I was evacuated from Chernobyl as a child, but our nightmare continued
By Alina Rudya, as told to Newsweek
It’s natural to wonder how our choices shape the life we lead, but for me, everything changed when I was just a year old. My life, my family and my future was forever changed on April 26, 1986. From that day on, I would forever be known as a child of Chernobyl.
I was just a baby at the time, living in Pryp’yat with my parents. My dad, Constantine Rudya, was the senior reactor control engineer on Reactor No. 2 on the night of the accident. It is quite likely that he was one of the first people to understand the seriousness of what happened.
But he never could have known just how much the events of that night would change the trajectory of my life and millions of others.
From our homes to our health, everything was thrown into chaos. Just over a day after the explosion, my mom, who was just 24 at the time, and I were evacuated to Kharkiv, where my grandparents lived. That was a terrifying time for the survivors, as my mom later told me that doctors were frightened to see us because they had no experience of treating radioactive exposure.
As for my dad, he remained on site as he continued working on the second reactor.
Many people thought they would return home within days, but that was not the case. Following our move to Kharkiv, my mom and I subsequently moved to Kyiv, where many evacuees from Pryp’yat settled, especially in the district of Troieshchyna.
As a child, I did not fully understand the gravity of it, although I regularly went through blood checks and medical monitoring (that I still require to this day). Many children at my school were also from evacuated families, so being a child of Chernobyl did not feel unusual amongst our community.
In fact, many of the young evacuees were invited to spend summers with families in Germany and France. They became such meaningful experiences for me and even inspired me to study German.
My father continued working at the plant for many years thereafter, and one day, he was allowed to return to our family’s apartment and retrieve some valuables we had left behind. Of course, they had to be checked for radiation before he could take them out of the exclusion zone.
He later founded a scientific Chernobyl research center, studying the effects of ionizing radiation on the environment and working with prominent scientists from Germany, France, Japan and the U.S. It was always a major part of his life. He used to visit his former colleagues who were hospitalized with acute radioactive sickness, many of whom are unfortunately no longer with us. My father actually knew many people who later became known worldwide through documentaries and the HBO series, Chernobyl.
My father sadly passed away from an aggressive form of bone cancer connected to long-term radiation exposure. That was not just from the 1986 disaster, but also from his later work inside the exclusion zone.
Many evacuees, myself included, experience thyroid-related health complications. Exposure to the high levels of radioactive iodine-131 causes an increased risk of thyroid cancer, so I continue to receive regular health checks. I remain mindful of the long-term health risks and I listen to my body cautiously, even after all these years.
I sometimes wonder how different my life would look if the nuclear disaster never happened.
My father might still be alive, and we probably would have remained in Pryp’yat, at least throughout my childhood. I likely would not have ended up in Germany because my connection to this country began through the programs created for the children affected by Chernobyl.
It shaped my life deeply. My father was a nuclear physicist, but also an amateur photographer, and we always had cameras at home. He brought me National Geographic magazines in the 1990s, which inspired my love of photography. Although I did not become a physicist like him, I followed his creative side and became a professional photographer.
Now, a lot of younger people only know about Chernobyl through what they see on television and in documentaries. I have tried watching some of them over the years, but I usually cannot finish them because they are just too emotional, especially since I knew some of the people portrayed (either personally or through my parents’ stories).
Chernobyl will always be part of my story and a link to the past, but it does not define me completely. I continue to live my life fully, travel, and work as a photographer.
My connection to Chernobyl remains, but it is only one part of who I am.
Alina Rudya, 41, is a professional photographer who splits her time between Berlin, Germany and Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Over the years, Rudya has visited the Chernobyl exclusion zone as part of various photography projects in the area, and has also published her own photography book, Prypyat Mon Amour, documenting the residents who were evacuated.
