern about additional measures to increase the safety of nuclear plants seemed a far-fetched issue, because it was an environment of highly qualified people who were accustomed to relying and were convinced that safety issues were resolved solely by the qualification and accuracy of instructing the personnel who conduct the process.
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277Military acceptance was to a large extent present in our industry, therefore, therefore, the quality of the equipment was of a rather high class. This all somehow reassured, and even scientific work aimed at solving the most important issues of the further improvement of the stations, both in terms of safety and in terms of efficiency, did not enjoy support. An increasing amount of resources was spent on the creation of facilities that are not directly related to nuclear energy. Created capacity for the production of players, created the power of the metallurgical and metallurgical plan. A large amount of construction resources was spent on creating facilities that were not related to the subject of the department. Scientific organizations began to weaken, not to strengthen. Slowly, once the most powerful in the country, they began to lose the level of modern equipment. The staff began to age. Younger began to appear less. New approaches were not very welcome. Gradually, imperceptibly, but it was still happening. The usual rhythm of work remained, the usual approach to solving certain problems. I saw all this, but it was difficult for me to intervene in this process purely professionally, and general declarations on this subject were perceived with hostility. Again, because the layman’s attempt to bring some kind of understanding into their work could hardly be acceptable. All the time, new buildings, new stands, new people were needed to carry out work, because the number of objects increased. But the buildup was, nevertheless, not qualitative, but quantitative.
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279Moreover, newcomers in their qualifications repeated the level of design organizations: they often went through practice there and a good specialist reactor is considered to be one who has mastered the design of this reactor well, who knew how to count, say, a zone that knew all the accidents occurring at the station who knew how to come to any object and help in his physical and energy start-up, quickly figure out what is happening there, report to the leadership of the institute or the Ministry. And so, a numerically great generation of engineers grew up who qualified their work, but were not critical of the devices themselves, were not critical of all the systems that provided them with safety, but mainly knew these systems and demanded an increase in their number. This situation was not normal for a scientific center. At the same time, numerous talks about strengthening design organizations of this kind with specialists and with such approaches sounded for a decade and a half at the institute, at professional and party levels, but practically design organizations were not strengthened, with the exception of one, but remained at the same familiar level of fulfillment of the initial assigned duties. Therefore, the picture was like this: that everything seems to be safe and you just need to increase the number of known stands, increase the number of people working according to the well-known algorithm, and everything will be all right.
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281The worm of doubt gnawed at me, because in my professional field it seemed to me that it was always necessary to do wrong. You always need to do something new, be very critical of what has been done before you, try to step aside and do something different than what was done before you. It was possible to take risks on this matter, of course. And I took quite a bit of risk, but for my life, not very short, not very long, I had to conduct ten projects at the level of, say, the world. And so I have to say that five of them failed. I brought about 25 million rubles in these failed projects. damage to the state. These projects failed because they were initially wrong. They were attractive, interesting, but it turned out that there were no needed materials or materials scientists didn’t want or weren’t able to make them, there was no organization that would undertake the development of a nontrivial compressor, a nontrivial, say, heat exchanger, again referring to the lack of the necessary material or experience. As a result, initially attractive projects, during their design study, turned out to be very expensive, bulky and not accepted for execution.
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283Out of 10 projects, 5 were failed
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285Two of these ten projects, I am afraid, have the same fate and, for roughly the same reasons. But three projects turned out to be very successful where we found good partners and where we gave our best, using the highest echelons of power, using the authority of Anatoly Petrovich, the Central Committee of the party. And in the end, one of only 17 three completed works, on which we spent 17 million rubles. began to bring an annual income of 114 million rubles.
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287For four years, the corresponding industry and equipment have been operating. More than 0.5 billion rubles. she brought revenue to the state, which more than covered those 25 million rubles. costs that have not ended positively to this day. But the degree of risk in my own work was quite high. Well, either 30 or 50 or 70 percent of the risk is of course a high percentage of risk. But then it gave a striking effect, when the work was able to be brought to completion. In the reactor areas, I did not see anything similar and therefore attracted my attention: high-temperature helium (a cooled reactor), a liquid-salt reactor, which seemed to me some new word, although not entirely new, because both of them had already been tried by the Americans.
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289We tried, say, gas-cooled reactors by the Germans. These reactors showed their great advantages: both in terms of efficiency, and in terms of the potential flow of water for cooling the reactor, and in terms of the width of the zone of use of such reactors in technological processes. So they seemed to me a new word and, by the way, these reactors seemed safer than traditional ones. Therefore, some kind of patronage, well, within the framework of the Institute’s directorate, which I could provide in these areas, I provided. And moreover, in some professional work, he took some kind of complicity in these areas.
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291But here the traditional reactor engineering was somehow of little interest to me, well, it was not entrusted to me, and it seemed rather boring. Of course, the degree of danger (in that period of time), the scale of the danger that is inherent in these old devices, I did not imagine. But such a feeling of anxiety sucked. But there were such whales, such giants and experienced people, that it seemed to me that they would not allow something unpleasant. And, since the literature (the most selected) was Western, comparing Western devices with ours, this allowed me to draw conclusions in some books, articles that although there are many problems related to the safety of existing devices, but still they are less than the dangers from traditional energy with its large number of concertogenic substances released into the atmosphere, with radioactivity released into the atmosphere from the same coal seams. And so to speak, I paid more attention to this (to this side).
292
293Of course I was annoyed by the situation that developed between the leadership of the Ministry and the scientific leadership
294
295She was wrong. From the stories, from the documents, I knew that the starting position was this: the Institute, for example, ours, was not part of the Ministry of Secondary Engineering. He stood next to him, as a separate independent organization and had the right to dictate his scientific requirements, his scientific positions. And the Ministry, evaluating, of course, scientific proposals, was obliged to fulfill them technically accurately. Here is a partnership. Scientific proposals that were not limited by the influence of those in power and the full opportunity for the implementation of this proposal, which, say, from an engineering point of view, was pleasant to the leadership of the Ministry, was correct. Then history came to the conclusion that science was subordinated to the Ministry. Ministerial cadres have grown up and have gained their own great engineering experience. It seemed to them that they themselves already, scientifically, understand everything. And so, the scientific atmosphere and scientific spirit in reactor engineering, he gradually began to submit to such an engineering will of the ministerial will.
296
297I saw this, it also bothered me, and this complicated my relations with the Ministry, when I tried to speak out on this issue somehow, not very carefully. And I could not win these problems because I was a chemist for the reactor ministers and this allowed them to somehow not very carefully listen to my point of view, but to the proposals: to treat them as some kind of fantasies. Such is the general background against which all this work took place. As for the RBMK reactor. You know, we have this reactor, in the circles of reactors, was considered a bad reactor. Here Viktor Alekseevich SIDORENKO repeatedly criticized him. But this reactor was still considered bad, not for safety reasons. From the point of view of security, he even more likely stood out (as in the discussion, as I understood them) for the better. It was considered bad for economic reasons, firstly; at greater fuel consumption, at high capital costs; on a non-industrial basis of its construction. Worried that this is a certain, distinguished, Soviet line of development.
298
299But, in fact, more and more global experience was accumulated in water-water, case-based apparatuses that could be exchanged: operating experience; used technical solutions; software (somehow it was possible to exchange, adapt to this). As for RBMK reactors, the whole experience was our domestic, but of course, if we take the accumulated statistics, the statistics on the operation of RBMK reactors were the smallest when compared with the VVER apparatus. This, of course, was just as worrying. I, as a chemist, was worried that the huge potential of chemical energy was laid in these devices. There is a lot of graphite, a lot of zirconium, water, and in some abnormal situations (in normal situations, of course, graphite comes in contact with an inert medium, this is ensured by appropriate technical solutions), the temperature at which a steam-zirconium reaction accompanied by hydrogen evolution can begin principle and routine maintenance, technical conditions, was unacceptable. But, nevertheless, potentially, the supply of chemical energy in this type of apparatus was maximum, relative to, say, any others with which it could be compared.
300
301This was also a matter of concern. I was confused, for example, when I looked at this device: an unusual and, in my opinion, insufficient construction of a defense system that would work in extreme situations, because the protection of the device in the case of some elements of its abnormal behavior, say, there is a positive coefficient reactivity in this device, if it began to develop, make itself felt, then the operators and only the operator could enter the emergency protection rods, or they could automatically enter from the supply (on command) of one of the sensors (there are several of them x protection systems have been), or manually with a special button AZ-5, reset alarms rods. Mechanical rods that could somehow (mechanics well, it could work well, could work poorly) and some other protection systems that would be independent of the operator, which would work exclusively from the state of the zone of the apparatus, were not in this device .
302
303This, of course, somehow created an uncomfortable situation
304
305But, nevertheless, the practice was already accumulating, experts were confident in these matters. The speed of introducing protection was seemingly insufficient. I had heard that experts, in particular: KRAMEROV Alexander Yakovlevich, discussing these problems with Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov, made a proposal to the designer about changing the emergency protection system (CPS), improving the CPS of this device and they were not rejected, but were developed as then very slowly. Moreover, by that time the relationship between the supervisor and the chief designer had developed quite well.
306
307With regard to all new projects, to new ideas, this design organization fully recognized the authority of the Institute of Atomic Energy, and eagerly consulted and supported all contacts. But with regard to this particular apparatus, they considered themselves to be complete authors, owners, and, without violating the formal order, in which the scientific leadership remained with the Institute of Atomic Energy, in fact, this leadership was, to a large extent, well, nominal and used mainly for such cases when, say, fundamental decisions were made: whether to make the RBMK reactor one and a half thousand; to introduce heat transfer intensifier into this reactor; Let us say, when it was necessary to propose that the share of the RBMK apparatus in atomic energy be increased, then Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov needed support in this regard.
308
309These issues were somehow discussed with the supervisor. And questions of a specific technical policy, questions of improving this apparatus, in general, somehow, the designer did not readily accept the Institute’s point of view, not considering it to be a sufficiently developed partner so that it would be useful to the designer in his work. In this sense, I would like to express a point of view, one in which I am absolutely convinced, but which is not shared, unfortunately, by my colleagues and causes friction between us, sometimes even dramatic. The fact is that in the West, as far as I know, and according to the logic of things, and in aviation, we in the Soviet Union do not (in developed industries) have the concept of Scientific Supervisor and Designer.
310
311I myself understand this, the scientific leadership of the problem. For example, the scientific leadership of the problem of aviation, although this probably is not, but I could imagine it. This is such an organization that would master the aviation development strategy: how many small planes; how many are big; what to give preference to: comfort when loading and unloading passengers or the speed of movement of the apparatus from point to point; whether to give preference to some kind of hypersonic aircraft or aircraft flying at sound speeds; what is more important, from the point of view of safety, ensuring comfortable reliable operation of the ground services or the activities of personnel on board the aircraft; share in aviation of various types of aircraft ... Such a scientific guidance of aviation would seem acceptable to me. But, when it comes to the design of the aircraft, about the aircraft, then it should have one owner. He and the designer, he and the designer, he and the scientific director of this aircraft in this all the power and all responsibility they should be in the same hands, it seemed to me a completely obvious fact. At the time of the emergence of nuclear energy, everything was reasonable, since it was a completely new field of science, nuclear physics, neutron physics. That concept of scientific guidance was reduced to the fact that the designer was asked the basic principles of building the apparatus and the supervisor was responsible for the fact that these principles were physically correct and physically safe.
312
313But the designer has already implemented these principles every day practically and constantly consulting with physicists: are any physical laws of this apparatus violated. At the dawn of the creation of the nuclear industry, all this was justified. But when the design organizations grew, when they had their own settlement, physical departments, then there is such a system of dual power over one apparatus: there is both a supervisor and a designer, but in fact there are three authorities because the Main Directorate or some other deputy there. Minister, who had the right of a final word on a particular technical decision. Numerous Councils (interdepartmental and departmental) created, in general, an atmosphere of collective responsibility for the quality of the apparatus. This situation continues today. She, in my opinion, is wrong.
314
315As before, I am convinced that the Scientific Advisor, the organizations of the Scientific Advisor is an organization that examines certain projects, selects the best one from them, which means it determines the development strategy for nuclear energy. Herein lies the function of the supervisor, and not the function of creating a specific apparatus with desired properties. This whole confusion, it led, in general, to great irresponsibility, which was shown, say, by the Chernobyl experience. But in one way or another, the system of multilateral power, the system of the absence of one personally responsible for the quality of the apparatus, with all its infrastructures, in general, was absent, of course. And this caused a corresponding alarm among professionals in the technical sense, in the engineering sense.
316
317Of course, it was difficult for me to assess the merits or demerits of a particular apparatus
318
319But the only thing I managed to do was create an expert group that would conduct an expert comparison of various types of devices: and on issues of their efficiency; and on the issues of their universality; and on their safety issues. The first two consecutive such expert works turned out to be interesting. The idea of ​​creating such an expert group and carrying out such work belonged to me. I organizationally helped this work, and the actual work was created especially for these purposes by the laboratory of Alexander Sergeyevich KACHANOV, who organized the work, in my opinion, perfectly. Because his laboratory was a certain cell: posing questions; physically formulating these questions, and the answers to the questions were given by specialists, not only in different departments of the Institute, but also from different institutes in general. And in the end, a basis appeared that could be widely discussed, criticized, supplemented.
320
321And this work, unfortunately, at the very beginning was suspended, initially: by the serious illness of Alexander Sergeyevich KACHANOV and the inability to find an equivalent replacement for him; well, and then the subsequent Chernobyl events. And on April 26, 1986, the Institute of Atomic Energy found itself in a rather strange position, when, with the approval of the director of the institute, with his full support, the first deputy organized a system-wide research on the structure of atomic energy, the activity of which was of little interest to the Ministry and was exclusively supported by Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov, and the Institute acquired taste in it.
322
323Here from it it was already possible to choose the correctness of certain technical solutions. At the same time, I managed to create a laboratory of safety measures, which, in comparison with other types of energy, assessed the various dangers of nuclear energy. For the first time, specialists appeared who occupied ... (the record was deleted). ... soon it was necessary to achieve the correct implementation of all technological modes, literally with battle. Already here, quite recently, Alexander Petrovich and Vyacheslav Pavlovich VOLKOV, director of the Kola and then Zaporizhzhya nuclear plants, told me such an episode when a group of his comrades visited the Kola station and made sure that there was a complete mess, from his point of view, in the organization of the technological process.
324
325Well, what examples did he give: say the duty officer replaced, pre-filled all the indicators of the magazines, all the parameters in advance, even before the shift was completed, then looked at the ceiling until the end of the shift and practically did nothing. Well, maybe only SIUR (senior reactor control engineer) sometimes rose from its place in order to carry out some operations. And so silence, calm, no close monitoring of the performance of the instruments; no attention to the condition of the equipment before the scheduled preventive repairs. That is, here is his comrade, when he came to get acquainted with the work of this station, he showed that everything is wrong there, and the director of the station BRYUKHANOV bluntly says: “What are you worried about when VOLKOV called him, and the nuclear reactor is a samovar, it’s much easier than a thermal station and we have experienced staff and nothing will ever happen. " Well, he was very wary. As he told me: he called Veretennikov about this at the Ministry of Energy and, then, Shasharin, and got to Neporozhny, told Comrade MARYIN about it.
326
327But they said to him something like this: "Don’t put your nose in your business"
328
329Only Neporozhny said: "I'll go see." I went and looked and said that everything was in order and that he had incorrect information. And this was not long before the Chernobyl accident. I think that if you look at the work of other industries. So I had to be at various chemical enterprises. I was especially horrified in the Chemkent region by a phosphorus processing plant. A phosphorus plant is something terrible, both in terms of quality of technology and in terms of saturation with the diagnostic equipment of this enterprise. The wildest working conditions. Just the absence of many managers who should be in the staff list, but which simply did not exist. The plant is very difficult and very dangerous was essentially left to some kind of free course of circumstances. It was scary when I had to get acquainted with such situations. Therefore, I broadly understood the words of our Chairman of the Council of Ministers that the issue is not the specifics of the development of nuclear energy, which has reached such a state, but rather the specifics of the development of the country's national economy, which has led to this.
330
331I did not have to wait long for confirmation of the correctness of my understanding of these words, because after a few months it really means: the collision of the Nakhimov ship and such a serious accident with the same carelessness and irresponsibility; then a methane explosion at a coal mine in Ukraine; train collisions in Ukraine all this in a short time. All this reflected a certain general serious technological deproductivity and indiscipline in all, the most critical, spheres of our activity. And now, when the situation really has developed such as Leo Tolstoy’s story, there is such a “There is no one to blame”. When you look at the chain of events: why did one do so, the other do so, etc., etc. it’s impossible to name the sole culprit of the initiator of some unpleasant events that led to the crime. Because it is precisely the circuit that closes.
332
333The operators made mistakes because they needed to complete the experiment, which they considered a matter of honor. All this led them and directed their actions. The plan for the experiment was drawn up very poorly, very detailed and not sanctioned by those specialists by whom it should have been authorized. Here in my safe somewhere there is a record of telephone conversations of operators on the eve of the accident. Frost on the skin tears when you read such notes. One operator calls another and asks: "Valera, here it is written in the program what needs to be done, and then much of what has been crossed out is crossed out, how can I be?" The second interlocutor on the wire: "And you act on the crossed out."
334
335Do you understand?
336
337Here is the level of simply preparing documents at such a serious facility as a nuclear power plant, when someone crossed out something, the operator could interpret the crossed out one as right or wrong and could take arbitrary actions. But again I want to say. It would be wrong to assign the whole burden of guilt only to the operator, because someone made a plan and someone scribbled in it, and someone signed it, but someone did not coordinate it. And the very fact that the station could independently carry out some actions not authorized by professionals is already a defect in the relationship of professionals with this station. The fact that representatives of Gosatomenergonadzor were present at the station, but were not aware of the experiment, are not aware of this program is not only the fact of the station’s biography, but the fact of the biosites of Gosatomenergonadzor, and the fact of the existence of this system itself.
338
339These are all the thoughts that come to mind in connection with the Chernobyl accident. But now let us return again to the Chernobyl events, from which I have so far deviated to the side. In my opinion, I ended the story on the fact that I was struck by the clarity of the work of our KGB services, which were not very noisy, with very small numbers, they did a lot of work to establish contacts and establish order in the disaster area. Similar words can be spoken to the service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, both Union and Ukrainian, because: both the evacuation process, and the rapid cordon off of the zone, and the fast management of the regime and order, as much as possible, they did in my opinion not bad, although of course there were separate, it must be said, separate facts of looting, certain facts of penetration into a closed zone with the purpose of embezzlement of property, but the number of such attempts was small and they were quickly suppressed.
340
341Helicopter groups worked very clearly. This is just, I must say, an example of high organization and neglecting any danger, working very carefully, clearly, all crews always tried to carry out tasks, no matter how difficult and difficult this task was. The first days were especially difficult. The command was given: to fill up sandbags. For some reason, the local authorities could not immediately organize a sufficient number of people who would prepare the bags, prepare the necessary sand, so that the helicopter function would include only one operation to bring to the place and dump the bag. (end of side "B", cassettes 2. Section 4.)
342
343
344
345Cassette No. 3
346
347
348
349I saw with my own eyes how crew commanders, young officers loaded sandbags, loaded these bags into helicopters, flew, set, went on target, dropped, returned and again carried out this work. On April 27 or 28, these two days, neither the Ministry of Energy, nor local authorities could organize the work so forceful and clear in preparing those items that required casting into the reactor shaft.
350
351Somewhere from the 29th, this order was organized. The necessary careers were established, lead went. People have already been placed and after that things went smoothly. By this time, approximately, the helicopter pilots had found a very effective way of acting by placing an observation post on the roof of the party district committee in the city of Pripyat. From there, they aimed at the crews that were above the fourth block.
352
353I have to say that this work was generally not safe, because it was necessary to freeze, to lose a lot of burden, to leave on time without receiving excessive doses of radiation and, most importantly, to hit the target. All this has been worked out. If my memory serves me right, then the numbers were as follows: tens of tons on the first day were discarded, hundreds of tons later, went on the second and third days.
354
355And finally, Major Antoshkin, he once told us, the Government Commission, in the evening that 1100 tons of material had been dumped in one day. In general, such a forced, active action of all the people delivering materials and discharging these materials led to the fact that by May 2, the reactor was practically plugged. And since that time, the release of radionuclides (no matter how noticeable the total release of radionuclides) from the womb of the reactor has decreased.
356
357At the same time, military units continued to carry out all the necessary reconnaissance operations. The work of the Government Commission in the early days was as follows. Early in the morning, Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina gathered members of the Government Commission. All those responsible for certain operations were invited. The meeting began, as a rule, with the report of General Pekalov, who showed the state of the radiation situation in the station area and adjacent areas. Of course, all these days, every day, the situation became more and more complicated, because even the studied areas gave a higher (day by day) radiation level and the number of such areas increased.
358
359It increased because scouts went to new objects, and old objects received a large number of radioactive nuclides that fell on them. In general, the situation was so complicated that it became clear that the scale of the operation was to be increased. Even at the time of the conglomeration of processes in the fourth block, the first decontamination operations immediately began.
360
361But what did they boil down to?
362
363I remember how the future Minister of Secondary Engineering, Comrade Ryabev, who replaced Meshkov as part of the Government Commission, himself led the group, (having received a recipe from experts on how to prepare formulations capable of forming a polymer film when hardening), organized it in an open area on one of the household sections of the city of Pripyat, the team that was involved in the preparation of such solutions. Then they walked as a group, and the most contaminated surfaces were covered with these solutions. At the same time, the group that I called, under the direction of Comrade SchUPAK Alexander Fedorovich from our Institute, was studying how to introduce such components into the soil and onto its surface that would be able to sorb the most mobile radionuclides, to which cesium belonged. Then phosphate formulations appeared. A group of Novosibirsk telegraphed me about the need for a wider use of tuff, celite, which means we installed Transcarpathian, Armenian deposits of this material and ordered it with compounds.
364
365The use of such celite-containing materials has proven useful. They are even very useful, as when applying to the soil to retain radionuclides, and to introduce dams into the body that have already begun to be built along small and large rivers. I must say that, of course, there was a lot of stupid in this work. Not everything was accurately documented what has been done and what has not been done. Commands were given. Verification of the execution and accuracy of the execution of commands was sometimes postponed until later. So, after some time, having arrived at the site, I found that in the area of ​​storm sewers the sorbents simply fall asleep, while it was necessary to make the appropriate pallets, with which it would be possible to quickly and easily change one pallet as the sorbents were saturated with radionuclides on the other, but simply mechanical filling was carried out.
366
367Lev Alekseevich VORONIN, who at that time commanded the Government Commission, quickly understood me. He showed me that he gave the appropriate commands, but in my opinion, these teams did not reach the end, in the final analysis. In addition, the periodical change of the composition of the Government Commissions itself led to the fact that one composition would order a certain number of regents, sorbents, necessary materials, and the other team of visitors starts to operate according to a slightly different scheme and a rather large number accumulated on the receiving transport routes unloaded wagons. Such material and economic issues began to arise, a dividing sheet arose due to the fact that everything that is being carried out in the standard tested mode, the army takes these materials and uses them for decontamination operations, and all that should be tested, this should all go to the organizations Ministry of secondary engineering. They had to preliminarily test the materials and give an appropriate conclusion on them, and only after that could they be transferred to the army for serial use. A lot of materials were used: our Soviet domestic ones proposed, but, in the end, it all came down to the fact that the most effective methods were dust suppression and protection were reduced to the following operations: the first in the most polluted areas, this is of course before total mechanical collection of the most infected particles.
368
369This mechanical collection with various attempts to use, say, robots purchased, including from Germany, was unsuccessful, because all the robots that were tested in the first period of time, they were either mechanically inoperative in the conditions of collapse, in conditions of large surface irregularities. They simply couldn’t overcome obstacles mechanically, and on flat surfaces, in conditions of large radiation fields, the electronics, as a rule, the controller refused, and these robots could not act. Therefore, in the end, the most successful way turned out to be remote-controlled bulldozers, or just scraper bulldozers. This is our usual technique, the cabs of which were reliably leaded and the driver defended himself while in this cab. In the first stages, this turned out to be the most effective way when, using conventional equipment, but with reliable protection, the person controlling this equipment managed to collect and bury the dirtiest particles, the most dangerous contaminants. The next operation was concreting already cleared land with a preliminary sublayer. This is such an operation. Powerful vacuum cleaners were turned on before concreting was carried out and a sufficiently large amount of contaminated dust was removed. Concreting, elimination of various lacuses, which sometimes turned out to be unsuccessful.
370
371Then chemical compounds
372
373The most interesting of them turned out to be the compositions proposed by corresponding member Viktor Aleksandrovich KABANOV, previously tested in dust storm areas in Central Asia. Compounds that were able to fix soil particles, but at the same time let moisture through and allow the subsoil to live a normal life. These tested compounds were successful. Viktor Aleksandrovich KABANOV, with the help of the heads of the Ministry of the Chemical Industry, managed to organize sufficient production of these products in Dzerzhinsk and they generally have a fairly wide use of these products and they are generally widely used. The most trivial methods of cleaning were of the same great importance: the constant washing of roads, the creation of decontamination points for equipment and people, all this, with the development of events, became more widely used and more and more organized. I began to talk about how the work of the Government Commission was organized. She began her work very early, at about 4 or 8 a.m. the first meeting was held, under the guidance of the Chairperson, at which the corresponding dosimetric situation was heard in various regions of the region. The corresponding tasks were given.
374
375Checked the implementation of previously done. Then all the specialists started to carry out their tasks and somewhere late in the evening (under Shcherbin it was at least somewhere around 10 pm) the results were again summed up: an assessment was made of the radiation situation, the status of the construction of dams, wells, obtaining the necessary equipment according to new data, on the construction of the sarcophagus. All this information was heard, and operational decisions were made right there. On a regular basis, several times a day, the comrades spoke consecutively with the leadership of the Government Commission: LONGICH Vladimir Ivanovich, comrade Ryzhkov Nikolai Ivanovich. It was a must every day. After arriving at the scene of events Ryzhkov and Ligachev, I have already, I think, talked about this, but I repeat the Government Commission of the first composition left. At the same time, it was announced that it would be a permanent Government Commission, and duplicate compositions would change it. But I and SIDORENKO were left to finish the work on decontamination, and SIDORENKO continued to carefully analyze the role of Gosatomenergonadzor in what was happening in what is happening at the moment. Late at night, May 4th, Ivan Stepanovich Silaev (very calm, very busy conducting his work) was already in charge there.
376
377At his order they searched for me. It turns out I was summoned to Moscow at a meeting of the Politburo on May 5th. The first plane I took off. Arrived at the Institute, where they met me, washed, washed, cleaned, as much as possible. So, I jumped home, I saw my wife, of course, very upset, and by 10 o’clock I arrived at the Politburo, where Comrade consistently Shcherbin, comrade Ryzhkov and I had to give an explanation of everything that was happening. The chairman of the Politburo, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, immediately warned that now he was not interested in the problem of the guilt and causality of the accident. He is interested in the state of affairs and those necessary measures, even additional ones needed by the state in order to quickly deal with the situation. At the end of this meeting of the Politburo, Mikhail Sergeyevich, addressing an unknown person, but apparently to the Ministers Brezhnev and Chazov, who were present at the same time, asked his comrades to return to the place and continue work.
378
379After the Politburo meeting, I went into the office of Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina and asked: does this request apply to me, or do I need to linger, like the entire Government Commission here in Moscow to continue my current work? He said: "Yes, you stay here and continue your ongoing work." I drove to the Institute, but before I reached the Institute, they called me from Shcherbina in the car and said that nevertheless, at the request of Silaev, with whom he addressed the Secretary General, I need to go back to Chernobyl, because unilateral actions Velikhov, who remained there, for some reason, was disturbed by Ivan Stepanovich.
380
381Well, on the same day, at 4 pm, I took off from Chkalovsk by plane and again ended up in Chernobyl, where I continued to work. The work went on approximately in the old plan, i.e. she walked in three directions:
382
3831. monitoring the state of the 4th block, because the main backfill was already over, and various probes were introduced, with which it was possible to measure the temperature, radiation fields, control the movement of radionuclides in the 4th block;
384
3852. clearing the territory of the industrial site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant;
386
3873. works on the construction of tunnels under the foundation of the 4th block and the fencing of a 30-kilometer zone, the continuation of dosimetric work, and the beginning of decontamination work.
388
389At the same time, the army allocated builders, regional organizations allocated builders for the construction of villages in which evacuated people could live. Huge work was required, and the movement of the masses of people, and the creation of the necessary access system, and immediate on-site drawing up a work organization plan. On those same days, around May 9th, it seemed to us that the 4th block stopped breathing, living, burning. He was apparently calm and we wanted to celebrate our Victory Day on May 9th, somehow late in the evening, but, unfortunately, on that day a small but brightly glowing raspberry spot was found inside the 4th block, which talked about the fact that the temperature was still high there, it was difficult to determine whether it burns parachutes on which lead and other materials were dropped. In my opinion, this was very unlike, most likely it was a red-hot mass, as I later realized much later, a red-hot mass of sand, clay and all that had been thrown over.
390
391We were, of course, afflicted
392
393The May 9th holiday was spoiled and it was decided to additionally introduce 80 tons of lead into the mouth of this reactor, which was done. After that, the glow stopped and the holiday on May 9th we celebrated on May 10th in such a calm and normal atmosphere. I cannot but note the big role Marshal Aganov played there with his engineering troops, because very often tasks arose. In order to get to one or another mark, drag this or that hose. It was necessary to punch holes. At the same time, every time the problem was solved, say, punch this hole using military engineering means, i.e. shoot, for example, from guns of the appropriate caliber, then each time there was a danger if the remaining structure would collapse. It was necessary to make appropriate assessments, estimates.
394
395And then all this work, Marshal Aganov and his subordinates conducted very clearly, extremely organized, collected and very accurate. Even then, in these difficult and difficult days, we still had some, seemingly paradoxical, high spirits. It was, of course, connected not with the fact that we were present at the liquidation of such a tragic event. Tragedy, of course, was the main backdrop on which everything happened, but some elation was created by the way people worked, how quickly they responded to our requests, how quickly various engineering options were calculated, and we already started calculating the first options for building a dome over the destroyed one block. Subsequently, this work was entrusted to the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Comrade Batalin, who took over the management of the design work. And later the construction itself was entrusted to the Ministry of Medium Engineering. Somewhere on May 9-10, at this time, after a telephone conversation with Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, in which he asked me personally to give him a certain chronology of events, a description of what was happening, as he was preparing to speak on Central Television before By the Soviet Union, I started writing the corresponding note, which outlined everything that by that time I knew: how events were developing; how the destruction of the 4th block; what work has already been done; how much work needs to be done.
396
397I showed this note to Yevgeny Pavlovich Velikhov, he didn’t make any additions to it either to Ivan Stepanovich Silaev, who made a number of organizational comments, after which the three of us signed and sent this note to Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. She was partially used in it (text erased). Apparently I wanted to say that I first formed at the Institute, I managed to assemble a group of specialists who looked at nuclear energy as a system, all of whose elements were to be equally economical, equally reliable and, depending on the size of a particular element of the system, its quality In general, the nuclear energy system could be more or less optimal. These works have just been started. It always seemed to me that this was the right approach. Understand what proportion of energy should be given in the form of nuclear energy in the task, together with the energy commission of Anatoly Petrovich.
398
399Then look at what quality energy is needed, replace it with nuclear sources, then look at which regions it is most appropriate to do this and then formulate requirements for the devices that could best meet the tasks that stemmed from the country's fuel and energy balance. And having chosen the appropriate devices, to work on them already, to work in an engineering manner so that they meet all international safety criteria. This group of questions was mine ... Well, I was involved in it, at least in the statement of the problem, in the development of these works. She started quite successfully. But with the illness of Alexander Sergeyevich KOCHINOV and with subsequent events, everything has changed. Now the purely engineering approach has been resumed, where just the apparatus is compared with the apparatus. Each specialist who came up with either some kind of improvement to the existing apparatus, or a fundamentally new one, proves its advantages.
400
401There is no unified system, such assessment criteria. Maybe now they are trying to create it. In recent months, I don’t know what is happening because I once formulated the nature of this work, how it should proceed, but then I was excluded from this work. What is happening there now is hard for me to say. In the general composition of the working group there are certainly smart specialists, maybe everything will fall into place. At a meeting on June 14, Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov said in his speech that it seemed to him that this accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant was not accidental, that nuclear power, with some inevitability, was heading for such a difficult event. Then these words struck me with their accuracy, although I myself was not yet able to formulate this task in this way. But he formulated it this way. I really want to understand those numerous stops, the case, for example, at the Kola NPP, when the main pipeline, the most critical pipeline, along the weld, instead of normal welding, the welders laid an electrode and then lightly welded it on top and, Of course, this could be a terrible accident. The rupture of a large pipeline of the VVER apparatus is the largest accident with a complete loss of coolant, with core melting, etc.
402
403It is good that the staff, as the director of the Kola NPP VOLKOV Alexander Petrovich later told me, was so well trained that he would be attentive and accurate, because the first fistula that was noticed by the operator cannot be seen through the microscope. The room is noisy, some kind of sound signals could not be heard, nevertheless, this operator was so attentive that he noticed an anomaly on this main weld.
404
405Proceedings began. We found out that it was just hack
406
407The responsible pipeline is sloppy certified. They began to look at the documentation. There seems to be a signature. When checking the documentation, it turned out that not only the signature of the welder is that he welded the seam qualitatively, but the signature of the gamma flaw detectorist who checked this seam, a seam that did not exist in nature. And all this was done, of course, in the name of increasing labor productivity. Cook more seams. And such a hack that just hit, I remember, our imagination.
408
409This was later checked at many stations: the same sections, the same welds, and not everything was successful everywhere. Frequent shutdowns of apparatuses, frequent fistulas of critical communications, valves that do not work well, failing channels of RBMK type 8 reactors, all this happened every year. This means that ten years of talk about simulators, which were increasingly successful in large numbers and of better quality, were put up in the West, and which we still did not have in the Soviet Union.
410
411For five years, at least, talk about creating a system for diagnosing the status of the most critical equipment, none of this was done. It was recalled that the quality of engineers and any other personnel operating a nuclear power plant gradually decreased. But even every person who visited the construction sites of the nuclear power plant was amazed at the possibility of the déjé there, to work at such important projects, you know, as at the very last hack construction site. All this, as separate episodes, was in our heads, but when Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov said that atomic energy was moving towards this, then this whole long-term picture created before my eyes came up. Before my eyes stood the experts of my own institute, who were very specific, very familiar with everything that was happening in the field of construction of nuclear power plants.
412
413I recalled the Ministry, with some strange, generally speaking, concerns, it’s not the Glaucus that led us, this glaucus that really made ends meet, took out money, took out money, transferred information from stations to a higher level, sent somewhere people on start-ups. And I began to recall that there was not a single person, not a single group of people who would carry out purposeful work to analyze the situation in nuclear energy, to change the practice of building plants, supplying equipment, although some such sporadic movements took place.
414
415For example, Viktor Alekseyevich SIDORENKO’s long-standing struggle, supported by academician Aleksandrov, was crowned, for example, by the Government’s decision to create Gosatomenergonadzor of such a State Committee, whose representatives should be at every station, at every enterprise that produces critical equipment for nuclear power plants, should, so to speak, give or permit or stop work, depending on its quality. The same Gosatomenergonadzor had to carefully review all regulatory documents and improve them, and verify compliance with all regulatory requirements in practical work.
416
417This, let’s say, issue was somehow resolved. But it was decided by a miracle somehow
418
419It seems, you know how the State Acceptance Office is now. Well, a large number of specialists have appeared, good specialists, distracted from specific engineering practical and scientific activities. They sat at the tables. They began to knock themselves out at home, tables, posts. Some such additional, of course, temporary complications began in the conduct of certain operations, but as it was already evident at the beginning of the work of this Committee, as the Chernobyl accident showed this organizational superstructure, due to the lack of thought out of the actually real mechanisms for influencing the quality of nuclear energy industry, in general, this committee either did not manage to prove itself, or may never show, in terms of improving the quality of our nuclear energy industry. And the requirements they formed were not ideal, not those that would have to be in order for nuclear energy to be safe, and in their requirements they somehow proceeded from the real situation we had, using some Western experience, such a combination of Western experience, of our experience, prevailing ideas, the level of machine-building production of the Soviet Union, which cannot or does not provide these or those requirements, and all this left quite the impression of a kleptic picture not harmonious wait.
420
421Many regulations, rules, requirements were so complicated, confusing. In separate parts contradicting each other. Maybe, at first glance, in order to understand that this contradiction was not there, it was necessary to carry out some additional work. Everything that would seem to be in normal mode should simply be stored on one or two floppy disks on a personal computer located next to the operator, and he could clarify something for himself at any moment. All this was stored in old, shabby books that had to be followed, had to be studied, looked at greasy pages, all this, of course, made a rather wretched impression. But it seemed to me that the impression of this wretchedness, this acuteness was experienced by very few people. I have not seen my supporters. Once I got into the hands of the magazine "Business Wik", it is still, in my opinion, 1985, in which there was an article criticizing the French for active cooperation (for trying to actively cooperate) with the Soviet Union in the field of nuclear technology. Well, it was assumed that we were increasing the supply of natural gas to France, and in response to this marketable product, the French were supplying us with nuclear technology, meaning: robots that would facilitate repair work, handling operations, a number of diagnostic systems and a number of devices making technology in reactor engineering and in the operation of nuclear plants more modern.
422
423But the American author of the article criticized the French that they were doing it in vain (for political reasons, they say in vain, for economic reasons in vain). But in this article it was written clearly and clearly: firstly, that the Soviet Union created the physics of the reactor and, so to speak, the physical foundations of nuclear energy, such as those around the world, they are in no way inferior, but the technological gap involved in implementing these physical principles is enormous and there is no need for the French to help the Russians to bridge this technological gap. And before this article was such a lousy, in general, picture was drawn when, against the backdrop of a dilapidated cooling tower near the nuclear power plant, a French, mustachioed, youthful specialist is trying to explain with the help of a pointer how to build cooling towers to a Russian bear who put his finger in his mouth and hardly understands that the quality of the cooling tower is as integral to the quality of a nuclear power plant as the nuclear reactor itself. Such a caricature was evil. So I remember that with this caricature I ran to different rooms: I showed it to MESHKOV, Slavsky, Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov and showed it as a question, in fact, a very serious one. This is the question of the gap between the physical concepts of what a reactor should be; between low-quality fuel production; and the entire amount of technological operations, many of which seemed small, and which are practiced at our stations.
424
425You know, I did not find understanding in one place, but on the contrary, Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov called Kokoshin, deputy director of the Institute of the USA and Canada (the doctor is such an interesting man, Kokoshin) and asked him to write an article, expose, therefore, the author of this article, which nothing like that Soviet atomic energy is at a full level and so on and so forth. Although the article claimed that Soviet nuclear energy in terms of commissioned capacities was indeed not at the global level; that the reactor concepts adopted in the Soviet Union are physically correct and justified; that the Soviet specialists in reactor engineering are good. But, that the technological support of all this complex cycle is very backward, therefore: a lot of people work at the station, a lot of bad devices, a lot of inaccuracies in the operation of the systems serving the station, etc.
426
427That is, the truth was written there
428
429But no, Anatoly Petrovich insisted that KAKOSHIN would write an article as such, which means, well, exposing these points of view. But KOKOSHIN had enough wisdom or not enough time to prevent such an article from appearing. For if she had appeared, she would have appeared just on the Chernobyl days. In this episode, I wanted to emphasize that I was the only, perhaps, well out of the circle of people with whom I had the chance to communicate acutely feeling this problem. The rest, knowing the situation at nuclear power plants much better than me, but somehow reacted calmly to this. Once I heard from PONOMAREV-STEPNOY Nikolai Nikolaevich (we have such a deputy director for nuclear energy, first deputy director today). He was engaged in a high-temperature, solar-cooled reactor, and we always considered this reactor as a reactor with the best technological capabilities for the national economy and a higher temperature, which means it can be used in metallurgy, chemistry, and oil refining.
430
431That is, they were considered not as a competitor to the nuclear power industry, but as an addition to it. But once in a conversation, he said that VVER reactors are very dangerous. And this is true. In this sense, of course, not an addition, but, in fact, an alternative to today's energy industry. Here, for the first time, I heard from the reactors such words, in a calm, true manner, that they were spoken, but very serious that our modern nuclear energy at WWERs and RBMKs is equally dangerous and requires some additional serious measures. By the nature of my character, I began to study this issue more closely and in some places to take more active positions and say that the next generation of nuclear reactors is actually safer and, say, the TTER or liquid-salt reactor I tried to demonstrate as the next step, a safer reactor . But this caused an exceptional storm in the Ministry. Storm of indignation. Especially with Minister Slavsky, who just stomped on me when he said that these were two different things, that I was an illiterate person, that I was not doing my job, and that it was completely impossible to compare one type of reactor with another. That was such a difficult situation. Slowly worked on alternative reactors.
432
433Slowly they were trying to improve the existing ones and, what is most sad, they could not establish a serious objective scientific analysis of the true state of affairs, build the whole chain of events, analyze all possible troubles, and find means to get rid of these troubles. I tried, as I said, to create a laboratory of security measures. Then she joined the nuclear safety department. But, since it was headed by SIDORENKO (this department), then all of it was subordinated to him, all the same, again, to the development of standards, documents, procedures that improve matters at today's nuclear power plants. But the serious theory, the serious analysis, the serious concepts did not reach the point, and, in general, it was quite alarming. The more nuclear power plants were built, the more real, of course, the danger became that somewhere, sometime trouble could happen. It began to be felt by people somehow, but nevertheless the struggle against these dangers was conducted, like the struggle against each specific case: at some station the steam generator will fail, and now decisions are made to change the design of the steam generator, and, of course, sooner or later seek improvement.
434
435Then something else happened: on RBMK some channel would break, so, then they begin to investigate why the channel broke in zirconium or is it a matter; in operation mode of the station; in some other circumstances. Well, the quality of the produced zirconium and the quality of the manufacture of pipes from it are improved, the operating mode is improved, and now they calm down to the next, next, case. So it seemed to me that this was not a scientific approach to the problems of nuclear energy safety, but again, due to the fact that my professional studies were in a different field, and here I was an observer integrating all kinds of information that could not be discussed in The ministry absolutely, because they got used to very specific engineering conversations: how to replace steel with steel, change this or that technological system.
436
437All conceptual conversations, all attempts of some kind of scientific
438implement a consistent approach to this problem, they were not perceived in any way
439
440So, on the eve of the Chernobyl events, that’s how it all developed. Moreover, the number of enterprises entrusted with the manufacture of various elements of equipment of nuclear power plants has increased after all the same. They began to build Atommash, a lot of young people reappeared, as our press wrote, the plant was built very unsuccessfully. The quality, of course, of specialists who still had to master their professions, wished much better. All this was visible, about this the Komsomol members, who organized a headquarters under the Central Committee of the Komsomol, helping the development of nuclear energy, wrote a lot of documents. This was seen at the stations. I was especially upset after visiting several western stations. Especially when I looked at the Lovisa station in Finland. Station built according to our ideology. Our station, in fact. It was only built by Finnish builders. They just threw away our entire automated control system and put Canada. A number of technological tools were replaced; ours were excluded from operation, and either Swedish or our own were delivered.
441
442The procedures instituted at this station were very different from ours, starting from the entrance to the station, the external order at it, staff training, because this station had a normal simulator, where all staff underwent periodic training and played out possible situations that could be at the reactor. I was struck by the time during which overloading was carried out at this station. It is very interesting that the station staff had 45 people, if I remember correctly, the staff of people who were involved in the operation of preparing the transhipment, i.e. they planned who should be involved in the transshipment of people not working at the station. Picked up staff. Agreed on time. Agreed on 13 instrument. We agreed on the sequence of operations. A very thorough development of the overload procedure was carried out for about six months. But the overload itself took 18-19 days, while it took us a month and a half, sometimes two months. But the operational staff there is significantly less than ours.
443
444External cleanliness of the station. Equipment of station laboratories. All this was strikingly different from what we have in our Soviet Union. Yes, I would also like to say about control systems. As soon as you remember how our nuclear energy was controlled: the Ministry of Energy, with its heads; Minsredmash, with its headquarters; Chief designer; Supervisor; at all levels, specialists (from the head of the laboratory to the director of the institute) could request information, intervene in the work of the station, write reports, propose something like that, state many departmental Councils at which something was discussed and it was all very inconsistent, it wasn’t organized, and it didn’t represent any single natural working process, and each time it was a response to a technical proposal, or to some accident, or to some pre-emergency situation. All this created the impression of some sloppiness and some kind of mass movement into unorganized work in the field of nuclear energy.
445
446By the way, I felt this less acutely because my own functions boiled down to determining the pace of commissioning of nuclear power plants in time, the course of events, and the structure of nuclear energy in the energy commission. All the same, these were promising issues. And I dealt with current activities indirectly, due to the fact that this was not my profession, especially since I was not entrusted. But so everything, the more I found out what was happening there, the more alarming it became. Well, that’s why, when Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov at the Politburo and said the words that nuclear power inevitably led to a serious accident, all these facts accumulated over many years at once somehow lined up in one line and his words shone, that it really was so. And in general, all experts, scientists, at least each at different times and from different stands, about separate fragments that testify that we are on the road leading to a difficult accident, said: Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov spoke, repeatedly giving striking examples negligence in the installation of nuclear power plants; SIDORENKO spoke, speaking of disturbances in operation and documentation; young specialists spoke; and said people who were engaged in materials science.
447
448The problem arose unexpectedly with the fact that, say, it turned out that witness samples dropped into the same Finnish Lovisa station showed that the resource of the reactor vessel may not withstand the specified design parameters, it can last 30-40 years, and it can work significantly less. Desperate studies immediately began, proposals that have now been worked out, how to cope with the situation (end of side "A", part 5) how to extend the life of the corps. All this now wore such some kind of sporadic, suddenly arising, character. But on the one hand, this could be explained by the youth of this branch of technology, and to some extent this is so, but, on the other hand, this was reflected in some generally incorrect work style as a whole. That's when Nikolai Ivanovich said these words, when all this in retrospect, as a searchlight, I covered all the previous events, I realized that these are the right words. But I also realized that this is not a specificity of nuclear energy, that this is all a consequence of the organization of work in general to create, much less to quickly create, new equipment that the national economy needs.
449
450Here is a way to organize work on construction sites
451
452Non-matching of different types of production (production of, say, fuel elements); machine-building equipment; builders not ready to take this equipment on time; littered construction sites; such a constant, some incomprehensible dynamics in the number of working construction personnel (construction, I mean, at nuclear power plants) is either very much or very little; then, so to speak, the work is unfolding at the station, then it suddenly stops, because there is no one or another equipment ...
453
454All this taken together was very unpleasant and was, at the same time, unlikely to be exceptional and specific only to nuclear energy. Therefore, the words of Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov should have been taken, probably, much wider. And for myself, after I visited the Chernobyl station after the accident, when I got acquainted with everything that happens there, for myself I personally made an accurate and unambiguous conclusion that the Chernobyl accident is an apotheosis, this is the summit of all that improper housekeeping that carried out in our country for many decades. Of course, what happened at Chernobyl has not abstract, but concrete culprits.
455
456We already know today that the protection management system (CPS) of this reactor was defective and some scientists knew this and they made suggestions on how to remove this defect. The designer, not wanting, so to speak, quick additional work, was in no hurry with changing the protection management system. There are, of course, specific culprits. What happened at the Chernobyl station itself over the course of a number of years: here, conducting, so to speak, experiments, the program of which was extremely careless and sloppy.
457
458Before the experiments, there were no practical jokes for possible situations, i.e. situations were not played out: what will happen if suddenly this defense fails; and what will happen if the process goes wrong as the program assumes; what personnel should do in one case or another; Is it possible to leave the reactor at power when the steam supply to the turbine is cut off? and if this happens, then what might happen; and what will the connection of the fourth MCP pumps (main circulation pumps) give. All this, it would seem, from the point of view of any common sense, should have been played out before the experiment and this or any other. But nothing of the kind, of course, happened.
459
460The disregard for the point of view of the Designer and the Supervisor was complete
461
462With the battle it was necessary ... (record erased). Speaking of conversations with Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev. Three times on the phone I had to talk with him there while in Chernobyl. All this was rather strange. He called, of course, the second chairman of the Government Commission, comrade Silaev Ivan Stepanovich, maybe he called Shcherbina and talked with him, but that was out of my presence. But when we were at Silaev, there were calls from Gorbachev. Ivan Stepanovich gave him his information, and then, when it came to some more detailed specific, professional issues, he asked: "To whom to give the phone, Velikhov or Legasov?" Here in the first conversation he said: "Give Legas the phone." I began to talk with him. Here he, Mikhail Sergeyevich, said for three or four minutes: "what is being done there, this problem really worries me, the name of Gorbachev is already beginning to be torn around the world, in connection with this accident and, therefore, there has been such a massive psychosis in the world. What is there a true position? "
463
464In response to this, I outlined to him the situation, that basically, since it was already significant after May 2, somewhere the call was on May 4-5, that basically the main emissions from the destroyed block were stopped, that the situation is currently under control . The scale of pollution and the areas adjacent to the Chernobyl station and the scale of pollution around the world, in general, are more or less clear to us. It was already clear to us that the victims of radiation injuries, besides those who worked during the Chernobyl accident, are unlikely to be expected to be closely monitored, if, in countries where some radioactive fallout occurred as a result of the accident, the correct informational and sanitary measures, then there will be no real consequences for human health. I said this to Mikhail Sergeyevich on May 6, most likely still not knowing that on May 6, the Session of the International World Health Organization, specially gathered on this issue, came to the same conclusions. She also came to the conclusion that the accident does not pose any threat to the population of Western Europe, other countries.
465
466Well, I talked about the specific situation: where are the heavy areas associated with large levels of pollution; where the atmosphere is less favorable; how are the work going. He was satisfied with this conversation. The next day, during our same stay with Ivan Stepanovich Silaev, his call rang again and this time he asked that Evgeni Pavlovich Velikhov pick up the phone. He began to ask him about the reasons, after all, for the accident, but Yevgeny Pavlovich began to give a few confusing such, that means, explanations, and immediately said that Valery Alekseevich would tell about it better, well, the pipe was handed to me and I, maybe unnecessarily detailed, but conveyed the causes of the accident. And at that moment Mikhail Sergeyevich asked me to write a personal letter to him, and, what surprised me, it was to me that a letter was sent to my name, what was happening there and what needs to be reported.
467
468Well, I immediately sat down to write this letter and then, after some revision of Ivan Stepanovich Silaev, it left that very night in the name of Gorbachev, signed by Silaev, Velikhov and my signature. Ivan Stepanovich Silaev, as part of his shift, paid the greatest attention, in the process of work, to construction work, the organization of concrete plants, or the organization of concrete transportation, because it was clear to himself that it was necessary to concrete the area around the 4th block as much as possible. He was very angry with, say, the first deputy Minister of Energy and Electrification MAKUKHIN, who, it seemed to him, was working slowly, and there he even hurried to make a decision such that I am removing you from work. This decision, which then did not take place, but such words were pronounced. It was Ivan Stepanovich Silaev who introduced the material incentive system for carrying out the most dangerous work. And the most dangerous work, in his day, was the determination: is it located or not, is there water in the upper and lower barbators, in the rooms under the reactor hall, because it was important.
469
470We were also afraid that part of the molten fuel would get there and possibly such powerful vaporization that would take out additional activity outside. And so one would have to know: are these barbers free and, then, leave them empty, means to fill them, maybe concrete with special grades. Here is the whole group of questions that Ivan Stepanovich Silaev took into his own hands. It was rather difficult to approach these boarders, because the nearby corridors were filled with water from the moment when they tried to cool the reactor with water. The water level, its activity was high until the curie per liter reached the activity of water at certain points in time and at individual points. The pumping devices turned on, they downloaded this water, and yet, it means a valve with which it was possible to open and with which it was possible to understand whether there was water in the boathators, which means that one of the station employees managed to make it in very difficult conditions and in the evening, Ivan Stepanovich solemnly thanked and handed over a package with a thousand rubles.
471
472He received permission to do so.
473
474And I saw the face of a man who, on the one hand, was very proud that he was able to perform this difficult work in difficult conditions. And on the other hand, it was clear how he crumpled this bag of money, not as a reward, in general, it was inconvenient for him to refuse this money, and at the same time, the monetary form of the reward was somehow his, which means not very I was glad that it was because, indeed, during that period of time, especially the people there were struggling with the accident, tried to give everything in, do everything possible, without thinking about any incentives, either material or moral. All worked as a team, trying to find the most correct solution. During this period of time, it was scary to look at Comrade CONVISE. This is the chief engineer of the project of that Hydroproject station, because, in my opinion, he did not sleep for a minute and naturally in order to look for various approaches to various rooms. All the time they turned: either to his drawings, or simply to his memory, to his experience. Here I have to remember so many annoying episodes, because you look at the drawings, say: there should be a free corridor. If you start moving along this corridor, it turns out that the corridor is blocked off by some wall. The wall apparently arose, created for some engineering reasons after the completion of the project. This should not have been in the project, but it exists and is not reflected in any drawings.
475
476The opposite situation arose when, say, in accordance with the drawings there should be a blank wall, but in fact there was a doorway. We faced the same thing. It was especially difficult for the miners, because it turned out that a huge number of pipes and plates were buried in the ground at the station’s territory and, therefore, when they carried out their work with paneling or in any other way, examining the drawings of underground utilities, it would seem for them to pass free, but starting practical work they very often ran into obstacles that were not reflected in the working drawings. There was a lot of inconsistency between the documentary part, which was located at the station and the actual state of affairs at various elevations of the station and underground structures, and all this certainly gave the impression of a huge inattention, enormous sloppiness in the management of such a documentary economy, which should have been accurate and at each point in time to describe the state: of building structures, and walkways, and electrical communications. Unfortunately, there were quite a few such untidy elements.
477
478At the same time, I would like to draw attention to the fact that although such facts are annoying in everyday life, but at that moment in time the actions of people were so purposeful, everyone wanted to finish their own part of the work so much faster that all these numerous the facts of the previous sloppiness somehow did not cause a special cry, noise and all this receded into the background, regarding the desire to cope with the task as soon as possible. The number of people staying at the site was increasing all the time because each of the groups demanded new assistants: those who came with instruments, or with documents, or with working tools that were required to complete the operation. This increase in the number of people also required new ways of organizing business, because it was indeed so simple to face to face that it was impossible to give any specific instructions and to be limited to them. Therefore, when the main problems were resolved (the main problems I call the problems of protecting people from immediate danger and the localization of the accident itself), the question arose of how to manage all of the many teams that, according to the proposals of the Government Commission, by the decision of the Operational Group of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, in increasing numbers, along with equipment, to the site of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. It was necessary to organize at the same time a whole series of works that were completely heterogeneous in content.
479
480First of all: to design the shelter, which later became known as the "sarcophagus"
481
482This design was to take place simultaneously both on the site itself and in those design organizations located in various cities of the Soviet Union, mainly in Moscow and Leningrad. It was necessary to immediately engage in zone decontamination, according to the principle: from the most polluted sites to no less polluted sites. It was necessary to carry out reconnaissance of the territory, to continue this reconnaissance and to clarify the nature of the spread of radioactivity already spread by wind transport, already spread by technology. It was necessary to solve the problem of revising the equipment of the 1st and 2nd blocks, the audit of the remaining building and the equipment of the 3rd block. It was necessary to assess the condition of generally all premises, territories, sections of the Chernobyl station itself, its surrounding areas, and transportation routes. It was necessary to prepare a place for the location of military units that came to help in this situation, the location of construction organizations, to organize a clear management system for both research, design and executive work in completely different areas of this execution itself. the control system of this complex mechanism was created gradually.
483
484The first two groups: she, led by Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina, the second, headed by Ivan Stepanovich Silaev, were exclusively occupied with solving the most urgent, most urgent issues. The appearance of Comrade VORONIN on the site has already led to the appearance of the organization of all the work being outlined. An order has already emerged for ordering certain materials; sequence of the performance of certain tasks, instructions. It has already become clear that one group of researchers dealt with the territory, another group of researchers dealt with the 4th block itself, the third group, no longer researchers, but the performers, it started (this is mainly the military units started) to deactivate the premises of the 1st and 2nd block and preparations began for the front of construction work on the construction of the sarcophagus, because at that time in Moscow there were design work. comrade VORONIN was replaced by Yuri Nikitich MASLYUKOV and during his stay very active work had already begun on the construction of new premises, new settlements for evacuated people, road processing had begun and the front of work had already begun to be prepared in front of the fourth block for the construction of the sarcophagus.
485
486Even the sarcophagus itself was not built, but the approaches to it were already concreted, the most contaminated sites on the site were either removed or concreted so that builders could begin work on the construction of the sarcophagus. When comrade GUSEV and his team appeared on the site, the main design decisions were already drawn: it had already been decided that the construction of the sarcophagus should be entrusted to the organization of the Ministry of Secondary Machine Building SU 605, and a thorough investigation of the internal state of the 4th block had to be carried out, reliability of its preserved structures, so that the project could rely on some experimental, on some verified data. And when comrade VEDERNIKOV, with his team appeared on the site, he replaced GUSEV, then the construction of the sarcophagus had already begun.
487
488Moreover, it was under Comrade VEDERNIKOV, with the participation of the head of the Institute of Atomic Energy, Comrade TUTNOV, that a decision was made that facilitated both the pace and progress of the construction of the sarcophagus, because it was originally intended to erect a completely concrete dome over the ruins, but estimated estimates showed that time the construction of the sarcophagus can be significantly reduced if the concrete dome, the reliability of which was called into question (whether the structure can withstand it), is replaced by the so-called pipe run-off, then with the system of the pipe to the subsequent roof, which would block the sarcophagus from the possibility of dust deduction of radioactivity and, at the same time, of course, some amount of radiation through this top cover of the sarcophagus would leave, but it would be comparable and even be less than the total activity from all that was on the site. The right decision was made during the work of Comrade VEDERNIKOV.
489
490And so consistently, so the structure of the organization of work loomed
491
492It came down to the fact that the research group of the Institute of Atomic Energy, together with specialists, should have (various institutes such as Yuri Vasilievich SVINTSEV, Anatoly Mikhailovich Polevoy, TUTNOV, as I have already said, then headed this group Comrade KUKHARKIN Nikolay Evgenievich. A great deal of work was carried out during that period when comrade POLOGIKH Boris Grigoryevich was at the head of this group. Here are the research groups, which include they did their work KULAKOV, BOROVA, for example), and it was their main purpose, to carefully examine the premises of the 4th block: first, find the fuel there, determine how it is distributed there; secondly, enter the maximum number of sensors that could characterize the state of the 4th block. Here it is necessary to pay tribute to the specialist of the Institute of Atomic Energy, comrade SHEKALOV, as well as specialists from the Ukrainian (Kiev) Institute of Nuclear Research, who made great efforts to find: the correct penetrations, introduce the necessary sensors, extend the cables to them. Well, let's say, as far as neutron sensors are concerned, they were dealt with by the TsNIIIP of the Ministry of Medium Engineering.
493
494Its specialists, under the guidance of comrade ZHERNOV. In general, research experts, one of the tasks for which was: to equip the 4th block with various sensors for measuring gamma fields; neutron fields possible; temperature measurement; air flow metering; measuring the concentration of hydrogen, if he suddenly appeared in the system, etc. These sensors were placed on various objects. It was, in general, both dangerous and physically difficult work, because every time it was necessary to go to the block and look for the most suitable areas in order to reliably diagnose the state of the 4th block. This is one group of work. At the same time, continuous video and photography of the rooms of the 4th block were carried out, which allowed the designers to choose the right solutions in order to build the sarcophagus itself in series.
495
496At the same time, the NIPIET project team of the Leningrad Design Organization of the Ministry of Secondary Engineering worked directly in Chernobyl, on site, and a number of design decisions, although the master project was developed at the Institute, but a whole bunch of design decisions were made there, on the go. Here, it’s just that absolutely enormous work was carried out by Comrade KURNOSOV, the chief engineer of this project and the chief engineer of the institute, when each time he found appropriate solutions when one or another difficult situation arose. But there were difficult situations: an attempt, say, to apply concrete mortar to one of the marks turned out to be unsuccessful because there were sufficiently large gaps through which concrete was poured onto the lower marks. It was necessary to come up with some ways to keep concrete at the right levels. not all supports were reliable enough, so they had to be strengthened. Such a friendly work of researchers and designers led, in the end, to the fact that the structures were quite reliable. This was one group of works. The second group of works, at this time, was carried out by construction specialists from the Ministry of Energy who erected a temporary settlement, temporary housing in the settlement of Cape Verde. A number of prefabricated houses of Finnish production, as well as Soviet-made, were ordered there.
497
498And for the shift workers who were supposed to provide the work of the 1st and 2nd blocks, a very cultural village was built, with all, generally speaking, amenities: with a place to stay, with shops, with cultural institutions. This village was built in just a few months. Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina constantly watched its construction personally, paid attention not only to the place where people had a good sleep after work, but also to the flowers there, the dining room to work no worse than any other points in the Soviet Union so that people would feel comfortable. These organizations of the Ministry of Energy were engaged in the settlement in the Cape Verde, as well as the construction of a number of stations for the decontamination of equipment, which, by then, had already appeared on the site quite a lot. The Government Commission itself had already moved at that time.
499
500The work continued as before in Chernobyl, in the premises of the party’s district committee, and the place of stay and the place of spending the night was moved to a distance of about 50 km from Chernobyl, and there was also the leadership of the Government Commission and a number of specialists who came to carry out certain tasks. A large group of researchers from various institutions of the Soviet Union, from the Academy of Sciences, from the Institute of Atomic Energy named after Chur22 chatova (when I say: the Academy of Sciences, for example, I mean GIOKH, of course, the entire Ukrainian Academy of Sciences), this entire group of researchers was engaged in detailed radioactive contamination of the area at that time. Moreover, they used: both sampling, statistically reliable, on-site, with subsequent analysis in radiochemical laboratories that were deployed earlier in Chernobyl, and some of the samples were sent to the institutes at the radio institute, or the Institute of Atomic Energy, and helicopter surveys of gamma fields, which from helicopters could be observed.
501
502Moreover, these surveys were carried out both by the sum of gamma radiation, and the isotopic spectrum of gamma radiation was recorded
503
504And tariffivities were found between the content of individual isotopes, the content of which, relatively, could predict the content of plutonium, for example, that got into the environment. Moreover, of course, direct sampling, for the content of plutonium and other heavy alpha-active elements, was carried out continuously by the method of sampling, in order to compare helicopter data with direct sampling. The duties were distributed in such a way that everything that was outside the 30 kilometer zone, that’s all, was controlled both from the air and from the ground by the services of the Goskomgidromet, headed by corresponding member Yuri Antonovich Izrael, who, I don’t know exactly how much time I spent in this Chernobyl, which took the most careful part: in the collection of data, and in their correct assessment, and in the history of the appearance of certain spots contaminated. In general, a lot of work was done, as a result of which, outside the 30-kilometer zone, more and more accurate maps appeared that spoke about the degree of pollution of various territories.
505
506Well, in this 30-kilometer zone, it was mainly about pollution with cesium, because several cesium spots appeared (here they will be shown in the maps) and cesium maps began to be formed from the beginning of the accident to May 20, after which the formation them ceased. Accordingly, according to the existing sanitary rules, decisions were made, according to which limit values ​​were established that allowed people to live in contaminated territories with certain isotopes and, in accordance with these rules, local authorities already acted: removed people or left them live by transferring to imported food, or declare a zone free enough to live and use land. At the same time, the Gosagroprom and the Ministry of Environment experts also conducted an analysis of various crops, determined the degree of their pollution, monitored the forests and fields around the Chernobyl station outside the 30-kilometer zone and inside it. As for the 30-kilometer zone itself, it was the subject of concern for specialists of the Ministry of Atomic Energy, specialists of the Kurchatov Institute, Radium Institute and specialists of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.
507
508In September, the work of the shift structures of the Government Commission ended. All the work was assigned to the revised composition of the first Government Commission (which was headed by Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina), its new composition was approved. And subsequently, starting from September onwards, all this work on the site of the Chernobyl station and in the affected area, in general, was answered by this Government Commission. She made all decisions, considered all projects, all comments and conducted all the work. The sequence of operations was as follows. Somewhere by September, the evacuation of the population was basically completed and the population was placed in new villages. Part of the station staff received apartments in the city of Kiev, some in the city of Chernigov. In general, such everyday, human problems were resolved. It was decided to build the city of Slavutich, because from the very beginning it was clear that the shift method can only be applied as a temporary method of work at a nuclear power plant. Therefore, the new city of Slavutich began to be designed, which would replace the city of Pripyat, as a permanent city of power engineers. The August-September period was a period of active preparation for the launch of the 1st and 2nd Chernobyl units.
509
510This launch was successful.
511
512Moreover, before putting these units into operation, the whole complex of measures developed by specialists, which additionally increase the safety of this type of stations, was implemented and tested. Moreover, in the 1st block partially, and in the 2nd block in full. It was such, as it were, the main task of that period of time. In parallel with the preparation for the launch of the 1st and 2nd blocks, with the launching operations, work was underway on the construction of a sarcophagus. The initial term of its construction was somewhere near the end of September, but a number of naturally occurring obstacles prevented this work from being completed on time. But, I repeat, because all the time there were some unforeseen circumstances: there were too wide cracks that could not hold concrete, concrete did not harden and it was impossible to establish supports on which the corresponding structures would then be located; then there were problems in the selection of such materials (by the way, Kiev experts dealt with them, in the end they were used the same), which would close the gaps in the elements of pipe rolling; it was necessary to draft a forced ventilation system for the sarcophagus, so that when there was not enough natural ventilation, heat could be removed by switching on the forced one. All these issues were gradually solved during the design and clarified during the construction of the sarcophagus of the 4th block. Its construction is a whole saga. I repeat that the project teams worked right on the spot.
513
514The work was carried out using two cranes, manufactured by the Federal Republic of Germany, the company "Demach". Here, the main work was going on with these cranes, but many of these finishing works, works that would increase the reliability of the sarcophagus, of course, had to be done manually and using various robotic devices. But it turned out, as I already said, that the robot-technical devices, all of which we had: our own and those that were purchased abroad, were practically unsuitable for working in those conditions. For example, if robots had reliable enough electronics, then they could not overcome the obstacles associated with a large number of destruction of buildings of the 4th block and stopped.
515
516For this reason they could not be used. If, say, robots that were successful in cross-country ability in the most difficult situations of this kind fell into the hands of researchers, then the electronics refused in high gamma fields and the robots stopped the same. Therefore, many could see, and here in the text we give a picture with lonely standing robots on the roofs of buildings. Here they tried to use robots to clean the contaminated surfaces of the roofs of the building, which housed the 3rd and 4th blocks, as well as the roof of the reactor, from radioactive contamination. So the robots tried to apply, but in general it did not bring much luck. The most convenient technical means were created by NIKIMt specialists.
517
518This organization, whose director was YURCHENKO Yuri Fedorovich. He himself spent a large amount of time on the site. Under his leadership, technology was created, tested and used. Well, actually what kind of technique? Plain. Ordinary bulldozers and scrapers, but reinforced with lead sheets, so that inside this technique a person defends himself. And on such devices, the main work of a decontamination nature (in the most difficult places) was carried out. Military units were mainly engaged in the decontamination of large areas on the territory of the station and inside the buildings of this station. They worked very conscientiously, with high speed and high returns.
519
520Of course, everything changed in time: both our idea and the ways of working. I well remember the episode when General Kuntsevich and I arrived in the city of Pripyat. It seemed that it would be practically impossible to decontaminate this city, because wherever you go everywhere the radiation levels are quite high, say 700-800 milentgen per hour, we found devices of this scale with dose rates. But we did one operation: they broke off pieces of the facing of one of the buildings and took them from Pripyat to Chernobyl.
521
522And it turned out that there this cladding gave 800 x-rays per hour, and here it is no more than 10 x-rays per hour
523
524It was clear that the sources of pollution were not massive, there were local sources of pollution in the city of Pripyat, which created such a general background that creates a picture of the impossibility of cleaning this city. When we dealt with this, when the most active isotopes had already decayed, basically, somewhere in August-September, very active work began, carried out by the forces of military organizations, on the decontamination of the city of Pripyat. And the city of Pripyat was substantially cleared of pollution (at about the same period when the construction of the sarcophagus ended). By constructing a sarcophagus (it is still under construction), we solved the problem of how to close the gaps.
525
526Decisions were made: lower the asbestos bags filled with polyethylene chips into the appropriate solutions, which would give foaming and with these bags all the cracks on the roof of the sarcophagus were closed. But work on the sarcophagus has not yet been completed, as work has already begun to check the condition of the equipment of the 3rd block, as to the state of affairs with it. The question arose of what to do with the 5th and 6th block. These are the questions that arose. By October 1986, there was a very clear situation regarding the distribution of work: US 605 of the Ministry of Medium Machine Building completed the construction of the sarcophagus, which later became known as the Shelter; the builders of the Ministry of Energy were engaged in the construction of a shift camp in the Cape Verde and some work related to the creation of a decontamination station inside a 30-kilometer zone and some work on the territory of the station itself; The Ministry of Atomic Energy was working on preparations for the launch of the 1st and 2nd blocks and was already slowly starting to get into the 3rd block, in assessing its condition; military units, together with the organizations of the Ministry of Environment and Minerals, cleaned the roofs of the building in which the 3rd and 4th blocks of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant were located; the military units continued the decontamination of those residential villages that were part of the 30-kilometer zone; the research group, as I said, divided its tasks into: studying all that remains in the 4th block; fuel search; and at the maximum saturation of its diagnostic equipment.
527
528Diagnostic equipment was introduced from the bottom of the 4th block. Diagnostic elements were introduced from the barter rooms through the drilled side walls leading to the reactor hall and the bulk of the diagnostic equipment was introduced from above, hung on special files in the reactor hall. Another group of researchers, at the same time, was engaged in a different task, namely: determining the migration of radionuclides inside the 30-kilometer zone and outside it.
529
530I was interested in the question: what depths do radionuclides penetrate on the surface; how they linger; tested various techniques for the artificial detention of radionuclides on surfaces; the problems of protecting the Pripyat River from the ingress of radioactive elements into it were solved; measures were taken to prevent contamination of subsoil water with radionuclides. Well, in the last area the events were quite simple. About 150 wells were constructed, and the wells were both diagnostic and operational. Diagnostic wells constantly worked and measured (determined) the radioactivity of the subsoil water and, if necessary, work wells that pumped contaminated water could be switched on.
531
532But, fortunately, for the entire period of operation, to this day, all diagnostic wells have shown that the subsoil water was always clean and never had to turn on the pumping wells. A complex of studies was carried out in a cooling pond, near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, where the state of radioactivity of water, silts was determined, and a lot of attention was paid to the state of the Pripyat river itself, to the Kiev reservoir. Well, in general, it was quickly discovered that the waters themselves did not have much pollution, and the silts were affected and the concentration of radioactive elements in the silts, for example, in a cooling pond, reached 10 minus 5th curie, (end of the side " B ", cassettes N 3, part 6)
533
534
535
536Cassette No. 4
537
538
539
540Well, in general, it was quickly discovered that the waters themselves did not have much pollution, and the silts were affected and the concentration of radioactive elements in the silts, for example, in a cooling pond, reached 10 minus 5 degrees of curie, while the radioactivity content in the water did not exceed 10 to minus 8 to minus 9 curie per liter. These were such maximum numbers. A large number of dams, dams were built, the purpose of which was to detain contaminated garbage, foliage, everything that polluted the surface water so that radioactivity would not spread along the Pripyat and further along the Dnieper.
541
542All these works were carried out by the Ministry of Water Resources of the Soviet Union and the Ministry of Water Resources of Ukraine. Conducted in a surprisingly short time. The dams were designed and built right there, but this was accompanied all the time by research work, and cyolites (cyolites specially delivered from Armenia and Georgia, possessing high sorption ability) were introduced into the body of the dams so that all microparticles and all components of radioactive elements could be contained in the water, delay and prevent their further progress.
543
544As of today, we can say that this goal has been achieved. Around the same time that the Government Commission was already formed as the final one, with Bris Evdokimovich Shcherbina at the head, and there were no more substitutions and replacements, at about the same time, by the decision of the Government, the Coordination Council was created in the Academy of Sciences on the Chernobyl issue, led by Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov, well, I was appointed his first deputy and consisted of the heads of the main departments that were involved in the work around Chernobyl, and also most upnye experts, such as, for example, Academician Sokolov Academician Mikhalevich and academician Trefilov that have been linked to specific works, environmental or technical nature related to the liquidation of the consequences of the accident.
545
546I must say that when the work took on such an organized character, when the efforts were distributed between various departments and various curators, then, of course, there was much more order and clarity than in the early days, when emergency tasks were solved, but not all work, of course, went smoothly. For example, the state of pollution of the roofs of buildings of the 3rd and 4th blocks was repeatedly measured, and quite different numbers and different results were obtained: from stunningly high to relatively moderate numbers.
547
548Therefore, I myself and the military specialists, who at that time were deployed2, very successfully, in Ovruch, had a research center that would allow a large contingent of military specialists to carry out decontamination, measuring, in general, all the work that entrusted to the military, knowingly. This Center carried out the same very large work on measuring the state of radioactivity, on radioactivity offsets, on wind transport, on the dynamics of the state of various territories and made a great contribution in scientific research and practical terms to all those works that were carried out in Chernobyl. Moreover, the tasks were not easily solved. For example, near the nuclear power plant was heavily polluted (up to several X-rays per hour, the initial radiation power was), a large area of ​​the forest, which was called "Red Forest".
549
550Here is the fate of this forest
551
552Various proposals were made: the first not to touch it and leave it in the form in which it is with its activity, believing that somehow nature itself will process everything, that is, the needles, the most infected, will fall off, after which the needles can be collected and buried, and tree trunks, boughs all this will remain pretty clean; the second proposal was, on the contrary, to burn the whole forest and even experiments were carried out on burning fragments of this polluted forest, but these experiments showed that all the same, a rather large amount of radioactivity was consumed with the combustion products. In the end, it was decided to cut down part of the forest, transport it, bury it, and simply turn the remaining site into a burial ground, close it, which was done. And the radioactive effect of this "Red Forest" on the city and the surrounding area sharply decreased after these operations. A very big discussion arose over the so-called Camton effect.
553
554Because when they began to prepare for the launch of the 3rd block, and initially they wanted to let it go somewhere after the 1st and 2nd blocks, the radiation situation inside the building of the 3rd block (inside its premises, especially in the engine room ) did not allow even serious revision work. The first assumption was that this is the internal pollution of the building. After decontamination, the level of activity in this room decreased, but still remained high, reaching dozens, and sometimes hundreds of milli-roentgens per hour at individual points, and in isolated places the dose of radiation reached the x-ray per hour in this engine room. At that time, the initial assumption was made that the source of such high activity was the roof of the 3rd block, on which a lot of fuel was left, and this circumstance prevented the creation of an acceptable radiation environment, because more than 600 rooms of the 3rd block were cleaned, washed, and the radiation situation in the machine room all the same remained quite high. We began to carry out, using a special design calimator, various measurements that showed that the presence of activity on the roofs is not the only source affecting the radiation situation of the 3rd block, but that the neighborhood of the fourth block is due to the Compton effect (re-radiation and part reflection gamma rays coming out through the roof of the 4th block), that this radiation was the main source of increased radiation background in the hall of the 3rd block.
555
556How many discussions there were on this topic, how many expeditions there were, how many measurements there were, and yet, in the end, it turned out that the main source of pollution was the pollution that was on the roof of the 3rd block. This was the main, although of course, a bit, at the level of 10 milirengen per hour, of such scale and even less than even 10 milirengen per hour, there was also scattered Cameton radiation coming from the 4th block. Therefore, it was decided to completely change the roof of the 3rd unit, put in a new one, with appropriate protective devices, which would allow to continue the necessary work and launch the 3rd unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in time. Around the same time, when the fate of the 3rd block was being decided (well, due to this situation, the start-up period from the summer period for which it was scheduled to shift to autumn), the issue of the need for commissioning by 5 6th and 6th blocks. These units were in a completely different state of readiness: the 5th unit was highly available and could almost be completed and put into operation within a few months after deactivation. Well, the 6th block was in the initial stage.
557
558The discussions were big
559
560The public protested against continuing the construction of the 5th and 6th blocks and they went into operation because it seemed to them too much too large 6 gigawatts of power on one site. Especially those in abnormal radiation conditions. The energy needs of Ukraine dictated the need for the introduction of more and more capacities. This issue was discussed at the Government Commission and brought to higher levels, and ultimately it was decided to postpone this issue and, in the next 1987, and possibly in 1988, no construction work at the 5th and 6th blocks . To throw all the decontamination workers' forces into the full normalization of the 3rd block, as well as to clean the construction base. There was a construction base on the territory, on which the mechanisms, materials necessary for the construction of the 5th and 6th blocks were located. This base was quite contaminated. And in order to save a sufficiently large amount of expensive equipment located there, a special workshop was built at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant decontamination workshop. And this workshop began to consistently deactivate the most valuable equipment and send it to various points of the Soviet Union for practical use. In the same period when active work began on the decontamination and preparation for the launch of the 3rd block, in the same period of time, work really began to unfold not on the design, but on the construction of the city of Slavutich.
561
562Moreover, the pace of construction of this city increased all the time, and this made a lot of sense because after about 4-5 months of operation on a rotational basis of the 1st and 2nd blocks, it became clear that psychologically and physically, even, this is hard work when, even with long breaks for rest, but for 10-12 hours, the operators should be at the control panel, the problem of prolonged isolation from the family, work in unusual conditions all this created such problems that it became obvious that the shift method, in this the case of course is not about optimality. He was forced, played a large role during the period of time when he was used, but to base on it, as on the main method of work, it became completely clear that this was impossible. Therefore, the pace of construction of the city of Slavutich, as the main town of power engineers, it sharply increased. So, let's say, Boris Yevdokimovich Shcherbina, so in my memory, almost monthly, made such special voyages in order to control, monitor how the construction of the city of Slavutich was going on, how it was being equipped, saturating it with equipment, in general this the question was constantly under his control. However, like all other issues related to this Chernobyl accident.
563
564Already somewhere in the middle of 1987, this summer of 1987, finally appeared robots made by our Soviet hands. Say, robots created at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy. These are reconnaissance robots that we could not get in time from anywhere, from any country in the world. So we ourselves made reconnaissance robots, which in the most difficult geometric conditions, in the conditions of blockages, high radiation fields, could advance, practically at any distance, in a controlled manner, and perform radiation and thermal reconnaissance of the situation, provide the necessary information. These robots also played a large role today because with their help many interests were discovered on issues related to the nature and consequences of the accident. But I'm not sure that they will bring even more information.
565
566Another idea that I have repeatedly expressed and asked to execute (it has not yet been implemented) is the idea associated with the creation of flying robots, i.e. radio-controlled aircraft models that would carry sensors. Sensors as radiation fields, sensors with which it would be possible to measure the composition of gas over various points of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Well, in order not to use either ... (entry deleted) This text is for Comrade NOVIKOV Vladimir Mikhailovich, DEMIN Vladimir Fedorovich and SUKHORUCHKIN Vladimir Konstantinovich. This is an article that should be written on the instructions of the Santik American magazine and an article that should have some kind of general philosophical character. The conditional title of this article is: "The causes of the Chernobyl accident and the consequences arising from it."
567
568The article should be based on the works of: mine; Comrade Demin; Comrade Novikov; Comrade Sukhoruchkin, but, nevertheless, these works must be collected and processed in such a way that some kind of integral philosophy follows from them. The first section of this article, it seems to me, is necessary to describe the history of the development of Soviet nuclear energy, to recall that the world's first nuclear power plant (erased record) ... and the principle of ensuring security in this small 5-megawatt station. At that time, the entire security system was licked, or something ... (the record was deleted) ... which existed in industrial reactors and used the accumulated military experience. Then the second station was the Beloyarsk nuclear station, where graphite was also used as a shaker, but it was already a fast neutron reactor and so research, well, to describe its effect. Then we need to talk about the Novovoronezh station, the first unit of which was already being built as a nuclear station, which should be operated continuously, under the conditions of peaceful, ordinary personnel, and describe the security systems that were introduced at this station.
569
570Then, of course, it will be necessary to say that after and during the construction of the Novovoronezh NPP, the policy of our state did not attach much importance to the development of nuclear energy, because it was believed that on organic fuel sources: on Donbass coal; on gas Saratov; and then with oil sources, we will be able to solve all our industrial problems, and this nuclear energy, which was demonstrated at the Obninsk, Beloyarsk and Novovoronezh stations, it was more like a research work that prepared us for some future. Explain that this was actually a miscalculation, moreover: as a resource one (the potential of the Donetsk basin in the supply of coal was overestimated); and a miscalculation of a transport-ecological nature, because at that time we did not imagine the scale of ground transportation if we base energy on organic sources and the scale of pollution, including radioactive elements.
571
572This must be described. This is important that's why
573
574It is important to show that the delay of about 10 years with the development of nuclear energy in the Soviet Union was the first cause of the Chernobyl accident: the “first swallow”; first, such a "bell". Why? Yes, because when it was already clear in the 60s that it was expensive and almost impossible to develop industry in the European part and provide it with electricity from organic sources, and that it was necessary to put nuclear sources into operation, we had to do it ourselves, at such a fast pace. Therefore, a certain natural desire arose: the cost of developing nuclear energy, at such a fast pace, to somehow minimize. And now, at that moment, a fundamental philosophical mistake was made in our approach to ensuring security. Any approach to ensuring nuclear safety and an approach to ensuring a technologically complex and potentially dangerous facility should consist of three elements:
575
5761. make the facility itself, say, a nuclear reactor as maximum, as safe as possible;
577
5782. make the operation of this facility as reliable and as safe as possible, but the word "as much as possible", in either case, can never mean 100% reliability, equipment can never work in it under 100% conditions specified by the project and to exclude completely human, not intentional, and maybe even intentional errors, the same is impossible. And, due to the fact that this one is the most safe reactor. and the most safe operation, not 100 percent is always a security philosophy requires the mandatory introduction of the 3rd element.
579
5803. An element that allows for an accident to happen. And radioactivity, or another dangerous substance, will go beyond the apparatus. And, in this case, the obligatory element is the packaging of a dangerous object in such a device that would localize the accident, which, although with a low probability, will still happen. I would have packed it in what is called a container (there may be an underground version, and other possible engineering options), but, what is most necessary for reliability, you need to have a system that would not depend on geographical locations and, if unlikely, but possible, troubles these troubles, well, as in the case of accidents at mines: only inside the mine itself, not spreading to the environment. This is the third element.
581
582In the Soviet nuclear power industry, it was precisely because the pace, due to the lost 10 years, was supposed to be quite high, and the third element, from my point of view, was criminally ignored. In fairness, it must be said that many experts of the Soviet Union spoke out and very actively spoke out from the position of protesters against the construction of nuclear plants without containers. Well, in particular, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Viktor Alekseevich SIDORENKO, released his doctoral dissertation, and then a book, based on this doctoral dissertation, in which he proved, by all means and means available to him at that time, the need to build such containers.
583
584However, this point of view of specialists was not taken into account.
585
586There is one more specific circumstance to this. This is what nuclear energy in the Soviet Union did not grow out of the sphere of energy, but it grew out of the atomic industry, as it were: in which there was and worked highly trained and highly disciplined personnel; where there was a special military acceptance of each item of equipment, and therefore: reliability there, in this area of ​​the nuclear industry, reliability, both in terms of equipment, as in terms of personnel owning the station, was quite high and the experience was 15-20 years old, which this branch of the national economy has accumulated, he testified: that with the competent, reliable, accurate operation of nuclear facilities, technical means of ensuring safety and staff education, it is enough to have any kind of accident, with a view to Outward activity, large, did not occur, at least at the stations themselves.
587
588It was not taken into account that when nuclear facilities move from a limited industry to the wide expanse that nuclear energy already has for such a peaceful purpose, the conditions change significantly and the very number of nuclear power plants, constantly increasing, simply, from the simplest probabilistic considerations, increases the risk of errors in the actions of personnel or malfunctions in the operation of certain technical devices. So, from my point of view, it was a philosophical mistake: the assumption of the stations working without an external localizing shelter, it was fundamental. Since when did this error begin to be fixed? That’s when the Soviet Union entered the foreign market and when it began to build the first nuclear power plant for a foreign country, for Finland, it was there that the Finnish side, as the customer side, demanded, having studied international experience, and by that time an international standard had developed, requiring exactly Three safety features: a reliable reactor, reliable operation and a mandatory container.
589
590This is the third element of Fina and demanded. And, therefore, the Finnish station was already built with a cap. After that, “ice moved”, the energy management, with great understanding, began to relate to the importance of this element, although to the end, of course, without realizing the seriousness of this issue, and, so to speak, our design organizations began to work on the container. The second consequence of the slowdown in the development of nuclear energy was the fact that the production capacity of, say, hulls for a VVER reactor (and this is still the most common type of reactor in the world, and in its construction and operation it was possible to take into account not only our own experience, but also experience of the entire world community) we did not have enough.
591
592That is, the capacity of engineering enterprises was not enough to produce the right amount of tanks and other equipment for VVER-type reactors. And at this time, part of the power engineers came up with proposals: in order not to reduce the plans for commissioning nuclear power and, given the congestion in the machine-building industry, to create a parallel branch in nuclear power, which would allow building sufficiently powerful reactors without using the hull principle, without loading machine-building industry with sophisticated manufacturing technology for highly reliable reactor vessels required for WWER. So the idea of ​​a channel type RBMK reactor with graphite blocks, etc. etc.
593
594If a philosophy were developed, connected with the obligatory nature of the container over each of the atomic objects, then, naturally, RBMK, in its geometry, in its design, as an apparatus, simply could not have appeared. He would be, so to speak, outside international standards, outside international rules, no matter how reliable and no matter how good he was in his other characteristics, he could not have appeared. But, since the leadership of the energy industry of that period did not accept this philosophy as a container requirement, the RBMK reactor appeared. And this, therefore, I believe that the beginning of the Chernobyl tragedy should be counted from the slowdown in the development of nuclear energy in the late 50s and early 60s. Having built the first nuclear facility in the world, we then slowed down the development of the technology for their creation, considered all the safety issues associated with the operation of these devices, and then began to rush. And so, this haste led to the need: to build a larger number of devices for the same money.
595
596There was a need for savings. Start saving on containers
597
598And since the container became optional, it was tempting to build a second line, which would help the country out of the way, without loading the engineering industry. So the ideology of the RBMK reactor arose. And this non-container approach, from my point of view, is the main and main mistake of Soviet nuclear energy, not even Soviet nuclear energy, because: in fact, experts in nuclear energy, they (I want to repeat again: well, not all, not unanimously, but rather broad front) opposed a reactor of this type: as for safety reasons; and for reasons of lack of container, which is the same security issue.
599
600The very first start-up of this reactor at the first RBMK unit at the Leningrad NPP showed, moreover, that such an extended active zone, in the design in which it was made, is rather complicated for the operator. At the first launches of the first unit of the Leningrad Nuclear Power Plant, in general, the problem of the instability of neutron fluxes and the difficulty of controlling them arose. I had to change on the go: the degree of fuel enrichment; to do a number of other technical measures in order to alleviate the problem of reactor control. And yet, even after these events (and all the experts in the Soviet Union knew this), from the control point of view, this reactor required a lot of attention from the operator and was always quite complicated.
601
602In addition, the very appearance of this RBMK apparatus, from the point of view of international and generally normal safety standards, was illegal (the fact of the appearance of such an apparatus). But, besides this, at least three major design miscalculations were made inside this apparatus: The first design miscalculation was that, as international standards demanded, and as, generally speaking, the common sense of emergency protection systems should be at least two. Moreover, one of the emergency protection systems should be based on other physical principles than the first and, more importantly, from my point of view: one of the two protections should work independently of the operator.
603
604So, let's say: the operator must manage one emergency protection system: automatically, semi-automatically, manually, it depends on the mode; and the second emergency protection system should work independently (in any condition of the operator) only when parameters are exceeded, say: neutron fluxes, power, temperature, etc. etc. and should automatically shut down the reactor. The RBMK reactor was not equipped with such a second protection, independent of the actions of the operator, not included in the control system. In general, this is a major mistake and, say, if it had not been for the Chernobyl accident, it would not have happened. And finally, the third design error, which is even difficult to explain, was that the emergency protection systems, of which there were a large enough number, were available to the station personnel.
605
606So, let's say there were no special ciphers for building, say, protection shutdown systems, when, say, protection could be disabled only by a double, or even a triple command: key rotation by the operator; duplicate key rotation, say the shift supervisor of the station; and maybe even some kind of: especially responsible protection, duplicating the key rotation by the station head, chief engineer or his deputy. These are the technical means and technical devices that, in general, work in many army devices, on missile complexes, and in nuclear weapons, nothing was used of this. This, of course, seems surprising and strange.
607
608As I have already said, the RBMK apparatus is not easy to operate, due to the fact that quite often there are fundamentally possible instabilities in the operation mode of the apparatus and, therefore, simulators would be all the more important with each RBMK apparatus, which would allow to constantly train personnel on the correct behavior in the conditions of certain deviations in the operation of the device from the norm.
609
610However, precisely for these devices, simulators, in fact, there wasn’t
611
612Well, it should be added that a number of issues in this reactor were solved very well, say, well, it’s already known, say, a number of such advantages of this apparatus, such as, for example: first, indeed, the possibility of constructing the apparatus without using machine-building capacities (I mean the absence of a reactor vessel); the possibility of overloading the reactor on the fly, made it possible to have a high power utilization factor in this reactor; the channel principle of this reactor itself; a number of other technical solutions: pumps that were highly reliable on this reactor. They were, of course, small pluses, advantages. But anyway. All the same, the lack of container, a fundamental one, which, as practice has shown, was not replaced by firmly-tight boxes. This is a question that turned out to be fundamental. Well, I must say that, of course, the magnitude of the coefficient of positive reactivity in this apparatus for physicists was unexpected.
613
614This is again connected with the first reason with haste, with the need for high rates of development of nuclear apparatus, because, in principle, with the correct configuration of graphite, with a smaller volume introduced into the zone, this graphite moderator could, of course, not go beyond the value, as practice has now shown: the sum of the measures that were taken for this reactor brought the value of the steam coefficient to no more than one betta, and this value is already quite manageable, which allows, with appropriate speed protection, any processes, but this was not done before and the apparatus worked with positive reactivity coefficients significantly larger than one betta in the first place, and secondly, what was considered to be in practice turned out to be significantly larger than thought, because the physical knowledge of this the apparatus was also not sufficient. This is the group of reasons that led to the troubles that I would like to talk about. And so, it's not about the operators ...
615
616Of course, the mistakes made by the operators are well-known, they do not need to be listed again (the errors themselves are monstrous): the behavior of the station management is difficult to explain; the punishment of the perpetrators of this direct accident is correct; because the actions did not meet the regulatory requirements and showed inconsistency with the official requirements of those people who acted in this environment, but, nevertheless, this is the fault of officials.
617
618But the main reason, not even the mistakes in the design of the reactor, which were the same and for which they will have to, and probably have to answer the corresponding specialists. But the main reason is a violation of the basic principle of safety of such devices, the absence and spontaneous removal of the third element, the placement of dangerous devices in some kind of obligatory capsules that limit the possibility of activity going beyond the station itself and the device itself.
619
620This is the main reason for this scale of the accident.
621
622This thesis, I would like it to be developed when we talk about the causes of the accident. The following thesis is associated with a specific description of the design of the apparatus, defects in this design and a consistent description of the causes that led to the accident itself. First of all, it should be noted that this is an experiment that should not have been carried out at a nuclear power plant, because the turbine run-out at idle is a thing that should have been determined on a special stand constructed at the turbine’s designer. Now, I would like this to be emphasized. It was there that this question should have been experimentally verified.
623
624He was not checked there. Therefore, this made, apparently well-intentioned, the station management conduct this experiment. Time. Secondly, the lack of systemic thinking among the station managers related to this matter. When the first experiments of 82 or 83 years showed that during the run-out, the turbine does not retain the necessary electrical parameters to ensure the station’s own needs, it never occurred to anyone to solve this problem on the other hand, namely: reducing the time of commissioning and reaching the required parameters of standby diesel generators.
625
626And they went from the side of increasing the run-out time, although during this time diesel generators with times to reach the necessary electrical parameters were two to three times better than those diesel generators that were installed at the Chernobyl station. The simplest operation would be to replace the diesel generators of the Chernobyl station with those that would make everything normal and that the whole procedure of these tests and checks would become simply unnecessary. This circumstance should be noted. Now we need to describe in detail how the experiment itself went, who allowed it there, who did not allow it, how instructions were violated and how the accident developed.
627
628Moreover, here, what is an essential element in this description ?! For some reason, in many sources there is: either one explosion, or two explosions, or a hydrogen explosion, or not a hydrogen explosion. To date, it has been completely reliably established, and this, so to speak, must be unequivocally written that there were two explosions, consecutive, the second having more power than the first.
629
630This should be noted
631
632Secondly, one cannot speak of a hydrogen explosion, nor can one mention that in addition to a steam explosion, chemical energy associated with the interactions in all this hot mass was added. I must say that all quantitative estimates show that the explosion power was about three to four tons, in TNT equivalent. This figure today can be called as a reliable figure, so that the numbers do not go around, there: in tens of tons, in kilotons, etc. etc. Here are 3-4, or to name up to 10 tons of trinitrotoluene; this is the maximum that can be called. By the nature of the explosion, by the glow, by the expansion, it is clear that the system had a volume-detonating explosion. There was volumetric detonation. The explosion was voluminous. This means that the rapid expansion of steam, thermally heated all the time, led to the defeat that it was. Well, then: the well-known figures for the removal of fuel, this was less clear.
633
634Then you need to describe the classic scheme of what happened in the reactor with the fuel: the time of its heating up, the time it took to stop heating up, the cooling system, and so on. And, it is very important to describe the activities that were carried out and their significance. For example, did any delay in the day with events in general matter? The first day, 26th. In addition to pouring water there at night, on the night of 26, nothing was produced. Castings of, say, sand, dolomite, clay, began around the 28th. 27, at the end of the day, the first seems to have been casts. All this needs to be described very carefully, therefore, the physical meaning of each operation needs to be written, because it consists in the fact that, say: firstly, the reflection of the Government Commission, there was an option: do nothing, let graphite burn quietly. But then this would mean: the removal of radioactivity on graphite particles over long distances. The maximum burning rate at the temperatures that we determined there (the burning temperature of graphite) is somewhere around a ton per hour. So, consider it.
635
636This burning would continue, given that there were 2,400 tons of two thousand four hundred hours. Well, during such a time there would be a spread of radioactivity, and in aerosol form, over long distances. So it was necessary to extinguish, first of all, a graphite fire. Hence the appearance of sand as a means of extinguishing a fire. (side "A" is finished, part 7) secondly, since sand appeared, it means thermal insulation appeared, so there was an additional nuisance from a possible heating of the zone. Therefore, components such as dolomite and lead appear. Lead is difficult to oxidize. dolomite decomposes. Endothermally, lead takes energy for melting, dolomite takes energy for melting, SiO2 (sand itself) takes energy for melting, so a large amount of energy was consumed for endothermic processes. and finally, components such as clay, for example, served as filter elements that were designed to delay part of the radioactive isotopes from their release into the external environment.
637
638Here all these considerations need to be compared with real charts: when what came out, when what stopped coming out. In particular, for example, it must be said that not all activities were reasonable either. In particular, the supply of liquid nitrogen, which was made at my suggestion, was around May 2, and began to be realized on May 4-5. This event turned out to be meaningless because when I made a proposal, but did not yet know the degree of destruction of the reactor and did not know the natural circulation of air (its natural flow rate), and after a while we calculated that the air flow rate was so high that the supply and dilution with liquid nitrogen of this air (firstly: it went into the side slots and passed almost past the reactor space with fuel, and secondly: its amount was determined completely incorrectly) could not produce any effect, so we stopped chu liquid nitrogen.
639
640This event was not confirmed by practice, let’s say as useful. According to lead, it is necessary, then, to determine the same that our initial proposal was, of course, to supply metal (iron) shot there. The shot was in the station, but it was in the room, which turned out to be very dirty, so it was impossible to load it in helicopters. Then we did not know the exact temperature level at different elevations of the Chernobyl destroyed reactor. Let's say for higher grades we saw that the temperature scale is 300-350 degrees. For these temperatures, the most convenient component, in addition, covering the radioactivity, was lead. For the region with higher temperatures that were lower, we needed to supply metal, but then it would give reoxidation additional energy, therefore we preferred SiO2 (sand), which performed the same function, that is, it melted, flowed, the same dolomite does the most, because Magnesium-OH is relatively heat-conducting ceramic (of all ceramics, the most heat-conducting ceramic).
641
642Therefore, all these activities were quite reasonable.
643
644Well, and, say, with the introduction of all these components, such as lead, for example, we evaluated there whether lead pollution of the area would occur. We just took and calculated: they threw 2,400 tons of lead, we assumed that all this lead would fall into the hot zone and evaporate, which is not possible because most of it condensed at the upper levels. Then we assumed that even if all the lead evaporates, we took the area of ​​a 30-kilometer zone and received that, so to speak, everything turns out below the maximum permissible concentrations. At least then, Comrade Israel, with his comrades, measured the concentration of lead both in air and on the ground, and it turned out that it was determined solely by lead emitted from the exhaust pipes of automobiles from leaded gasoline and against this background, against the background of these lead pollution, notice 2,400 tons of sprayed It’s almost impossible, and there was a lot of talk about additional lead poisoning. Therefore, you must very accurately bring all these calculations based on the sum of measures.
645
646Then you need to say a few words about the principles of the approach to the construction of the sarcophagus. There were 17 projects, but only two or three approaches need to be described: the first approach: here is the bulk hill and why we abandoned it; well, and, say, the second option, this means the sarcophagus that is, only with a concrete dome. Why we abandoned the concrete dome the structures could not stand it. Why the concrete dome, which would certainly be better, was replaced by a pipe run and the corresponding metal roof. These circumstances need to be explained. The following circumstances need to be explained in this cycle. It is very important. Not in any country in the world, because quite a few countries responded to our misfortune, sent telegrams, offers, etc. We were convinced that in no country in the world, a worked out, experimentally verified, action plan in these situations was not. This is the first circumstance.
647
648The second one. There were no dosimeters with appropriate scales from minimum doses to maximum doses. There were no aircraft, uninhabited, which would be equipped with the necessary measuring equipment at the time of the accident. To the beginning, or rather. Therefore, they were forced to use helicopters with people. What made people do additional radiation and what made these flights dangerous because helicopters could touch some structure or another and lead to the destruction of a block, say, of a neighboring one. Returning a little back, it must be noted that the actions of the firefighters were advisable, because many, well, journalists and plays write that the firefighters stood in vain for several hours, re-irradiated because of this, etc. Their actions were realized, because there was hydrogen in the generators in the engine room, there was engine oil and they were waiting for the possibility that the fire could spread to the 3rd block and cause the destruction of the third block, as well as the fourth. Therefore, their actions were truly selfless and conscious, which is most important, and not just some kind of meaningless actions from illiteracy. Next, we must return to the fact that there were no robot workers or intelligence robots in any country in the world.
649
650We tried and robots bought from different countries, but they refused either because they could not overcome the obstacles in the destroyed block, or because they lost control due to high levels of gamma fields and when the electronics refused. And only very recently (they also need to be described) our own intelligence robots that were made at the Institute of Atomic Energy. It is necessary to say a few words about the scheme for managing the accident elimination process, i.e. on the separation of functions: a group finding out the causes of accidents; a group engaged in decontamination and preparation for the launch of the first and second unit; a group engaged in the analysis of what is being done in the 4th block, destroyed and the diagnosis and research are all necessary; a group engaged in the design of the sarcophagus itself; 16 group occupied by the construction of the sarcophagus; Army group engaged in the decontamination of the territory; a group engaged in the construction of new premises and buildings for the evacuated population; groups that were engaged in the creation of decontamination points for the control of vehicles and for washing and cleaning it;
651
652All this must be described in the most detailed and thorough manner.
653
654After that, it seems to me, you should write the section: “Today's state”, that is, the Coordinating Council at the Academy of Sciences, which includes the heads of departments responsible for the relevant types of work: Gosagroprom, Ministry of Environment, Minatomenergo, etc. and leading scientists in the field of medicine, radiology, agriculture, etc. etc. and that this Coordination Council systematically considers the dynamics of the situation, which is connected with all the circumstances of this Chernobyl accident. This, as an organizational moment, would be worth describing the same. Then, a section of Vladimir Fedorovich DEMIN appears where it is easy to describe clearly: how many areas, people are affected, to what extent, what has already been restored, what has not been restored. That's all that is connected with the consequences, from the defeat of people to the defeat of the same Red Forest, it is necessary to accurately and accurately describe. It must also be said that in no case should psychological factors be forgotten in the aftermath of the consequences, because a number of diseases that were found in people, a number of phenomena associated with personnel who survived this tragedy, were not, say, radiation defeat. It was definitely established by doctors.
655
656Nevertheless, a psychological shock and, say, on the meringue of this psychological shock, cardiovascular destonia was detected in a very large number of specialists and still continues to be detected. Here is the whole shift mode, everything experienced, etc. etc. these are all circumstances, of course, as secondary factors should be described in the same way. Doctors have a lot of information here and I think that Vladimir Fedorovich knows it well. If not, then I can tell you everything. In the next section, when the consequences of this accident are described, it is necessary to describe today's research and agricultural and research activities that are being carried out right today: What has already been discovered that causes optimism in us, that is, I mean the accumulation of radioactive components of fish in animals that are in a 30-kilometer zone, which turns out to be not terrible, what turns out to be useful, what is useless, the behavior of various tree species, all Gosagropromovsky conclusions, only those e are today quite obvious here they need to be described. And to end this section of the consequences with such normal words that it is a long-term program, that for many, many years the consequences of this accident will affect them, describe what they will affect, that the front of the research is large, an approximate, so to speak, plan.
657
658We can safely say about those programs that Ruteniy Mikhailovich Polevoy owns, which created several of them; you can write them as directions of activity. All this needs to be done. To say about the number of organizations that are involved both directly on the spot and in their own organizations, about the medical radiological center that was created there. All this in this section, it seems to me, should be described here as such clear and understandable perfect things. You cannot end this section only with obvious and understandable things. A whole series of questions should be raised. For example, it is not clear to us. There was, for example, a complete correspondence about the fall in radioactivity in the 4th block itself and in some other areas, it went faster than it followed from the laws of radioactive decay. There are various versions, but only versions. Therefore, we still cannot explain this phenomenon to the end, but there are such and such versions. There are unexplained problems. Here, for example, those wonderful photographs that are on my table, and which Nikolai Nikolaevich KUZNETSOV brought with the transition, they ate in pine forms, for example, when the spruce branches begin to branch, like in pines, anyway. The fact that we are beginning to study the cause of this phenomenon, which is not clear to us, I must say.
659
660And all this to pick up in a group of obscure issues, where we have facts, but do not have a full explanation of these facts. It seems to me that it would be necessary to reflect the same, because it would be foolish to say that everything is already very clear to us, very clear. By the way, looking back, I want to say again that the question of how to introduce reactivity is presented as a debatable question, because there are several options that could lead to the introduction of positive reactivity in such an uncontrolled reactor. None of them clearly corresponds to all experimental facts, therefore, discussions are being held here, but in general this does not matter much because the most important thing is that, in principle, it was possible to introduce positive reactivity with such powerful acceleration, this was important, and concrete to say, the details are not so important, because the discussion itself shows that there were several ways to bring the reactor to the state it was in. After the division of Vladimir Fedorovich, it seems to me that Vladimir Konstantinovich needs to intervene in two ways: 18 the first way: to briefly, clearly and clearly describe that the Soviet Union did not hide anything from the very beginning (these points are there: Why were you informed late?
661
662Yes, because they did not really know what was happening, did not want to panic, so to speak, did not want false information), and what international events were held, and which conventions were adopted, what Soviet position on international cooperation was adopted, this, this side needs to be described. Like a done side. And then, develop a philosophy that, in general, due to the experience of the Chernobyl accident, any device can cause trouble not only in the country where it is located, but also in neighboring countries and cause not only some kind of radiation damage, but can cause economic, psychological losses in these countries, here are the questions of international inspections, checking the quality of facilities under construction, etc. to make it an international procedure it would be necessary as a wish to express it and that would, in my opinion, be right.
663
664In general, the international affairs section should be divided into two parts: the first part is what the Soviet Union did internationally, what materials he presented, whom he invited, who he accepted, whose help he used, whose help he refused, and the second part as needed internationally inspect, monitor and crosscheck the level of nuclear energy safety. Well, it seems to me that Vladimir Konstantinovich needs to develop these issues.
665
666And finally, the last and most, from my point of view, important section
667
668It should begin with what measures are planned in the Soviet Union in order to increase the safety of nuclear energy? Well, they are listed in the reports presented in Vienna. Here they need to be listed. This is outlined. This is done. But right here, from the position of Vladimir Mikhailovich Novikov, to say that at the level of the apparatus that we have, this may be enough to prevent Chernobyl from repeating itself, although it must be said that for those apparatus that do not have containers , these activities apparently will not be sufficient. We need to reflect on some special measures to localize accidents for those 28 devices that do not have containers. It is clear that these localization measures must be dynamic, since it is economically and technically impossible to build caps on them, and today we need to think about non-traditional dynamic methods for localizing possible accidents at such facilities, well, mainly to the Soviet community, because this is our problem, although we would be pleased to cooperate internationally for this task. This is this problem. So here it is: our current events are outlined, such and such have been completed, such and such problems worry us. Next comes the philosophy. Can the Soviet Union limit the number of vehicles, for example, those that are, to slowly disable those that are capless and so switch to fossil fuels.
669
670Here it’s necessary to say once again that it can take advantage of my work with KUZMIN, which is connected precisely with this question, can it be possible to do without nuclear sources subsequently, in our country, which is so rich in fossil fuels and show that it is impossible, that in such an ever-increasing the volume of nuclear sources we will need, firstly for economic, resource, environmental reasons this is firstly. And most importantly, to emphasize that nuclear sources, like any previous source, it is not only a carrier of energy, but a carrier of new technology. This can be summarized from my old works, what it means today we use mainly heat, radiation, but, in fact, you can get artificial materials, alloy, modify, get rid of impurities from nuclear sources, in simpler and more economical ways than this today, say, in the chemical and metallurgical industries. This is another proof that you cannot do without them. And then there’s a concept that Vladimir Mikhailovich developed, and what kind of safe nuclear energy should be. I won’t say anything about a safe reactor, because the requirements for NOVIKOV were formulated very accurately. But it is necessary to add to the requirements for the reactor a nuclear safety full of the nuclear fuel cycle. And to make such quantitative estimates, which are made on the reactor, for processing plants, for processing plants. It’s even worthwhile, in connection with the latest accident in Brazil, to touch upon the issues of using radio-medical preparations and the forms of their use.
671
672t seems to be impossible to abandon their use, but how to make their use safe, so it would be necessary to think over the question in such a way that the understanding of the safety of nuclear energy would be as wide as possible, and not just as a problem of creating a safe reactor. And I would very much like to make such a statement that today we do not have a concept of safe nuclear energy, the concept of safe nuclear energy, or even the concept of a safe nuclear reactor. And, since the number of such sources should increase, the task becomes urgent, the time for its solution is not so small but not so much, it is about 15-20 years during which all the issues that we are discussing should be resolved. This is approximately the structure by which all the materials should be prepared for me and, I repeat, that they should be based on the work that we previously performed, so that we refer to our own sources, and not to some strangers. (pause, new recording)
673
674Interview with A. Adamovich (judging by the inscription on the cassette on the "B" side)
675
676First of all, what would you imagine that I occupy a certain special point in this whole story, because I have been sitting in the field of nuclear energy for 15 years, but my position is somewhat special, I am a nuclear chemist, i.e. for the design of reactors, for example, I only have to do with the fact that at the Soviets there, at meetings I hear discussions, disputes there, well, something else, and, of course, I get some point of view, but how did you understand from the conversation that I am the director of my own department, it is the provision of nuclear fuel cycles, i.e. separation of isotopes, burial of activity ... My position consists, as it were, of an external observer and participant.
677
678But, of course, my participation in the Chernobyl events themselves was justified, because there was no reactor already, and there were its remains, this is my direct specialty. Here is nuclear and non-nuclear chemistry. You need to understand what processes go with the radioactive elements, how they differ from other processes, what you can introduce, what it will lead to, it may already be a coincidence, but this is really my direct specialty. But the main thing is that for several years I was an observer of various battles within the Soviet Union and at the international level, experts in the field of type of reactors and in general it is necessary or not to develop nuclear energy.
679
680At the same time, under my leadership, work has also developed in the field of chemical production safety, which pose the same very great danger. Therefore, from a purely professional point of view, security issues and how to relate to them, I imagined professionally very well. Therefore, I am such a confused figure, that on the one hand, because I know the safety problems in their general philosophical form: how they should be posed and solved, I know the nuclear fuel cycle and its external part, well, I was an observer of the reactor epic.
681
682Chernobyl began, from my point of view, conditionally of course, in 1961, i.e. in the same year when Gagarin flew into space or when it was the last highest achievement of Soviet science and technology. Although I generally believe that our science and technology very successfully by hook or by crook developed surprisingly to the whole world with colossal achievements in almost all areas. And the peak of these achievements was Gagarin’s flight into space. After that, we began to give in sharply in all directions, to give in, to give in, and just began to fall. This is the general fall of Soviet technology, the causes of which can be talked about for a long time, it was at the same time the beginning of Chernobyl. And this is not a philosophical statement. And not in the sense that we have begun to lower the general technical culture, but this is a very concrete statement.
683
684The fact is that, as you know, the Soviet Union was the founder of nuclear energy. The first power station was built in our Obninsk near Moscow. Then we built the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant and the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant. And they stopped the development of nuclear energy. This is at the end of the 50s. Because such a point of view prevailed that we have enough Donbass coal there, we do not need to develop nuclear energy. And we, being pioneers in its development, we have not developed it for 10 years, and the three nuclear power plants Novovoronezh, Beloyarskaya and Obninsk were like fun for scientists, where scientists solved their problems. These are three different types of reactor. They had their own peculiarities, they dealt with them, but nobody perceived nuclear energy as a large-scale phenomenon.
685
686And at that time, England, at first, and then the United States of America, began to make energy not nuclear power plants, but individual ones. And, therefore, their science was forced to immediately talk about the safety of nuclear energy as such a large-scale energy industry about a lot of plants, about a huge number of specialists who are involved in the operation of these nuclear plants, etc. And we had made a powerful Gosplanovsky miscalculation, calculated that we would have enough organic fuel for a lot and that we would practically not need atomic energy, and somewhere around the 60s (61.62.63 approximately during this period of time ) it became clear that a miscalculation was made that the European part of the Soviet Union, where 80 percent of the population and industry is concentrated here, will not live on imported fuel, and the Donetsk coal has become too expensive and too small. But imported fuel is expensive: economically, and transport, and environmentally friendly. It became clear that it was impossible not to develop nuclear energy. You can’t live European industry without it.
687
688In fact, for environmental reasons, which many people cannot imagine, it’s impossible not to develop
689
690If we took and, for a moment, the Politburo decided to cancel atomic energy: if we had stopped operating the nuclear power plants and not built new ones, then immediately, immediately, in response to this, the level of radioactive contamination of our territory and our people would have increased incredibly. It is radioactive, I'm not talking about concertogenic and other things. Why? Yes, because in the coal or oil seams over the centuries many radioactive elements have accumulated, and it is precisely the long-lived isotopes and the most dangerous: alpha-active.
691
692For example, in the Kama-Achinsk coal basin, only in its upper layers, there are 2 million curies of alpha-active, long-lived isotopes. As soon as we begin to actively exploit the Kama-Achinsk basin, we will begin along the road along which the coal is busy, when burning, especially our own lungs will saturate it with radioactive dirt. Therefore, the smaller the number of nuclear power plants and the more coal or oil, the radioactive pollution, under natural conditions, will be greater. So, this is a completely obvious situation.
693
694Of course, it would be best to use what we all actively dream of alternative sources: thermonuclear, solar, NGD, and anything else. But here it is absolutely necessary to imagine the picture that for 40-50 years nothing will happen, because today, the best figures show that solar energy and the cost of human labor are one hundred times more per unit of power, and the cost of materials 150 times more than coal or nuclear power plants. Of course, science will pass this one, and everything will improve, but not 100 or 150 times. Therefore, the share of alternative sources in the foreseeable period of 45-50 years will be 5-7 percent.
695
696It is necessary that these percentages are in order to develop these energy sources, but this cannot be the basis of energy. Thus, the inevitability of nuclear energy became apparent in the 60s. And the pace was lost. And then, at a gallop across Europe. And the money is limited, because for ten years they have not invested any money. And here a fatal mistake was made, because of which, specifically, Chernobyl began. What is this fatal mistake? The whole world recognizes the normal safety standard for any hazardous production, including nuclear power plants.
697
698This standard has three elements:
699
7001. make the most reliable reactor;
701
7022. make operation as reliable as possible (trained personnel, good discipline, equipment convenient for operation, etc.) And everywhere they strive for maximum reliability. But, since the whole world understands that "as much as possible", this does not mean 100%, and that there is always some chance that some element of technology, even the most reliable, may also refuse, that some person is maliciously or illiteracy, or by coincidence, something can do, then the mandatory third element is introduced:
703
7043. all this is a dangerous production with the most reliable reactor; with the most reliable operation must be encapsulated. It is closed in a container (as it is called in the West), and placed under a cap (as we call it). So, what if suddenly, with some low probability, but something happens, then all the same it will be limited to the zone of this reactor itself. All troubles will be limited to the zone.
705
706And here are the most important criminals. Of course, those who were already convicted in Chernobyl, they are criminals, because they committed incredible acts and they were condemned perfectly. An investigation is underway (further investigation) and they will apparently judge, I think (at least, from my point of view, judge) the designers of this type of RBMK reactor, who made at least three gross blunders in the design of this reactor. The grossest errors. And perhaps they should also bear criminal responsibility, say. From my point of view. But what will happen there, I do not know. But the main criminals are those energy leaders of the 60s who are contrary to the point of view of specialists, and Soviet experts, say, at our Institute, we have such a corresponding member, SIDORENKO Viktor Alekseevich, he is now deputy. He wrote the doctoral dissertation of the Chairman of Gosatomenergonadzor, then he released the book, at that approximately time period where he proved the impossibility of the existence of nuclear plants without caps, no matter what type of VVER or RBMK it is dangerous and criminal. But they spit on him, as they say, from a large bell tower, because it cost about 25-30 percent more about each station. And, since the Gosplan issued money for nuclear energy strictly specified, this means building 25-30 percent less, in a given period, nuclear power plants. (the question is hard to hear)
707
708No, PETROSYANTS, in particular, was not involved in these issues, as far as I know. This is the then leadership of the State Planning Commission: comrade Baibakov, comrade VOLOYANTS participated and Comrade. Slavsky is one of the main responsible and comrade. Unworthy. Here is the command: Neporozhny, Slavsky, VOLOYANTS and Baibakov. But at the same time, the role of Baybakov as he listened to Slavsky and Neporozhny, as power engineers. Moreover, this is not just due to the fact that there was no knowledge there. The knowledge was, experts, really not unanimous, because in our Kurchatov Institute the author of the development itself, Professor FEYNBERG Savely Moiseyevich, who had now passed away, he advocated the possibility of such a reactor without a cap, namely a RBMK type reactor (high-power channel reactor).
709
710It is important for me that you would understand: that if an international philosophy were adopted, that each reactor is under the hood, then the RBMK reactor would simply not appear, because it is a high-power channel and is assembled from many blocks and under no hood would fit. Therefore, there would simply be no designer's mistakes, because, in principle, this reactor would not have appeared. Now how did he appear and why did he appear. Because being late for 10 years in the development of nuclear energy. (question-clarification of the name FEYNBERG) FEYNBERG S.M. the physicist was good, of course, but he also got into the same story. Everything was confused here. (question, poorly audible, about A. Alexandrov, as a guardian)
711
712Anatoly Petrovich had nothing to do with the design of the RBMK reactor. But a little later I will talk about the role of Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov as much as I can objectively. From my point of view, he has some degree of guilt, of course, a small one. But he is too honored a man, he has done too much for the country to talk about it like that, but (the question that Aleksandrov said that the RBMK reactor could be put on Red Square) No, this is just a mistake. He said that really about one of the reactors this is the AST nuclear power plant of a completely different type, which is really the safest of all that exist in the world today, he said that it can be installed at least on Red Square. I will later talk about the role of Aleksandrov, but it is important for me that you would understand that the main thing was a 10-year delay. Because they were late for ten years, then it arose first of all ... (A line of hull reactors was developed in the world, such as our water-cooled power reactors / VVER / which was to be built near Minsk and which will not be built now but they needed large machine-building capacities, which the Soviet Union didn’t have in order to build the hulls; one hull was made for 2-3 years and then the Atommash plant was specially built to build the hulls for such reactors) ... question: no buildings, nuclear power it is necessary to develop and that's when fellow Slavskii Minister of Medium Machine comes with a proposal in parallel with VVER reactors ... (interrupts the narrative question, asked to decipher the abbreviation VVER and unlike RBMK)
713
714VVER reactors is a large metal body; the core falls into it; water overheats; the pressure is 170 atm. a two-circuit system heats the water of the second circuit, and the water of the second circuit, turning into steam, rotates the turbine. And the RBMK reactor is a one-loop reactor, it has many zirconium channels in them the water from the fuel pellets is heated and immediately this water enters the turbine and rotates it. Therefore, in VVER reactors, power is limited by the size of the reactor vessel, and in RBMK reactors, power is not limited by anything: you select a huge graphite layer, make holes in it, insert channels and you can gain more power. So, when it became clear that Sovetskaya’s energy was not enough, then Efim Pavlovich Slavsky, the Minister of Secondary Engineering said: "There is such a party, we can help the country out."
715
716Do you understand?
717
718This type of apparatus came from the Ministry of Medium Engineering, where several such apparatuses, for special purposes, were built and operated in the most unique way. There, the military acceptance of each item of equipment, specially trained personnel, the highest requirements, etc. These are the industrial reactors the Americans have. They are also not under the hood, because they are large, but there are only 4 of them, the Americans. And each of them is tracking and surveillance of a very high class. So, for Sredmashevtsev something, and in this sense, for Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov the same, there was a feeling that this reactor, with its correct operation, and with reliability, is very good and normal. But as soon as the first such reactor, the first immediately sadanuli near Leningrad, is 100 km away. from Leningrad, the first such RBMK reactor. And as soon as they started to start it, they immediately found out that the reactor was bad, that it was difficult to control it, that its neutron fields began to “walk”, the operators were sweating, they could not control it, due to its large size and specifics of nuclear processes.
719
720I had to change the degree of fuel enrichment, each time something ... well, in general, from the moment it was launched, some changes and changes were made all the time. And yet, due to the fact that 10 years were lost and due to the fact that the international philosophy that each device was hidden under a hood would not be accepted, these devices went into the national economy and began to be built not the Ministry of Environment, but the Ministry of Energy: Kursk, Chernobyl, Smolensk NPPs, with these RBMK reactors. Although in a whisper, all the operators, all the engineers and specialists said that this reactor was very difficult to control. In economics, in cost of kilowatt-hours of energy, in fuel consumption, it is about the same as VVER in some ways, somewhat worse, but it became clear that it was more difficult to manage. But, most importantly, I always come back to this, the MAJOR CRIME, which was committed, that Soviet atomic energy was allowed into CRIMINAL PHILOSOPHY, allowing to build stations without caps (any type: VVER-li, RBMK-li).
721
722There would be caps RBMK, simply, would not have appeared for anything
723
724How did he not appear anywhere in the world (this type of reactor). Then another mistake was that it was such a technique that it was dangerous to go the world route. Because, after all, this is a dangerous technique and when we deal with VVER-type reactors we can use all the world experience. Just think, we have a dozen or so reactors there, and the Americans have 90, and the British have 40, and the French have 60. And each one accumulates experience, mistakes, and all this is the property of mankind. But RBMK, of all things: the Leningrad station at first was, and Chernobyl, and no more. That’s the whole experience and: “we know everything that we know,” and then it turned out that we know very little about them here, the so-called “development path”.
725
726Firstly, it is national, which means it is not supported by any international experience. Secondly, the CMEA countries cannot be connected to this, because they did not have such an apparatus. Philosophy contradicts what it is. Yes, and the reactor design was laid down, I say at least three fundamental errors. Here they seem to me wild. And they always seemed wild, so that you would not look at me as a person who ... The fact is that our Institute was divided about this reactor.
727
728And then I’ll talk about Anatoly Petrovich. What is the savagery of his design mistakes, except for the cap philosophy? The savagery of mistakes lies in the fact that the security philosophy ... (and why do I say that? Because the security philosophy does not depend on what you are dealing with: a nuclear reactor; a biological object in which viruses multiply; or a chemical plant or with something third or fourth philosophy.
729
730They depend on specific technical solutions, and philosophy does not depend, since philosophy has three elements: a reliable apparatus as much as possible; reliable staff as much as possible; and to hide all this, with maximum reliability, underground, in a rock, under a concrete hood, this is a philosophy that applies to any object that makes the system reliable. But also with a certain reliable design) ... requires that if you have any emergency protection systems that stop: is there a car; whether the train is there; if something else, then you must have at least two protection systems, and they must act on independent physical principles, and one of the two systems should not depend on the operator.
731
732This is the law of safety theory. Because, say, well, suddenly the operator felt bad, and he didn’t press a button ..., something else ... then from exceeding the parameters themselves, from abnormalities, the second protection should work itself. So in the RBMK reactor there was ONE PROTECTION, unlike the VVER reactor, which is a gross violation of the principles. (first mistake) Moreover, the designer until today ... Now, if the RBMK reactor designers had heard me and my colleagues from my own Institute, they would now tear me to pieces, because they believe that, it turns out, he does not understand safety philosophy.
733
734Since the emergency protection system contains 211 lowering rods, they say that they did not have two systems, but 211 systems. Because they will remove 211 rods from them, each of which, falling into the reactor, can absorb neutrons and they say that there are already 211. But this is bullshit, because all these rods are dropped: from the operator; from the machine; from pressing a button, etc. And, if the operator was killed, he fell ill, died, then these 211 rods will remain in place. They still can’t understand this in any way ... or maybe it’s just a self-protective reaction like that, so they rattle me with terrible force, in this sense. Moreover, when the Chernobyl accident had happened, when it was necessary to make additions, I immediately proposed such an independent gas protection system for introducing such a gas ampoule into the apparatus (I will not tell you everything in detail). They very reluctantly accepted it, put it at the last moment for execution in the 90s, somewhere in their plans, and they themselves began to correct their second mistake. And the second mistake in the design, in addition to not two protections, but one, was ... (end of side "B", part 8, cartridge N 4)
735
736
737
738
739Cassette number 5
740
741
742
743Moreover, when the Chernobyl accident had happened, when it was necessary to make additions, I immediately proposed such an independent gas protection system for introducing such a gas ampoule into the apparatus (I will not tell you everything in detail), they were very reluctant to accept it, put it at the last moment for execution in the 90s, somewhere in their plans, and they themselves began to correct their second mistake.
744
745And the second design error, in addition to not two defenses, but one, was that, even for the humanities, it should be clear that if your power grows at a certain speed, what happens (you, say, trouble increases with a certain speed), it is clear that the protective system should be introduced into the system faster than this nuisance.
746
747And they had it, five to six times slower. (inaudible question) Yes, and reactivity increases 13 times per second, and the core drops there in 5-6 seconds. So they directed all efforts towards harmonizing these speeds and making a dry channel. That's how they clung to these unfortunate rods (mechanical, with the help of which ...) so they still can not tear themselves away from them. And so my proposal for gas shields was pushed off somewhere on a long journey.
748
749And now it turned out that you can’t do such a speed at the rod, in the end. So, having lost a year, I am now returning to this proposal of mine, therefore even today these RBMK reactors are not reliable. (unclear question).
750
751RBMK? 14 pieces I want to tell you all the time and I don’t know if I manage to do this, that it is a matter of security philosophy. If the security philosophy were correct, then our experts would certainly find technical solutions for this philosophy, because they are competent specialists, intelligent people, they can count and do other things.
752
753But the thing is that they were placed in such conditions
754
755There would be a mandatory cap philosophy, as a result, such an RBMK reactor could not appear and there would be no subject for discussion. And 14 VVER devices would not have appeared without these very, as they say, “naked”, not closed by anything. But, if VVER will explode, and yet it can explode the same, then it will already be a “tongue” not 80-90 kilometers, it will already be a “tongue” 250 kilometers. (the question is illegible) No, we have 14 VVER units without caps. (question unclear) No, 14 RBMK-s without caps and 14 VVER-s without caps. And only when we got caps, these are the stations that have been under construction for the last 5-6 years, and which are now being designed, and which will be under construction, now everything is being built with caps. Where did this come from? As soon as we began to sell Finam station. The Finns, according to international requirements, said: "Come on, we won’t take it without a cap." And so our first station appeared with a cap and in terms of its reactor characteristics it is very good, plus the cap that costs this is the best station in the world of Lovisa. And after that, we began to implement philosophy at home. Therefore, those stations that have been under construction for the last 5-6 years: here is Zaporizhzhya station in Ukraine; By the way, the station that was built near Minsk (with a cap would have certainly been built). (inaudible question, clarification)
756
757Well, the decision has already been made, so to speak, emotional. But I must tell you that just the Minsk station would not be any danger. (slurred question) Well, I see. The decision has been made and what to talk about now. But in fact, an accident could have happened on it: the reactor could have broken, anything could have happened. But everything would remain under the hood. That is the difference between the Minsk station, the Finnish station ... Like the Americans. They had a more terrible accident than this. But there everything remained under the hood.
758
759So this is the first violation of philosophy. What is the fault of Anatoly Petrovich Alexandrov? The fault of Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov is that he reluctantly, but gave sanction. I objected, I objected (along with specialists), but then I went to meet the insistent demands of the State Planning Commission and the Ministry of Energy that it is possible to build stations without caps. At first he fought very much, he fought (I can show this with documents), but then he gave up. But gave up how? Under the mandatory condition of the most thorough implementation of all routine operations and so on. And for the past 20 years, he has performed everywhere wherever possible (at the Politburo and so on): he demanded military acceptance; he demanded an improvement in the quality of equipment, etc., etc. That is, he fought so that the probability of trouble at the station, knowing that there was no cap, was minimal. He fought for it. But, what, all the same, he (how would I tell you?), Well, he didn’t lie down with a corpse, as they say, across all this philosophy, and that’s his only fault. There is no other fault. Because in all other cases he fought for the perfect thing.
760
761Although, it was difficult to fight, because a group of specialists (who, you know, there: hurray! Come on, come on!), You know, they were so strong that Victor SIDORENKO, being the director of the Department of Nuclear Reactors at our Institute, the author of this Doctoral dissertation and this book, he was kicked out of the Institute. He had to leave the Institute. Because, his own colleagues did not understand. Why didn’t their own colleagues understand him? And because: colleagues received his prizes from the Ministry; because the Institute was part of the Ministry of Environment. Do you understand? and therefore (they see that the director (and the director is a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences), and they have a worthless salary. He, there, will not be given a bonus of 100 rubles, he will survive, but I get only 180 and for me 100 rubles a bonus, this is important), if I’m "jabbing" wherever, at the expense of these caps, then I’ll get a shish, and not a bonus; I’m not going to publish it, I won’t defend my dissertation. And therefore, their own subordinates, brought up for years in this Ministry, with such an ideology, they kicked out their own boss. Well kicked out how? Well, they didn’t kick it out, but created unbearable working conditions.
762
763Although here he, along with Anatoly Petrovich, was fighting for quality, since the caps could not be broken. And he did a lot there for Gosatomenergonadzor to appear, where he eventually moved to work in an organization that at least controlled the composition of the equipment that goes there. That was the situation. Therefore, Chernobyl (see, why did I start from so far?), He reflected that in the Soviet Union, to this day, having survived Chernobyl, this philosophy (which is so primitive, so simple, the three components that I told you) is not a single dog understands so far, even in the nuclear industry. And it has not been transferred to the chemical industry, where we can have Bhopal at any moment (see?) For this very reason of incorrect philosophy.
764
765There is not a single organization in the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union or in national Academies that would be involved in the development of this philosophy. There is no ability to use the theory of risk and reliability of the equipment to evaluate the possible consequences of some events and prepare for them in advance (understand?) That is Chernobyl, like Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov at the Politburo on July 14, when the issue was discussed, he said: " I have the impression that the country is slowly and stubbornly, developing its nuclear energy, went to Chernobyl. " He said it was right that we were going to Chernobyl. Only, according to my estimation, it was supposed to happen not at Chernobyl, but at the Kola station and a few years earlier, when 4 there found out that in the main pipeline, through which the coolant is supplied, the welder would receive a bonus and make it faster, instead of In order to brew the valve, in the most critical place, he simply laid the electrodes in the channel and lightly welded them on top. It was miraculously simply discovered and this one, the most powerful accident, we would have simply lost the Kola Peninsula completely. And that could have been a few years ago. And simply by a miracle, as they say, this did not happen. And the capless station everything there would be polluted and the miracle of nature our Kola Peninsula would be destroyed. So I wanted to tell you all this so that you would understand that the origins of the Chernobyl tragedy are in the wrong philosophy, which began with the fact that 10 years were missed, then they began to catch up, catch up faster, faster, they suggested this option. Then the transfer.
766
767Unjustified transfer of military industry experience to the national economy
768
769This is a completely unjustified transfer, because, in the military industry: with a limited number of objects; with strict military acceptance, and more than once; manufacturer's military acceptance; military acceptance during operation; multiple exams; staff retraining, and so on and so forth ... And, when you suddenly, with the same facility, go to the national economy, where there is nothing like it: there are no simulators; there is no training system; in general, there is simply no training system, not to mention an emergency training system (understand?). Therefore, an atmosphere of complete preparedness for such accidents was created. And what I want to tell you today. But this is not yet for publication, because you and my head will be torn off, but to me, first of all, and to you, in the second place, that nothing has changed today ....
770
771(Legible, A. Adamovich’s words): "Adamov told me this already and Velikhov told me, actually everything continues by inertia. I told them the same thing, but how can I have access to Gorbachev back and forth. They tell me talked about their complete helplessness. " The helplessness is again connected with that (our universal) and lies in the fact that as long as there is a monopoly of some department specific to the system, this will continue. So, let’s say, according to this, the Politburo made the right decision to create, in the system of the Academy of Sciences, an appropriate organization, nuclear, because there is no alternative, there is no competition, but not 5 are in a hurry, the same Velikhov, for example. Knowing this, he is not in a hurry to create a powerful and correct alternative organization. (the question is not clear: “And what system holds all this apart from the Academy?) Minsredmash. It has everything, it has all the designers, everything is left in its hands, and the Ministry of Atomic Energy only deals with the operation department, it only deals with operation, nothing more Those who developed the equipment of Minenergomash.The situation worsened because there used to be Minenergomash, which made only atomic equipment, now it was combined with Minmash, in general, and this nuclear equipment turned out to be one of the items in its production assortment Therefore, the situation has only worsened. The probability of Chernobyl has now increased. Here I am writing a note to Nikolai Ryzhkov, another note, where the same thing: "... the probability increases every day because ..." again, these are capless devices ...
772
773(words of Adamovich A .: “Which are”.) Which are. And people understand that they are dangerous. But what are they doing? They are trying to increase the reliability of the reactor so that there would be no accident. And what does it mean to increase reactor reliability? This means: pushing him with new and new devices, some additional diagnostic tools, and so on, and so on. Moreover, this is done in different devices at different times. And the migration of staff is quite high, therefore: on one device they introduced changes to the regulations, on the other they did not enter, on this they did, on that they did not. Can you imagine? The old shift supervisor moved from one facility to another, thinking that it’s the same as his. Do you understand? Therefore, the probability now, due to the fact that people seem to be doing a good thing, increases the reliability of the devices, but in fact, due to a lack of understanding of this whole philosophy, they actually worsen the installation position. (excerpt from the illegible phrase of Adamovich A.: "... I understand that it is useless to write ...")
774
775It doesn’t bother you, it’s for me, so, just in case, it may come in handy when you write. This means that this applies not less, but to a greater extent to chemical enterprises, where we still have outrages of this kind, much more than in the nuclear industry. And I sit and tremble ... (now I say, indeed a person is even sick here and I’m lying, thank God they have already cured me) ... I’m sick precisely from what is most likely to happen in the near future, I’m just I call what I’m afraid, and I’m already afraid, because I once spoke at the Politburo, I said that the next accident in our country will happen in southern Kazakhstan with phosphorus, when all living things are dead within a radius of 300 kilometers. (inaudible speech by A. Adamovich) But I said so at the Politburo. They missed the ears. But after two weeks, this happens in America, a phosphorus accident, after two weeks, then they noticed. Do you understand? Thank God that it is not with us, and not at the plant, but on the railway tank transporting phosphorus, where they were forced to evacuate 30 thousand people, because of such a phosphorus accident. So I just know that the next nuclear accident will be at the Armenian station, and the whole of Armenia will be covered.
776
777Then the next most likely Bulgaria is “Kozloduy”, the next most likely is Leningradskaya, it will surely fall apart. Here are three nuclear. There will be a major chemical accident in Dzerzhinsk, this will be the largest chemical accident in history, and the largest accident will be in Kuibyshev, we have a chemical accident, and an accident will happen in Chimkent in southern Kazakhstan. (A. Adamovich’s words: “I’ll write it all down now, and then ...”) Check. (dictates) Nuclear: Armenian, Leningrad, "Kozloduy" Bulgaria, these nuclear plants where there are no-bell. Now chemical accidents: this is a Dzerzhinsk explosion, there must be a powerful explosion, then, the same thing, a volume explosion in Kuibyshev and Chemkent, at a phosphorus plant, an accident is possible in which the formation of phosphorus organics occurs, one breath is simply fatal, but "Rose of the Winds", according to prevalence, within a radius of 300 kilometers, with the entry into China, all living things will be destroyed.
778
779This is all what I call if the necessary measures are not taken
780
781Moreover, the measures that can be taken to prevent this from happening are known. But the most killing thing that makes, as they say, worry and hurt that the measures that need to be taken are known. Here, for example, I can really today ... (erased) ... well, that means that the information has reached the standard form. In advance, long before the accident, the Ministry of Energy warning system about the accident was adopted. And there was a code system. The information is in code, for example, some numbers are reported: 1, 2, 3, 4. 1 is a fire, 2 is radiation damage, 3 is a nuclear accident, 4 is a chemical hazard. And teams had already been formed in advance. In the event of a signal such and such, in such and such a place, such an emergency brigade is going to leave, here in Moscow. In case of a different situation, another brigade is assembled and so on. And so, on the night of April 26, all four types of signals appeared in the Ministry of Energy, signals of all types of possible danger. Such a command was given. Therefore, the Minister was immediately called and, immediately, all the specialists included in the list of persons who were supposed to leave were called. Since it was on the night from Friday to Saturday, some were in the dachas, so this procedure took two to three hours, 7 but they gathered everyone at the Ministry of Energy at night, then they found out about another hour at the expense of the plane and this group of people flew there early in the morning in place.
782
783I was not in this group, When they were going to, here, the same was one unpleasant moment. They established a telephone connection and information began to come from the station that contradicted encrypted signals, did not confirm them, but partially contradicted them. They began to say: they turned on the cooling, turned on that, turned it on. This created the impression that the reactor was living, that something serious had happened on it. In the morning they already reported that two people had died. But it was reported that one died there due to mechanical damage ... and the second died from chemical burns, because the fire did occur. What was really true. They simply lost one and (Adamovich A.'s weakly legible words "... and stayed there ...") ... there he remained buried in the sarcophagus, and the second really died from chemical burns, because a fire occurred in one place. But another: that at the same time, traditional radiation injuries have already begun and they haven’t reported anything else. And during the first half of day 26, information came from there in such a way that the staff was trying to cope with what had arisen: the device had left the submission and they were trying to subordinate it. Here, roughly speaking, such a situation. But, since all the same, the original signal was serious. He was transferred to the Government. The government has appointed a government commission.
784
785(A. Adamovich’s question “Who gave the first signal? Are they the same?”) Station staff. Director of the station. So, on Saturday morning I went to my ministry at 10 a.m. to my party-economic asset, where our elderly Minister of Secondary Engineering Slavsky spoke (question A. Adamovich: “What's his name, middle name?”) Efim Pavlovich (question A. Adamovich : “It was the Minister ...?”) Of secondary engineering (words of A. Adamovich: “of secondary, I’m writing down ...”) So, he made a big report, he always made long reports: he praised nuclear power, he praised himself, he praised own ministry and in passing this: "... it’s true that there is in Chernobyl, there’s a signal from has learned, well, there we are, as usual, on the right ... "and continued his report was handle and continued his report. He made a report. Break. At 12 o’clock, as I remember now. And during this break, the first deputy of Slavsky MESHKOV Alexander Grigoryevich (this is his first deputy, who was later removed from work for this accident)
786
787(words of Adamovich A.: "And he himself? He retired, just?") Slavsky? (words of Adamovich A.: “Yes.”) Well, how. He retired. (A. Adamovich’s words: “Well, it’s clear. Well, it seems to be.”) Well, yes, since it seems to be decorous, he left without any penalties, as they say. And so Alexander Grigoryevich MESHKOV came up to me and said that a Government Commission had been appointed and that I was included in this Government Commission, and that I should be at Vnukovo, at the airport, for departure at four o’clock. Head of the Government Commission, Boris Evdokimovich Shcherbina. I immediately jumped into the car, drove to the Institute, found specialists in this type of reactor. (I repeat that I myself, after all, are not a reactor engineer, although it seems to be the first deputy director of the Institute. But the Institute is huge: there are thermonuclear and nuclear physics and the separation of isotopes and the use of isotopes, and radiochemistry, and the devil and the devil. In my duties included chemical physics and the separation of isotopes and substances, as well as the use of nuclear energy in the national economy in the form of isotopes or something else.
788
789My department is the smallest
790
791Therefore, Anatoly Petrovich apparently appointed me the first deputy, so that I would not have self-interest to drag resources for some of my tasks. Among the "giants" there, among the nuclear reactors, thermonuclear scientists, I was the smallest, so to speak, proprietor. That is why he has appointed me as the first deputy for managerial affairs, for the possession of resources, I have worked for them for many years. I think that from these considerations, maybe he had other considerations). Well, I called specialists with drawings of the reactor with all the information that could be collected. Of course, I imagined the design of this reactor, but not in as much detail as a member of the Government Commission would have, say, in such an emergency. All that I could take with me and in 4-d I was at the airport. Shcherbina at that time was outside of Moscow, somewhere outside the capital, held some kind of event. We waited for him. He has appeared. I looked at the composition of the Government Commission (I will name the composition of this first commission, if necessary) and we flew to Kiev.
792
793On the way, I told Shcherbin the story of the accident at Three May Islan, in detail. That's what I did in flight, I told him what happened at Three May Island in America, what events took place there, what events. And the events there were simple, they all ran away and for three years did not approach this station in Three Mai Island, so that all the activities are Three Mai Aile. But in fact, for three days they fought so that the hydrogen bubble would not explode. Here they are, so to speak, blowing a hydrogen bubble. They blew, closed everything and for three years no one even approached the station. They killed 17 people there, the Americans. But not during the accident. During the accident, no one died, was not irradiated, but in a panic. They began to panic in the town. They rushed to do the self-evacuation in cars and during the evacuation process 17 people died in cars there so they draped the Americans. Here I am in Shcherbin in an airplane told this story.
794
795Arrived in Kiev. In Kiev, headed by Lyashko, the head of the Ukrainian Government. A huge crowd of black limousines. The faces are gloomy. Nobody could explain anything to us. They said that things were apparently bad. We sat on these cars and went there. The road was gloomy. There is no specific information. Therefore, such conversations, you know, yes no. I was driving in the same car with the Chairman of the Kiev Oblast Executive Committee SLEEP, which became a member of the Government Commission too. What special conversation could there be? Moreover, here, a measure of our illiteracy and a measure of misunderstanding of what happened was expressed, for example, in such facts. That I, for example, even having time to drop home, warn my wife that I’m leaving on a business trip. But as I was on the asset in my best uniform, so to speak, in my best clothes, etc., so I started off there.
796
797(Adamovich A.'s words: “But did you understand?”) Yes, here I am. That's how much we are confused by the scale of the accident. Do you understand? As far as I could not imagine, according to this information, the scale of the accident. But I didn’t have just one accident ..., thank God 180 x-ray in me was sitting before on all sorts of different cases and how to behave, etc. I knew. And the same cavalcade of black cars: Seagulls and others who went there, this is the same measure of knowledge, understanding on the first day. She talks about it. Then Shcherbina, when he returned from there, smashed his deputy badge with a hammer before our eyes. Well, so that no one would use it, he was so polluted (deputy badge), he personally hammered it into pieces with nothing hammer, nothing else worried. But it is so. In general, then there was an episode, a little later I will say the same about him.
798
799Well, we drove through Chernobyl. Chernobyl lives a peaceful life quietly good peacefully everything is very. We come to Pripyat. And a few kilometers to Pripyat, and 18 kilometers from Chernobyl to Pripyat. And here a few kilometers to Pripyat, well, so for 8 for 7, here for the first time I do not recognize the nuclear power plant. Because a nuclear power plant is always determined: pipes stand out of which nothing goes. Do you understand? This is the most characteristic sign of an atomic object when the pipe is standing, because it stands only for drawing air from which only krypton-85 extends, which I told you about and nothing more, but cleanliness around. And then suddenly a raspberry glow in half the sky and such white-white vapor blows from this reactor. Well, in general, this is not a nuclear power plant, my first impression was that I did not come to the nuclear power plant. We drove to the building of the city committee of the party in Pripyat, stayed in a hotel nearby, in which for several days then they lived in this hotel in Pripyat 10, and the headquarters ...
800
801(Adamovich A.’s words: “And people were already removed ..., people were taken out on Sunday ...) No. We arrived 26 at 8 hours 20 minutes in the evening. And at 20 hours 40 minutes, approximately, there was the first meeting of the Government Commission right in Pripyat in the city party committee. The first meeting of the commission was natural and simple. Shcherbina distributed responsibilities: he ordered Meshkov to select a group of specialists. If necessary, call from Moscow and establish the cause of the accident; he ordered me to develop measures to eliminate it. What to do, in short saying. The task fell on me in work offers because you have to do. Suggestions. Because the final decisions are taken collectively by the Government Commission, or in person Shcherbina.
802
803He made the decision as Chairman
804
805But to prepare proposals on what to do, it fell on my shoulders; VOROBYEV Evgeny Ivanovich, former Deputy Minister of Health, who was later removed the same way; his problem was to determine the number of people exposed, their fate and everything connected with people what to do; and the local authorities were members of the Government Commission, so, let's say, the Chairman of the oblast executive committee PLUSH their task was to prepare for the evacuation. These words were uttered immediately, directly: "Prepare for the evacuation" and carry out the orders, these are the ones that I will work out to eliminate the consequences of the accident. The first thing to do was to do reconnaissance. Because the dosimetric service is the same, by the way. Then I step a little to the side and say that dosimetry was disgustingly set. Dosimetrists with devices, instead of automatic machines. It would seem that they should be around there, as I write in the sentences: at the station itself, the first circle, the second circle in a kilometer, three kilometers and 10 kilometers a circle, Around there, after a hundred meters, there are automatic devices that give sound and light signals in case of exceeding doses.
806
807(words of A. Adamovich "DP-5 ...") Yes. But then the DT-5 was still not there in sufficient quantity when we arrived. Therefore, the main work was undertaken by ABAGYAN Armen Artovazdovich, Director of the Institute of VNII NPP (Institute of Nuclear Power Plants of the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the present, and then the Ministry of Energy)
808
809(words of Adamovich A.: "ABAGYAN ...") Armen Artovazdovich, a good man. And, a little later, such EGOROV arrived from the Adam Institute, but he arrived a day or two later. So they started to spend. Then PIKALOV appeared with his service. Here the dosimetric reconnaissance began. But, on the 26th evening we did everything approximately. But already on the 26th it became clear, we found out that the reactor was destroyed, and on the 26th at 11:00 pm a meeting of the Government Commission convened again and it considered two questions: the first question about the population. And here we had a heated discussion: SIDORENKO Viktor Alekseevich, who was also a member of the Government Commission from Gosatomenergonadzor, and he and I, mainly supporting him, insisted on the immediate evacuation of the population. Medicine objected. But here the whole thing is connected with the fact that the rules we have established are as follows: the USSR Ministry of Health gives the right to evacuate. Not, say, the Council of Ministers there, not the CPSU Central Committee, but the USSR Ministry of Health; and the rules that they worked out before this accident were as follows, by the way there are still no international rules at all. And the Ministry of Health has developed such rules: if there is a danger to a person immediately, or for some time to receive a dose of 25 rem, then the local government has the right (it has the right, but not the obligation) to carry out evacuation measures; if there is a probability of a dose load of 75 rem or more, then the local authorities are obliged to carry out the evacuation.
810
811So, if there is no threat of 25 rem, then no one has the right to carry out an evacuation. Between 25 and 75 rems this is a matter of local authorities. Well, above 75 rem is a prerequisite. These sanitary rules existed at that time. Direct measurements in the city of Pripyat, and the explosion occurred in such a way that Pripyat bypassed from two sides.
812
813(A. Adamovich’s words: “And went to Belarus.”) One part went to Belarus and the second part went to Ukraine, but in the other direction. And Pripyat turned out to be, at the time of the explosion itself, it turned out to be clean. And there, 10 rem was not recruited. Therefore, doctors were in a difficult position. According to their rules, they did not have the right, on the basis of the data that were available by 11 pm, to declare any evacuation. We, as experts said, (Adamovich A.’s words “... tomorrow will be”) that tomorrow there will be 25 and more. Do you understand? Therefore, evacuation must be declared immediately. Well, tomorrow it will be, but now it isn’t there, but what if it will not be tomorrow? Suddenly tomorrow the reactor will do something and everything will be stopped? Then how are we going to feel, are we breaking the law? In general, there was such a long dispute and Shcherbin, we must give him his due, he decided to evacuate.
814
815Doctors did not put their signature on the protocol. They set her up the next day at 11 a.m. But Shcherbin made a decision and the local authorities immediately began preparations. They called a thousand buses from Kiev, and preparing routes, determining the locations of the evacuated population. Unfortunately, there was no such loud-speaking local radio network that could announce this. Therefore, the arrived General BERDOV from Kiev gave the command: to all policemen to go around every apartment and declare that until tomorrow no one should go outside, sit in houses. Because in the houses there are no ...
816
817(A. Adamovich’s words "So, that wasn’t local ... / inaudible /) Well, I don’t know. I only know that the population was notified at night and early in the morning by going around all the apartments and setting them on duty ... (words Adamovich A. "27 or ... / inaudible /) ... 27 in the morning and 26 at night. Nevertheless, on the 27th morning there were women walking with their children, which also means they did not have time to notify someone or they came from somewhere and people going to the store and the city lived a semi-ordinary life nonetheless. But at 11 o’clock in the morning, already quite officially, after the doctors signed, the city was evacuated. Moreover, the same means that our inexperience is some kind of organizational, I would say.
818
819I understood, I must tell you frankly, I understood that the city will be evacuated forever
820
821But psychologically, I didn’t have, somehow, it means, the strength, the ability for people to announce this. Because I reasoned, for example, that if you now announce this to people, then the evacuation will be delayed, and the activity at that time was already growing exponentially. People will begin to gather for a very long time. Do you understand? Some other things will come up. But there is no such time. Therefore, I advised, and agreed with me, Shcherbina, to declare that the exact date of the evacuation so far we can’t name.
822
823(A. Adamovich’s words are illegible) No, no, that’s the term ... he’s wrong. Maybe someone understood it that way, but it was declared like this: “Maybe for a few days, maybe for a longer period ...”, well, it was announced in an indefinite form, but it was really announced so that people could understand that they were for several days disappear from their city. Do you understand? Therefore, they all gathered quite lightly and left. Then there was another mistake made. Some residents asked to evacuate in their own cars, and in the city there were about three thousand cars of this scale, their own, private.
824
825(Adamovich’s words: “They forbid ...”) No, they allowed, that Boris Evdokimovich, probably made a mistake, but it's hard to say. Let’s say they’ve allowed, some of the cars left. Part of the residents left in their own cars, but the cars were polluted, of course. Do you understand? But, on the other hand, people were polluted and their things were polluted. What a big difference there is hard to say. The evacuation itself took place in an extremely organized manner in two hours; all of the 51 thousand residents of about 45 thousand were evacuated, as I recall from the figure, they were evacuated.
826
827Those remained that were needed to save the city and maintain the station, and the Government Commission itself remained in Pripyat. At the same time, so, it may not go to print, or maybe it will. Do you understand what caught my eye? The party organization was dismantled. (A. Adamovich’s words “That is?”) Now, even during the war, all the same, when the retreat from the city was planned in advance, it was already determined: how did anyone remain underground, who were there in the army, who-what. And here, everything was so quick and sudden that ... (erased) ... there was no one to rely on, which means the highest party power. But this is a few days, and after a few days, of course, it all recovered.
828
829Now, the station personnel, who was supposed to serve the first and second blocks, were on duty, he was transferred, about 50 kilometers away, to the “Fairytale” pioneer camp. Here, when I appeared for the first time, the same picture was terrible, of course, because normal dosimetric posts were first established there. People changed clothes. And such an unforgettable picture when you drive up to the "Fairytale" and, probably, there are several thousand costumes, such civilian ones, hanging on trees. Because, of course, it’s interesting. Everyone is approaching, dosimetrists are measuring them, and all have dirty suits. And now, unfortunately, I remember my Finnish cloak, which my wife chose for a long time, an English suit ...
830
831(A. Adamovich’s words "on trees ..." / inaudible /) They simply hung them on trees. And so you eat by car, eat for a long, long time and now you see such a picture before ... (Adamovich A.’s words, “Ah, they just hung ...” / inaudible /) Before “Fairytale”. Well, here's how. You drive up to the gates of the fairy-tale pioneer camp. The dosimetrist measures you. Says: "undress." You undress. Take a few steps. Hang your suit on trees, wherever you are. You are given special clothes here, this one, the white one there, the blue one, and you go to the "Fairytale", where you are assigned a bed, place, life and other things. The next one pulls up. And so ...
832
833(A. Adamovich’s words. "And then you went to work by these suits ...") Well, we drove past these suits two or three ... (A. Adamovich’s words “And then?”). Then they, of course, were destroyed ...
834
835(A. Adamovich’s words “destroyed?”) Of course, then they were all destroyed. Buried, destroyed. (Adamovich A.'s words are not legible.) It impresses. Yes. Moreover, as stuffed such, all this was hanged. Well, another episode. Here we are with SIDORENKO, when we escaped (maybe spent a week in Pripyat) to Chernobyl and went into the store in Chernobyl (the same, like, specialists, like specialists) and buy ourselves at least, sort of: new underpants, T-shirts, shirts . Do you understand? Something to change clothes. Such underwear, what we dreamed about. We went in, bought ourselves very nice shirts, that's all, and when we arrived at Fairytale, we measured it, it was dirtier than that we were wearing. Already Chernobyl was enough ...
836
837(Adamovich A.'s words: / inaudible / "... this is in Chernobyl ...") Yes, pollution is in Chernobyl itself. (Adamovich A.'s words: "... and people lived in Chernobyl for another seven days ...") Somewhere after May 2, they began to be evicted. But in the end I have to say that way. The evacuation, the evacuation order, it does not matter from Pripyat or from Chernobyl, was carried out in such a way that (it’s better for you to say Ilyin or the doctors are different) in general, among the population that did not work at the station (that’s just lived), , at least no matter how much the victim, due to the slowdown, there was no evacuation at least for a day. Another thing. A lot of people who then, after 6-7 days, drank milk ...
838
839(A. Adamovich’s words: “Where?”) Well, somewhere, say, from cows that ... (Adamovich A.’s words: “In Chernobyl? ... / inaudible /) In Chernobyl, near Chernobyl, in your Belarus, anywhere. Do you understand? Yes? That is, well, iodine fell out first. Then the cows fed this weed with iodine. You see? Then they gave us milk, when they milked them later. And for those who drank iodine: and in children, in a sufficiently large number, they had a greater load on the thyroid gland.
840
841But external exposure or some kind of impact, so to speak, on those people who were evacuated. This was nothing
842
843But, returning to Pripyat, here I say: on April 26, at night, at 11 o’clock, it was decided that the next day the population would be evacuated, and before me and my colleagues the task was what to do? What to do?
844
845(Adamovich A.’s words “Excuse me, but there was the first commission, I probably called right there. Didn’t you call Shcherbin to Moscow? Didn’t you report to Gorbachev and the rest, well, now, well, the situation?”). on this day and in the following days, the connection was with Nikolai Ivanovich Ryzhkov and Vladimir Ivanovich LONG. There was a connection with them. Continuous, constant and so on. As far as I can imagine, but it is within my competence, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, well, I talked to him three times. And the first time with him ...
846
847(A. Adamovich’s words: “Well, I wonder what kind of conversation you had with him?) I probably won’t tell you, because ...
848
849(A. Adamovich’s words: “I won’t write down ...”) Or I’ll say. So, not for the record, but for human understanding. That means. Here I am, I heard him the first call (when I worked with Shcherbina I never heard him talking to Gorbachev. Whether he was or wasn’t, I just don’t know, I won’t lie), and when Silaev arrived, Silaev replaced and they left me, the whole commission , the first composition, left. (Adamovich A.'s words: / illegible /) They left me. Left me. First, for the first time, Sidorenko left me, and Shcherbina asked me to stay. Then they called me to a meeting of the Politburo on May 5. There I reported the situation. Then Silaev called Gorbachev himself and demanded me back and, right on the way, they seized me and again, after the Politburo, they sent me there again, but these are such personal things. So here. Before the Politburo, before May 5, when Shcherbina had already left, and Silaev appeared, it was May 3rd or 4th, so I heard Gorbachev's first call, which means Silaev and his conversation with him. This is the first. Were there conversations between Gorbachev and Shcherbina? I think it was not. It seems to me not a single conversation in the early days, it seems to me so. Well, maybe I'm wrong. And, in my opinion, Gorbachev’s first call was to Silaev somewhere after the May holidays, there on May 3rd and 4th. And already, the second, third, fourth calls I already spoke with Mikhail Sergeyevich, once Velikhov spoke with him, in my presence, according to the situation. That was it. And so, on a constant connection constantly Ryzhkov and LONG. So they, so to speak, made such a connection.
850
851(Adamovich A.'s words: / weak, poorly legible / "Well, what did Gorbachev ask you ... told ..." / inaudible / ") No, I turn off my ... (recording was interrupted) ... Chernobyl director was in shock, from start to finish.
852
853(Adamovich A.'s words: / illegible /) I saw him on the first day when I arrived there. BRYUKHANOV his name, director of the station. And the last time I saw him at a meeting of the Politburo on July 14, when the cause of the Chernobyl accident was considered. They asked him right there. And he was in shock all the time. He could not utter any reasonable actions and words. Therefore, this, he was in shock. What is he like as a person and why he was there in shock, but he was an incompetent person there. At the same time, let’s say, SHASHARIN, the first deputy Minister of Energy, to whom the station was then subordinate, was at a loss, he was also at a loss because, as you say, the situation was not planned for him, it’s not known how to behave in it, and he kept turning to us for help, how to behave. But he acted extremely energetically and selflessly. And yet I’ll finish all my manipulations with you, so that, so to speak (there is a lot of talk about them), the logic, so that you just understand the logic of the decisions made, in the end. The logic of the decisions was as follows. Well, let's say to introduce some component that would take heat away through chemical energy and transform it (well, let's say how we boil a kettle there), take heat and so on.
854
855At first I suggested casting an iron shot for this matter: firstly, it would have melted and a sufficient amount of energy would have been spent on its melting; secondly, heat conduction to metal structures would be ensured and then metal structures would begin to remove heat faster to air. But the iron fraction that was discovered at the station, it was infected with radioactivity, so it was impossible to load it into helicopters, firstly. Secondly, at the high temperatures that we intended, at some points, the process would be the opposite: iron would oxidize and the temperature would rise (see?) Even more.
856
857(A. Adamovich’s words / inaudible /) Therefore, this, therefore, option has disappeared. Lead appeared for those marks where the temperature was relatively low: there are 200, 300, 400 degrees. It would be there that it would melt, take on energy, and still be a protective shield, to some extent, and at the same time, there would still be some kind of heat-conducting element. Moreover, we even thought that it would partially evaporate. In high areas, cool and drain again. That's how, you know, in refrigerators, such a freon circulation will be. This will facilitate heat transfer. That is probably what happened. I repeat, then there was a lot of talk about lead, these same poisonings. But now they are preparing an accurate reference for analysis of all soils: both in the 30-kilometer zone, and further from it. Everything that so far has given me no differences from Moscow there or Minsk or something else. There is lead everywhere, but one which comes out of the exhaust gases of cars from us (you know?). There are no excesses. And in people, doctors have never found a trace of lead in any person directly working there.
858
859This is idle talk
860
861Although they were so common very much. dolomite we threw there is magnesium-CO-three, such a substance. It decomposed the same. The temperature was taken away and decomposed into magnesium-O and CO-2. CO-2, which means that oxygen access was reduced, as in fire fighting (understand?). And magnesium-O, of all the ceramics, is the very one, such a heat-conducting ceramic, it conducted the same heat. And finally, sand, he played the role of iron only without oxidation. If the temperature is high, then he melted and took energy to himself. Sand played a double role: on the one hand it melted, and we found it. And the energy of the reactor went into melting. He took energy from the reactor so that uranium would not melt there. And, in addition, we added clay to simply filter it. In order for the radioactive particles that came out, it would filter out. So that the radioactive particles are filtered out with this layer. As western experts showed, after our report ... (end of side “A”, part 9, cassette 5.) ... IAEA that the activities were innovative, so to speak, generally speaking, although they were really invented on the go , and this hour they are recommended.
862
863To my surprise (I thought they would criticize us because: there was no preliminary plan, everything is on the move) now the English Conference, the Vienna Conference have passed and officially our events have been recommended for the future, such as very effective and useful.
864
865(A. Adamovich’s words: “Tell me, did all the graphite burn out there?”) No.
866(A. Adamovich’s words: “Well, they’ve put out something for something ...”) Yes, yes. Look here. The fire is over ...
867(A. Adamovich’s words: “It started somewhere in four near five evenings graphite burn ...”) Yes, it started to burn.
868(A. Adamovich’s words / inaudible / "... judging by these notes that I ...") The burning of graphite began somewhere around 26-27 ...
869(Adamovich A.'s words: "No, sorry, on the 26th in the evening ...") Yes. On the 26th evening, at 6-7 o’clock in the evening, when there was a crimson glow, when we passed.
870(Adamovich A.'s words: "Yes ..." / inaudible /) That's right. And the fire ended completely on May 2. Completely.
871(Adamovich A.'s words: "... yeah, it means May 2 ..." / inaudible /) And after May 2, somewhere else several times, there were traces of a glow: whether graphite or metal designs warmed up. And the last time it was observed on May 9 or 10. And that’s it. And after that, there was never anything.
872
873(A. Adamovich’s words: / inaudible / "... here you are in relation to nitrogen ...") Here in relation to nitrogen. There is a lot of confusion in the international press that there Velikhov was somewhere around 26 on the roofs there something like that was measured, for example, by Evgeny Pavlovich, and at that time he was drinking vodka in his dacha on the 26th and did not know anything.
874
875(Adamovich A.'s words: “Was he not on the 26th?”) He was not there. Yes there wasn’t. On nitrogen. (this is during the Silaev period, when Silaev had already arrived) I proposed to supply liquid nitrogen for cooling. My suggestion was stupid, as practice has shown. But I proceeded from what? I thought the reactor shaft was solid. Do you understand? And then if liquid nitrogen is mixed into the air (and we get it very quickly, I must say, we drove a whole train of nitrogen) and, therefore, we will more intensively cool the hot zone with cold air. But then it turned out that the side walls of the reactor were destroyed. Therefore, all the nitrogen which (and we found a place where to feed it) we supplied, it went outside the zone, did not cool anything, and the natural air circulation was so powerful that this nitrogen, like a drop in the sea, as they say. Therefore, we very quickly abandoned this event. And in the report, when I was preparing for Vienna (it’s true that the phrase was deleted in the Central Committee, but it was in the original version), that among the ineffective measures was an action for blowing liquid nitrogen. Now, what else did I want to say about these events? I repeat that they were born all the time in continuous telephone conversations with Moscow, with specialists who: believed, did thermophysical calculations.
876
877For example, Anatoly Petrovich Aleksandrov dolomit, and here is my student, who was calling me now, SILIVANOV, they considered what material to take that would give CO2, and at the same time, heat-conducting material. That's how they came to the dolomite, which they delivered to us very quickly. And a lot of telegrams came to us from abroad (by the way, like that).
878
879And from these telegrams right away I realized nobody was ready for this kind of accident
880
881Because, well, one telegram was simply provocative, obviously a provocative explosion to arrange an additional, well, it was proposed to us to introduce nitrate mixtures there.
882
883(A. Adamovich’s words: “To blow up ...” / inaudible /) Well, if we introduced it, just another explosion occurred. But this one was such a telegram.
884(Adamovich A.'s words: “What kind of nitrate mixture is this?”) Well, explosives. Essentially it was proposed to introduce explosives. Apparently, people thought that we were in a panic and they proposed such a solution, such and such a composition, the nitrate containing there to enter. Well, the water would immediately boil away, but pure ammonium nitrate would remain, and ammonium nitrate would be pure explosives, and everything would be smashed to hell. From one of the countries (Sweden, in my opinion, it was, if my memory serves me right), we got this provocative ...
885
886(A. Adamovich’s words: “... is this from Sweden?”) In my opinion, yes, from Sweden, but here I’m not sure, I can’t vouch for the memory, maybe it wasn’t Sweden either. But from abroad, a telegram. And a huge number of benevolent telegrams, the vast majority of benevolent tips: how do we act, what to put out, put out and so on. But from the content of the telegrams it was clear that that’s all, you know, just like that, people fantasize like we do here. Do you understand? And not that they had worked out any experience.
887
888(Adamovich A.'s words: "... and the people are broadcasting that the Japanese proposed something like this, so that we would give them the Kuril Islands, and they would pay it all to us ...") I do not know.
889(Adamovich A.'s words: "... another thing that SAKHAROV came ..." / hereinafter inaudible /) 19 This certainly did not happen.
890(A. Adamovich’s words / inaudible /) That's why there wasn’t exactly, that wasn’t for sure. Well, here, the logic of these events was this. When the fire ended, when we established that the surface temperature (such an observed one) does not exceed 300 degrees Celsius, well, all measures aimed at eliminating the outbreak itself, that’s for its spread, are over. This does not mean that the spread of radioactivity has ended.
891
892(Adamovich A.'s words: "... and these are harmful ..." / inaudible /) I will say a bit about the ratio / inaudible /. Radioactive emissions were still going on, but, of course, everything was smaller and smaller, until about May 20. Because all the same there was a hot zone. A certain amount of aerosol particles was released, of course, with ascending air currents, and, here, cesium spots, for example, which cause so much trouble for Belarus, they formed until the 22nd, maybe the 23rd, even May . Well, everything is smaller and smaller. (A. Adamovich’s words / illegible /) Well, basically: cesium, strontium.
893
894(words of Adamovich A.: "... ah, this muck ...") Yes. Because, say, more such unpleasant things as: plutonium, as we set the distribution radius of 12 kilometers. Farther than 12 kilometers, nothing got from the station. And here: cesium, strontium (these are these spots) they, therefore, have penetrated into large areas. (volume reduction, ambiguity) ... cesium removal, because everything is hotter. Why cesium? Because he, of all these elements of such metals that are there, of all, he is the most fusible at a temperature of 700, with a small, degrees Celsius already, so to speak, evaporates. Melting and evaporation of saturated vapors are high. Therefore, he, in fact, flies. Our goal was, the main thing: to prevent the temperature of 2,500 degrees. What a merit of those people who gave a lot of time there in the early days.
895
896We needed to not reach a temperature of 2,500 degrees, that’s the main goal
897
898(A. Adamovich’s words / inaudible /) Because 2,500 degrees is the melting temperature of uranium dioxide tablets, and the main activity sits inside these tablets. Therefore, if the temperature reached 2,500 degrees, then it would not be 3 / three / percent of the activity that came out, but all 100 percent. That is, 30 times all pollution: the area of ​​territories, the degree of pollution, its intensity, would increase by 30 times, relative to what happened. 33 times, almost. But in fact, even more, because the filthy isotopes would go, much more heavier than cesium, the same one. Do you understand? Here. And so the whole point of all of our activities came down to just not 2,500 degrees. Why did Ryzhkov all the time send telegrams: what is the temperature? What temperature? how much did you rise there? And here we are, the maximum temperature that we recorded there was about 2000 degrees, then with these measures, all kinds of weeds, we began to reduce it and reduced, in the end, to 300 degrees. And now there is a maximum temperature (still life goes on, not a reactor, but its remains still live there) somewhere around 60-70 degrees Celsius. Here is such a scale. Do you understand?
899
900(A. Adamovich’s words, “But if you leave it unattended, maybe ...?”) Oh, on account of leaving it unattended, I will say the same later, separately. Now about something else. That there would be an understanding. The main goal of all events ...
901
902(Adamovich’s words: “I see ...”) ... was: prevent 2,500 degrees.
903(A. Adamovich’s words: “All uranium, there ...”) It would melt all and all the main activity (since only three and a half percent of it would come out), otherwise all one hundred percent of the activity would go out and fly around the globe. You understand? That makes sense.
904
905(Adamovich’s words: “And how much is it all ...?”) Is it all in the reactor? There are 1,700 tons in this reactor.
906(Adamovich’s words: “Uranus?”) Uranus, yes, the fuel itself. This goal has been achieved.
907(Adamovich A.'s words: “Telegrams came from Ryzhkov. You didn’t hear what kind of conversation he had with him, it’s purely practical.”) I heard and talked with Ryzhkov and I made a report to him when they arrived with Ligachev, and with LONG I talked on the phone many times.
908
909(A. Adamovich’s words: “There was a conversation, probably what will you do and did you report?”) Report, what is being done. The question is what is needed from Moscow. Full approval of our actions. Very calm. But with Ryzhkov I really liked all the conversations, and with LONG. They were extremely businesslike.
910
911Source: http://pseudology.org/razbory/Legasov/00.htm