‘A Visit to the Black Swan’s Nest: When the Impossible Becomes Politics’: Alumni Programme in Chornobyl

‘Our job is to be inconvenient Cassandras who say: let’s spend money on monitoring, just in case something blows up,’ says Olena Pareniuk, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and a USPS 2025 alumna. It was at her initiative that we created the new Alumni Programme ‘A Visit to the Black Swan’s Nest: When the Impossible Becomes Politics’.

The first day of the programme focused on how a disaster of this scale is managed. We were in the building of the Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Before the explosion of Reactor No. 4, this building was a kindergarten. The discussion on disaster management was opened by Anatolii Doroshenko, Head of the Sector for Modelling Neutron-Physical Processes at the Nuclear Safety Department.

Chornobyl in May is an ordinary town. But no one lives here because the surrounding areas were contaminated after the explosion. The destroyed reactor still contains around 200 kg of plutonium, whose half-life is 10,000 years. The Institute for Safety Problems of Nuclear Power Plants works to keep radionuclides within the New Safe Confinement, the ‘Arch’, and to ensure the nuclear safety of the site.

However, last year, because of a Russian strike, the safety of the Arch came under threat: the structure was damaged by a Russian drone. Fortunately, disaster was avoided because the automation system worked, but both layers of the shell were pierced and the sealing membrane burned out. There was no major release of radioactive dust, and the Institute continues to monitor radiation levels.

‘The scale of the disaster is a separate challenge for managing it,’ says Denys Vyshnevskyi, Head of the Scientific Department of the Chornobyl Radiation and Ecological Biosphere Reserve. The territories contaminated as a result of the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant accident cover 50,000 square kilometres. The Exclusion Zone itself covers 2,600 square kilometres and requires constant monitoring. With the construction of the sarcophagus, the history of the Chornobyl Zone as an object of research did not end. On the contrary, it was only beginning.

When we talk about disasters, we are talking first of all about loss. But the way people overcome their consequences often becomes an impetus for new opportunities and solutions. Today, the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone is an international-class laboratory where radioecologists, biologists and zoologists can study how ecosystems recover after long periods without human activity. This experience will be needed when Ukraine faces the question of post-war security zones. It is a world-class expert environment whose specialists were also involved in work after the Fukushima accident.

The main conclusion of the discussion was the need to leave ‘Plato’s cave’. We are always tempted to return to the time ‘before the disaster’, to ‘normality’. Unfortunately, this is impossible. Instead, we must think hard about what we can learn from this disaster and how we can anticipate and reduce the consequences of the next one. This means adapting management mechanisms, creating ‘red rooms’ with scenarios of the impossible and strengthening society’s intellectual capacity.

‘Development is never where things are calm. It is where there is no choice,’ Olena Pareniuk concluded.

The second day of the programme was dedicated to the human and cultural dimensions of the disaster. Oksana Semenik, an art historian who herself grew up near the Exclusion Zone, began by dismantling several persistent myths, including the idea that the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant made life better for the people of Polissia.

Villagers found it hardest to adapt after resettlement. For centuries, Polissia villages had lived in a distinctive landscape: marshland, long winding roads between settlements, a separate dialect and traditions that differed from village to village. When people were resettled, one family often ended up in different settlements. Resettlement followed collective farms, not families. As a result, oral heritage and folklore began to disappear.

Oksana spoke separately about how Soviet propaganda shaped the image of Chornobyl that we still live with today. The main focus was on the heroism of the liquidators, the 31 official victims, the construction of the sarcophagus — and that was it, the story was closed.

Mythologisation also created a pop-cultural image of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone: for example, myths about mutants. These are only half true, says Kateryna Shavanova, a chemist-dosimetrist with the Khartiia Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine. Mutations certainly exist, and they can be negative or positive. Yet all the myths are built around negative mutations in animals, plants and so on.

We can see the real human experience of the disaster mostly through art: through Yurii Shcherbak, Oksana Zabuzhko and the artists whom the Central Committee of the party sent to the Zone to paint portraits of the liquidators. It is this reflection that forms a more ‘real’ experience, rather than a propaganda brochure.

Today, the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone is about measured life. Researchers continue to do their work, monitor the reserve and conduct experiments. Alongside this, preparations are under way to prevent the Exclusion Zone from being occupied again.

Chornobyl was and remains a place of cutting-edge research, from the first radiation monitoring systems to models of flora recovery in affected territories. Our task is to reflect on the lessons the accident taught us and on how we can prevent or mitigate future disasters.