"Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster" by Svetlana Alexievich, translated from the Russian by Keith Gessen
That great empire crumbled and fell apart. First Afghanistan, then Chernobyl. When it fell apart, we found ourselves all alone. I'm afraid to say it, but we love Chernobyl. It's become the meaning of our lives. The meaning of our suffering. Like a war. The world found out about our existence after Chernobyl. We're its victims, but also its priests. I'm afraid to say it, but there it is.
And it's like a game, like a show. I'm with a caravan of humanitarian aid and some foreigners who've brought it, whether in the name of Christ or something else. And outside, in the puddles and the mud in their coats and mittens, is my tribe. In their cheap boots. And suddenly I have this outrageous, disgusting wish. "I'll show you something!" I say. "You'll never see this in Africa! You won't see it anywhere. Two hundred curies, three hundred curies". I've noticed how the old ladies have changed, too — some of them are real movie stars now. They have their monologues by heart, and they cry in all the right spots. When the first foreigners came, the grandmas wouldn't say anything, they'd just stand there crying. Now they know how to talk. Maybe they'll get some extra gum for the kids, or a box of clothes. And this is side by side with a profound philosophy — their relationship with death, with time. It's not for some gum and German chocolate that they refuse to leave these peasant huts they've been living in their whole lives.
Source: The Paris Review
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