(Image from Wikipedia)

The earliest mediated news that I can rewind my memory to is the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. This is the image. The picture was grayish, showing uniform project houses and big trucks spraying water on the streets. Additionally, there was a big building with its roof caved in. I was 12 years old and was watching this on the Hungarian TV station with my family at home in April, 1986. I mostly remember this event because of the way the adults around me reacted to the news. Either the news person or my parents were discussing that the Soviet Union (USSR) kept quiet about the explosion right after it happened. They waited for a week or so before broadcasting, and even then everything around it seemed suppressed and secretive. My parents mentioned the weather as well, because the wind's direction was crucial for the location of radioactive cloud. I did not understand why this news information would be so scary then, or why my family would need to talk about it afterwards. For the TV news looked solemn, but not particularly alarming to me. But for the Hungarians there was anger over the Soviets not coming clean to the world about the Chernobyl explosion.

This news reinforced our learned negative Russian stereotypes. This was very popular thinking at the time in Hungary. In 1986, although by that time the USSR's grip over Eastern Europe was looser, still we belonged to the communist bloc ruled by the Soviet Empire. This brewed a lot of resentment and hatred toward the Russians. They were the symbol of a power that could get away with anything without any compassion or responsibility towards the people and the environment. Chernobyl exemplified the immense hold they had over the region where we lived. The USSR had absolute power over the media as well and they manipulated the news no matter the cost in lives. Therefore, this incident fit in perfectly with the culture of the Russian power as we believed it. In Hungary we maintained the negative attitude about the Russians through our everyday communication. Our government and our media outlets and its dealings were filtered through what the Soviets did. Almost everything had a negative connotation and it was separating us from them.

As I watch some videos about the explosion today it is even more disturbing and sad what happened to those living so close to Chernobyl. It is interesting that I recall the news broadcast from 1986 as an image of empty streets, yet the youtube videos show the residents and officials moving around in Pripyat city, the day after the devastation, without any urgency. Maybe the news show I watched was recorded after the total evacuation.

These new videos change my understanding of the events of 1986. They show more details on that day, edited together by someone with less restraint than an authoritative media outlet of a communist regime. It is absolutely infuriating how the Soviet government handled the disaster site shown on youtube. People are sent there to clean up the location, without any proper protection, where spending a fraction of an hour is deadly. It also makes sense why this point of view could not have been broadcast in my country, or in the region as a whole, back in the 80s. One of the things the media was used for is to contain public outrage during disasters, but that is probably a common practice even with the free world's media today.

I wonder now if my parents said anything else about the explosion concerning the part of my family, who actually has lived in Ukraine, the former Soviet territory where the blast happened. They had more of the fallout from the disaster, living closer to it. This post made me think of them and wonder about their experience. Would I know if anyone had cancer because of this? It is unknown.

Even though Chernobyl happened 24 years ago it is still very depressing. The new video footage and the few short images from our TV set stored away in my memory definitely makes me feel more strongly about this tragedy.