Chernobyl
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Categories: 1193 establishments | Chernobyl disaster | Chernobyl Hasidism | Cities in Ukraine | Environmental disasters | Ghost towns in Europe | Jewish Polish history | Jewish Russian and Soviet history | Jewish Ukrainian history | Kiev Oblast
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This article is about the city of Chernobyl. For the nuclear plant incident in 1986, see Chernobyl disaster. For other uses, see Chernobyl (disambiguation).
Chernobyl (pronounced /tʃɚˈnoʊbəl/ chur-NOBLE; Russian: Чернобыль, pronounced [tʃɪɾˈnobɨlʲ];[1] Ukrainian: Чорнобиль IPA: [tʃɔr'nɔbɪlʲ]) is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in the Kiev Oblast (province) near the border with Belarus (). The city was evacuated in 1986 due to the Chernobyl disaster at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant under the then USSR, which is located 10.85 kilometers (9 miles) north-northwest. The power plant was named after the city, and located in Chernobyl Raion (district), but the city was not the residence of the power plant workers. At the time of the construction, a twin city of Chernobyl, Prypiat, was built to be close to the plant for workers. Though the city is today mostly uninhabited, a small number of inhabitants reside in houses marked with signs stating that the "Owner of this house lives here". Workers on watch and administrative personnel of the Zone of Alienation are stationed in the city on a long term basis. Prior to its evacuation, the city was inhabited by about 55,000 residents.
Origin of the name ChernobylAccording to one view, the city name comes from a combination of chornyi (чорний, black) and byllia (билля, grass blades or stalks); hence it literally means black grass or black stalks. It is named after the Ukrainian word for the plant wormwood. Wormwood, which is used in absinth, grows abundantly in the Chernobyl area. However, another view states that contrary to the widely-held belief, the Russian word for wormwood is not "Chernobyl." Stating that "chornobyl," / "black stalks," refers to mugwort (artemisia vulgaris), not to wormwood (artemisia absinthium). In addition, the fable that Chernobyl = wormwood originates from a 1986 New York Times article that quoted an unnamed "prominent Russian writer" as claiming the Ukrainian word for wormwood was "chernobyl." This erroneous attribution took root in the popular imagination, because it enabled associations with the famous verse in the Apocalypse of St. John (Revelation 8:11) Folk etymologies have appeared after the 1986 nuclear incident, which represent attempts to link the accident to prophecies in the Book of Revelation in the Christian New Testament. For these, see Chernobyl in the popular consciousness. HistoryChernobyl first appeared in a charter of 1193 AD described as a hunting-lodge of knyaz Rostislavich. It was a crown village of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 13th century. The village was granted as a fiefdom to Filon Kmita, a captain of the royal cavalry, in 1566. The province containing Chernobyl was transferred to the Kingdom of Poland in 1569, and then annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793. [2] Prior to the 20th century Chernobyl was inhabited by Ruthenian and Polish peasants, and a large Jewish community. Chernobyl had a rich religious history. The Jewish, who were brought by Filon Kmita during the Polish campaign of colonization, included Hasidim as well as other Orthodox Jews. The traditionally Christian Eastern Orthodox Ukrainian peasantry of the district was largely forced by Russia to convert to the Greek Catholic region after 1596, and returned to Russian Orthodoxy only after Ukraine's unification with Russia. The Dominican church and monastery were founded in 1626 by Lukasz Sapieha, at the height of the Counter-reformation. There was a group of Old Catholics, which opposed the decrees of the Council of Trent. The Dominican monastery was sequestrated in 1832, and the church of the Old Catholics was disbanded in 1892. Since 1892, Chernobyl has seen many changes of fortune. In 1898 Chernobyl had a population of 10,800, including 7,200 Jews. In World War I the village was occupied and in the ensuing Civil War was fought over by Bolsheviks and Ukrainians. In the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-20, it was taken first by the Polish Army and then by cavalry of the Red Army. From 1921, it was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR[2]. During the period 1929–33 Chernobyl suffered greatly from mass killings during Stalin's collectivization campaign, and in the Holodomor (famine) that followed. The Polish community of Chernobyl was deported to Kazakhstan in 1936 during the Frontier Clearances. The Jewish community was killed during the German occupation of 1941–44.[2] Twenty years later, the area was chosen as the site of the first nuclear power station on Ukrainian Grass. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Chernobyl became part of Ukraine, an independent nation. Chernobyl and HasidismIn the second half of 18th century, Chernobyl became one of the major centers of Hasidic Judaism. The Chernobyl Hasidic dynasty had been founded by rabbi Menachem Nachum Twersky, and continued by his son Rabbi Mordechai of Chernobyl. The Jewish population suffered greatly from pogroms in October 1905 and in March–April 1919 (by Ataman Struk), when many Jews were killed and others were robbed. In 1920, the Twersky dynasty left Chernobyl, and it ceased to exist as a Hasidic center. Chernobyl nuclear reactor disasterOn April 26 1986, the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, exploded at 01:23 AM local time. The workers were performing an experiment with the reactor's safety systems during which the computer-controlled safety systems were disabled. Problems occurred during the tests: The reactor did not receive enough coolant, had built up too much heat in the core and had fully withdrawn control rods, all of which contributed to unstable and unpredictable reactor operation. A reboot of the computer systems failed to regain control of the reaction. When the control rods were manually reinserted in an attempt to regain control of the unstable reactor, there was a sudden increase in reactivity, caused by the design of the RBMK reactor and its control rods, and an uncontrollable runaway reaction occurred. The reactor produced tremendous amounts of steam, eventually causing a steam break/explosion, which destroyed part of the reactor. After the explosion, graphite fires broke out, due to the high temperatures of the reactor and the graphite's exposure to oxygen. Radioactive debris were flung several miles, and smoke containing radioactive contaminants from the burning graphite traveled as far as Belarus. All permanent residents of Chernobyl and the Zone of alienation were evacuated because radiation levels in the area had become unsafe. Contaminated milk was blamed for childhood sicknesses across Europe. Chernobyl City and its surrounding suburbs are now home to nuclear scientists, maintenance officials for the Chernobyl Power Plant, Liquidation Officials, doctors, physicists, and most of all, radiation physicists. Although neighboring Pripyat remains unmaintained, Chernobyl has been renovated and is now home to more than 500 permanent residents, including visitors to the Zone of Alienation who stay at a local lodge in the Chernobyl suburbs. Appearances in Popular Culture
Sarcophagus replacementOn September 17, 2007 it was announced that a new steel containment structure would be built to replace the aging and hastily built sarcophagus that currently protects the damaged reactor. The project, financed by an international fund managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, will be designed and built by the French-led consortium Novarka, which includes the companies Bouygues SA and Vinci SA. Novarka will build a giant arch-shaped structure out of steel, 190 metres wide and 200 metres long, to cover the old crumbling concrete dome that is currently in use. It is expected to take a year to design the new building and another 2 years to build it. The steel casing project is expected to cost $1.4bn (£700m). A separate deal has also been made with the United States firm Holtec to build a storage facility within the exclusion zone for nuclear waste produced by Chernobyl.[3] See alsoReferences
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