It makes no sense. Everyone told them to leave. But two hundred grandmothers from the Ukraine decided to return after the Chernobyl reactor exploded.
The
journalist who stumbled upon them when she was covering the twenty fifth anniversary of the catastrophe, was stupefied. Why would anyone risk living on the most contaminated soil on earth?
"This is the motherland. We will never leave."
Thousands of people died because of the disaster that spewed 400 times the radioactive impact of Hiroshima. Yet a band of babushkas loved their homes more than they feared the invisible enemy. For them, the palpable connection to their roots trumped the relative safety, yet uncertainty, of a high rise in another city.
These are women who have survived Stalin, and famine, war and weather. It appears they are resilient against nuclear fallout as well.
Sometimes people stay in marriages that have blown up with adultery or addiction. Perhaps they were warned to run for their lives, to get out and start over. Yet sometimes they choose to stay. It may not makes sense to anyone. But there are decisions that are hammered of mettle more malleable than logic.
Two stories by women who stayed are in the archives of the newsletter
