My name is Vita Polyakova.
I work as a guide for a governmental body
who's responsible for all the visits in the exclusion zone.
That sound of beeping all the time,
it can become nerve-racking.
After the explosion the reactor didn't exist any more.
The active core blew up.
The steam literally drenched all the exclusion zone
around the reactor.
This is Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the very center,
then we have 10 kilometer zone, and then
we have 30 kilometer zone.
The structure which you see right
now that is the sarcophagus.
Inside, we have the fuel containing masses,
and that is the source of radioactive dust.
The radioactive dust has been coming
through the holes for 27 years.
The radiation, which we see here,
that is radioactive dust coming from inside.
Plus the walls may just collapse.
This is perfect weather to be here,
because it's after the rain.
The ground is moist, and it's humid,
so everything is staying in place.
The worst kind of weather would be
hot, windy, dry weather because then the wind picks up,
the radiation blows around.
That's why the radiation maps keep
changing, because the radiation doesn't stay in one place.
It moves around.
Oh my gosh, look at that.
That's a ruin.
I haven't been here for probably seven years,
so it'll be interesting to see what's changed.
Everything.
Valentyna has had some health problems.
She was at the reactor site the night of the disaster.
That means that she got some pretty serious radiation doses.
So she got thyroid cancer and had her thyroid removed
two years after the accident.
A mushroom isn't just a mushroom.
It's a huge, huge organism, and the layers in which
it is absorbing nutrients are the most
radioactive layers of the soil.
If you're eating mushrooms, you might be absorbing radiation
actually from a great distance.
So this may be clean.
This area here may be clean, but these mushrooms might be dirty.
And the only way of knowing is taking them to a lab,
burning them, and testing them.
If they're eating the local food,
they are absorbing radiation, cesium,
which accumulates in muscle, and strontium,
which accumulates in bone.
This forest, it looks like a storybook to me.
But there's a deeper story.
Geiger counters take the measurements,
and then every hour they update the information,
and over here on the screen one can see that.
The level of radiation here actually exceeds the limit.
We are forced to eat.
That's all the Ukrainian landladies have to feed
their guests till they are just Only then
they're persuaded you are happy and they
have fulfilled their duty.
Otherwise, they get insulted.
Lethally insulted.
I'm just begging you, please let me help you.
VITA POLYAKOVA: Here we are.
I know there are risks.
But as for these babushkas I just can't say no.
Just eat the minimum you can, drink the minimum you can,
and that's it.
When I first came and nabbed them still living here,
I was amazed how kind they are, how strong they are.
They are so committed to what they do to their homeland
although it is contaminated.
There's one lady in Zalissia?
They really are dying off.
Younger animals-- and we're including humans
among animals-- are far more susceptible
to the effects of radiation.
The reason why they have semi-officially
allowed the babushkas to live here
was because they figured that old age
will kill them before any kind of radiation does.
Hello?
Wild boars can pop out of anywhere.
For the people who came back, it's
impossible to tease out what's radiation, what's
drinking, what's smoking.
So far the only cancer that has been
absolutely definitely connected to Chernobyl is thyroid cancer.
That said, the upper estimates are
that up to tens of thousands might have died
of radiation induced cancers.
All of the medical studies are flawed.
And flawed in such a way that partisans
on both sides of the nuclear debate
can argue that the studies prove their point,
and that's one of the big problems.
You don't come here for clear answers.
MARY MYCIO: What the zone will be in the future?
It will be that sarcophagus, and it will be that new covering
on the sarcophagus.
And how they intend to make that last forever-- which
it will have to-- is sort of one of the great mysteries
of Chernobyl.
It'll have the last longer than the pyramids.
What's going to happen 5,000 years from now?
What's going to be there?
Something has to be there, and if nothing's there people
will unknowingly go live there and die, not knowing why.
Now that it seems that probably every generation
or so there will be a catastrophic breakdown
at a nuclear power plant, it's something that the world
needs to think about.
The babushkas' generation is passing.
The population is definitely dwindling.
You always kind of wonder about the last specimen
of a dying species and how lonely that must be.