The World's Most Radiated River

«Usually when you are looking at an environmental catastrophe, you know it. Disasters have the look and feel of the natural order disassembled. In my mind, disasters should smell, smoke, or produce ugly scars. Yet nothing was out of place along this inviting little stream. The air was fresh. Swallows darted back and forth over the current. The afternoon was turning hot and, as if siren were calling me, I had a desire to slip down and run my feet over the smooth stones in the river bottom. There were no fences or warning signs to stop me.I had to remind myself that I stood before the world’s most radiated river»

Kate Brown 

The first Soviet industrial reactor was constructed in Chelyabink oblast near the lake Kyzyl-Tash and began it’s operation back in 1948. Plutonium that was produced by this industrial reactor was used for construction of the first Soviet atomic device. Later, a number of other plutonium production reactors were constructed at the Production Association «Mayak», which is now one of the biggest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation. 

The decision on it’s construction was made back in 1946, involving around 45,000 of construct builders and prisoners into this secret project. An area of almost 100 km2 was surrounded by the borderland and cordons of soldiers and it wasn't even shown on a map. Perhaps, this was the reason why the Kyshtym accident, one of the worst nuclear disasters in the human history, was kept unknown for almost 30 years. However, this is a different story and today I would like to shade a light on the tragedic fate of the people from the shores of Techa river.

Techa River warning sign

In the 1950s nuclear technology wasn’t well studied and there was not enough knowledge about reprocessing and storing of radioactive wastes. As the result, radioactive effluents were discharged directly into Techa river, leading to the severe contamination of the «Mayak» surroundings. 

Warning sign forbidding picking berries and mushrooms in this area

The Techa river is about 240 km and at the time of radioactive pollution there were 41 rural settlements along its riverside with a resident population of 28,000. Inhabitants of these settlements were not informed about deadly discharge of radioactive wastes in the river and kept the normal habit of life. They used water from the Techa river as drinking water, they cultivated their contaminated pieces of land and used contaminated flood lands as a pasture for their cattle.

Two years after beginning of radioactive wastes discharge into river, medical health checks of the residents started. They demonstrated that a majority of inhabitants experienced changes in their hemopoietic, immune and other systems. Furthermore, there were several hundreds of Mayak facility workers facing the same health conditions. They complained about headaches, sharp pains in bones and joints, constant weariness and loss of weigh. Medical professionals had no choice but to define a new condition that people were developing, so this led to the introduction of chronic radiation sickness (CRS), a syndrome which is caused by extended exposure of the organism to the low doses of radioactive isotopes.

Radiation victims

Even though special forces made an effort to resettle most of the contaminated villages along the river stream, some of them were too large and, therefore, too expensive to move. The village of Muslumovo is one among many that stayed and it is now the closest settlement to Mayak facility. 

Today, Muslumovo reminds a scene from S.T.A.L.K.E.R., however unlike the game, there are still some people living in this area. Local population gets exposed to radiation both externally (the Techa river bottom sediments and it’s shoreline) and internally (through the consumption of fish, milk and vegetables from contaminated land). Scientists report an increase in total cancer mortality, which is 5 times an average in the country, as well as increased frequencies (up to 2 to 5 times as many cases) of leukopenia, neutropenia, thrombopenia, immuno-suppression and still-births.

22 years old Raisa committed suicide as she couldn't cope with the pressure from cancer disease. Muslumovo. 

Unfortunately, the residents have nowhere to escape from this radiation zone as ever since Soviet Union collapsed, Russian government failed deliberately to resettle Muslumovo residents. In 2008 some lucky residents were resettled, but only as far as to the other side of the river, which doesn't seem to be much less radioactive. 

Kate Brown, the author of «Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and the Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters», believes that residents were kept together as the valuable base for future medical research. 

For Soviet leaders, it was a priceless opportunity to engage into «a natural experiment» that promised to answer how to survive a nuclear attack. For Russian government, it is a chance to attract foreign investors. For instance, in 2001 Russian Ministry of Health brochure promoted the «Muslumovo cohort» as a data set with «worldwide significance for the evaluation of the risk of the carcinogenic and genetic impact of chronic radiation in humans». It seems that U.S Department of Energy has great interest in this as it invested heavily in the data set from Urals.

A man walking from his old house to his new house, which is only 1.7 km away

The Mayak Production Association continues functioning today, however, releasing it’s waste into Karachai lake instead of Techa river and this means that the tragedy may repeat one day. Those poor souls damaged by the radiation from the river will never recover, and so many generations of their children. 

Here is a poem written by the kids from one of the affected villages:

Посылает Маяк не спасенья лучи:

Стронций, цезий, плутоний - его палачи.

(«Mayak» is not sending us the lights of salvation,

Strontium, cesium, plutonium - it’s deadly executioners)