Ablaze
The Story of Chernobyl
Piers Paul Read
PART ONE
THE NEW CIVILIZATION
This fundamental transformation of the social order the substitution of planned production for community consumption, instead of the capitalist profit-making of so-called Western Civilisation seems to me so vital a change for the better, so conducive to the progress of humanity to high levels of health and happiness, virtue and wisdom, as to constitute a new civilisation.
Sidney and Beatrice Webb
The Truth About Soviet Russia
(1942)
PART TWO
CHERNOBYL
For man must strive, and striving he must err.
Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Faust, Part I (1801)
PART THREE
RADIOPHOBIA
Ideas that have outlived their day may hobble about the world for years, but it is hard for them ever to lead and dominate life. Such ideas never gain complete possession of a man, or they gain possession only of incomplete people.
Alexander Herzen
My Past and Thoughts (1861)
The Founders of Soviet Atomic Power
Igor Kurchatov | Father of the Soviet atom bomb |
Lavrenty Beria | Chief of the NKVD. Director of the atomic bomb project. |
Efim Slavsky | Minister of Medium Machine Building |
Nikolai Dollezhal | Designer of the first nuclear reactors. Director of NIKYET |
Anatoli Alexandrov | Director of the Kurchatov Institute. President of the Academy of Sciences |
Valeri Legasov | Academician. First deputy director of the Kurchatov Institute |
Staff of the V. I. Lenin Nuclear Power Station at Chernobyl
Victor Brukhanov | Director |
Vasili Kizima | Head of construction |
Nikolai Fomin | Chief engineer |
Anatoli Dyatlov | Deputy chief engineer, 3rd and 4th units |
Mikhail Lyutov | Scientific deputy chief engineer |
The early morning shift on 26 April
Boris Rogozhkin | Chief of shift, 3rd and 4th unit |
Alexander Akimov | Shift foreman, 4th unit |
Leonid Toptunov | Senior reactor control engineer |
Piotr Stolyarchuk | Senior unit control engineer |
Igor Kirschenbaum | Senior turbine control engineer |
Yuri Tregub | Shift foreman prior to Akimov |
Valeri | Shift foreman, equipment |
Perevozchenko | maintenance department, 3rd and 4th units |
Victor Proskuriakov | Engineer under Perevozchenko |
Sasha Yuvchenko | Proskuriakovs replacement |
Alexander Kudriatsev | Engineer |
Gennady Metlenko | Engineer from Donenergo |
Alexander |
Lelechenko | Head of the electrical workshop |
Razim Davletbayev | Deputy head of the turbine section |
Piotr Palamarchuk | Director of the start-up enterprise |
The engineers from Komsomolsk
Anatoli Sitnikov | Deputy chief engineer, 1st and 2nd units |
Vladimir Chugunov | Head of the reactor workshop, 1st and 2nd units |
Vadim Grishenka | Deputy chief engineer, 5th block (under construction) |
PRIPYAT
Vladimir Voloshko | Secretary of the city committee |
A. S. Gamanyuk | Party secretary |
Major Teliatnikov | Commander of the Pripyat and Chernobyl nuclear power station fire service |
Lieutenant Pravik | Duty officer of the nuclear power station fire service on night of 2526 April |
Lieutenant Kibenok | Duty officer of the Pripyat fire service on the night of 2526 April |
Vitali Leonenko | Director of the Hospital |
Anatoli Ben | Surgeon |
Lubov Kovalevskaya | Acting editor of Tribuna Energetica |
MOSCOW
The Central Committee
Mikhail Gorbachev | General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union |
Nikolai Ryzhkov | Soviet prime minister (Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR) |
Yegor Ligachev | Secretary of the ideological department |
Alexander Yakovlev | Secretary of the propaganda department |
Vladimir Marin | Head of the nuclear power department |
Defence and Civil Defence
Marshal Akhromeev | Chief of the Soviet general staff |
General Altunin | Commander of the Soviet civil defence |
General Ivanov | Second-in-command of the Soviet civil defence |
Colonel General Pikalov | Commander of the chemical troops |
Ministries and Institutes
Efim Slavsky | Minister of Medium Machine Building |
Anatoli Mayorets | Minister of Energy and Electrification |
Armen Abagyan | Director of the All-Union Research Institute for Nuclear Power Plant Operation (VNIIAES) |
Yuri Israel | Director of the State Committee of Hydrometeorology |
The Kurchatov Institute
Anatoli Alexandrov | Director |
Valeri Legasov | First deputy director |
Yevgeni Velikhov | Deputy director. Expert on nuclear fusion |
Eugene Ryzantzev | Head of the nuclear safety department |
Alexander Kalugin | Scientist responsible for RBMK reactors |
Konstantin | Physicist |
Fedulenko |
Yuri Sivintsev | Physicist |
The Institute of Biophysics
Leonid Ilyn | Director |
Victor Knijnikov | Head of the laboratory |
In-patient Department of Institute of Biophysics at Hospital No. 6
Angelina Guskova | Director. Formerly Kurchatovs personal physician |
Alexander Baranov | Head of the haematology department |
Georgi Seredovkin | Specialist in radiation sickness |
Robert Gale | American bone-marrow transplant specialist |
The Press
Vladimir Gubarev | Science editor of Pravda. Author of the play |
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