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Quote by Svetlana Alexievich

“We're lonely. We're strangers here. They even bury us separately, not like they do other people. It's like we're aliens from outer space. I'd have been better off dying in Afghanistan. Honest, I get thoughts like that. In Afghanistan death was a normal thing. You could understand it there.”

Quote by Svetlana Alexievich

Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

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Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

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Svetlana Alexievich

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“Victory is not an event for us, but a process. Life is a struggle. An overcoming. That's why we have this love of floods and fires and other catastrophes. We need an opportunity to demonstrate our "courage and heroism.”

Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Source: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“Okay, maybe you could move the ones that were above the earth, but what about the ones who were in the earth -- the bugs and the worms? And the ones in the sky? How do you evacuate a pigeon or a sparrow? What do you do with them? We don't have any way of giving them, the necessary information. It's also a philosophical dilemma. A perestroika of our feelings is happening here.”

Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Source: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“There's one diagnosis for everything -- Chernobyl. No matter what happens, everyone says: Chernobyl. People get mad at us: "You're sick because you're afraid. You're sick from fear. Radiophobia." But then why do little kids get sick and die? They don't know fear, they don't understand it yet.”

Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Source: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“You felt sorry for everyone there. Even the flies, even the pigeons. Everyone should be able to live. The flies should be able to fly, and the wasps, the cockroaches should be able to crawl. You don't even want to hurt a cockroach.”

Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Source: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“We had lead underwear, we wore it over our pants. Write that. We had good jokes, too. Here's one: An American robot is on the roof for five minutes, and then it breaks down. The Japanese robot is on the roof for five minutes, , and then -- breaks down. The Russian robot is up there two hours! Then a command comes in over the loudspeaker: "Private Ivanov! In two hours you're welcome to come down and have a cigarette break." Ha-Ha! [laughs.]”

Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Source: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“They held political discussions with us -- they explained that we were heroes, accomplishing things, on the front line. It was all military language. But what's a bec? A curie? What's a milliroentgen? We ask our commander, he can't answer that, they didn't teach it at the military academy. Milli, micro, it's all Chinese to him. "What do you need to know for? Just do what you're ordered. Here you're soldiers." Yes, soldiers -- but not convicts.”

Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Source: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

“My prayer is simple. I say it silently. 'Lord, i cry unto me! Give ear!' Man is crafty only in evil, but he's so simple and open in his plain words of love. Even for philosophers, the word is only an approximation of the thought they have experienced. The word genuinely attunes to what's in our soul only in prayer, and in prayerful thoughts. I can feel it physically. 'Lord, I cry unto me! Give ear!' And man too. Man frightens me, but I always like meeting one. A good man. That's it.”

Author:Svetlana Alexievich

“Lasting loyalty is proven through actions, not words.”

Life Inspirational Inspiration Motivational Motivation Positive

Book:The Light in the Heart

Source: The Light in the Heart

“The world has already been overwhelmed by one Chernobyl and one exclusion zone. It cannot afford any more. It must learn its lessons from what happened in and around Chernobyl on April 26, 1986.”

Russia Soviet Union Ukraine Chernobyl Nuclear Energy Gorbatsjev

Book:Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe

Source: Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe

“Girls! Don't cry. We were always on the front lines. We were Stakhanovites. We lived through Stalin, through the war! If I didn't laugh and comfort myself, I'd have hanged myself long ago.”

Book:Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster

Source: Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster