Peters Township photographer discusses travels to Chernobyl
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Michael Haritan presents “Chernobyl: The World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster” at Peters Township Public Library.
Courtesy of Michael Haritan Photography
Amusement park in the abandoned city of Pripyat
Courtesy of Michael Haritan Photography
Michael Haritan’s photograph of the new confinement structure for Reactor No. 4 is on display at Peters Township Public Library.
Clock at the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum in Kiev showing the time of the accident on April 26, 1986 (Photograph taken Nov. 12, 2010)
"Danger" sign displayed at the Ukrainian National Chornobyl Museum in Kiev (Photograph taken Nov. 12, 2010)
When thinking of determination, consider the babushkas.
Thirty-three years after the catastrophe at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, about 115 women, now mostly in their 80s and 90s – named for the Russian and Ukrainian words for “grandmother,” or the colorful scarves they wear – choose to remain in their ancestral homes nearby.
Photographs of babushkas by Michael Haritan, on display at Peters Township Public Library
They live here and there among abandoned buildings, their husbands having died and family members long since departed. While they grow and gather food for sustenance, their survival to some degree depends on the generosity of others.
Peters Township resident and veteran commercial photographer Michael Haritan had that in mind as he got ready to visit some of the babushkas, whom he affectionately refers to as “babas” or “bubas,” during his most recent trip to Ukraine.
“In order to get into Chernobyl, you had to go there not as a tourist, but as a humanitarian aid person,” he said.
And so Haritan purchased five bags of food for the equivalent of $500, ready to show the items to the security detail that guards 30-kilometer-radius Chernobyl Exclusion Zone against interlopers.
“If I would have come there empty-handed,” he said, “they’d have thought that I would be just be somebody else: a rich American exploiting the bubas, making a video or a TV special or something like that, for my profit, not theirs.”
Haritan recently presented “Chernobyl: The World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster” to a capacity Peters Township Public Library audience, in conjunction with an exhibit of photographs he took during time he spent in Ukraine during 2016 and 2018.
Several of the images depict the babushkas he visited, one of whom pointed to Haritan and said in her native language, “He’s welcome to stay here with us.”
“I have to go home,” he replied, “and I will tell my wife if she ever gives me a problem, I have a woman waiting for me in Ukraine.”
The moment of levity drew chuckles from audience members, but the overriding tone of the program was somber as Haritan detailed what happened at Chernobyl, how the Soviet government attempted to cover it up and what the consequences continue to be.
On April 25, 1986, preparation began for a safety test at the nuclear power plant to simulate a blackout. The temporary loss of power caused an explosion in the core of the plant’s Reactor No. 4 and the release of radioactive material into the atmosphere.
Haritan cited poor construction methods as a primary cause.
“They rushed the design to meet deadline and substituted inferior materials, everything from concrete to the welding techniques, as well as the roof, itself. They didn’t have enough material, and therefore they covered the roof with bitumen. It’s called tarpaper,” he said. “The corners were cut to meet the deadline so that the party bosses could report to the government everything was done on time.”
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Harry Funk/The Almanac
For his program, Michael Haritan displays the type of gas mask used by firefighters at Chernobyl, wholly inadequate for a nuclear disaster.
The government, which at the time controlled Ukraine, attempted to downplay the disaster, but scientists in nearby countries quickly pinpointed Chernobyl as producing massive amounts of radiation.
Mikhail Gorbachev, then head of state, later acknowledged the lack of transparency with regard to the accident helped lead to the Soviet Union’s downfall a few years later.
As for Chernobyl’s long-term ramifications, Haritan told about the multitude of deaths and illnesses attributable to radiation exposure, starting with workers in the plant at the time of the disaster and emergency personnel who responded to it.
Children born in the disaster’s aftermath have suffered a high incidence of disabilities, as Haritan witnessed during a visit to an institution for girls and young women.
“Some are healthy enough, strong enough, to play ring-around-the-rosie,” he said. Many, though, just sit quietly. Others, he discovered, are placed in cribs, unable to get out of them.
“After three or four hours, it’s time for us to go,” he added. “We had to say ‘goodbye’ to these kids. They wouldn’t let go. That’s the hardest part of my trip so far. What I photographed in Chernobyl, nothing there. But seeing the victims, that’s hard.”
His travels took him to Pripyat, the city founded in 1970 to serve the nearby nuclear plant and abandoned 16 years later. He also visited Slavutych, built after the disaster to house the evacuated personnel.
And he had photos taken of himself within a few hundred yards of Reactor No. 4 before and after a new confinement structure was put into place in 2016.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Part of a display at the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum in Kiev showing images of children who suffered from diseases related to the 1986 accident (Photograph taken Nov. 12, 2010)
“Since I’m in Ukraine, I might as well make the trip and the effort to go to Chernobyl to photograph that reactor before the dome covers it up, so that no human will ever see that again,” he recalled of his thoughts at the time.
Haritan was in the country as a volunteer for a summer camp conducted by members of his church, Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic in Carnegie, for middle-school students learning English. And he came away from Chernobyl with a desire to learn more about what happened and to tell as much of the story as he could.
He since has conducted programs on the topic for first responders, students, and church and community groups.
“Many of them didn’t know what happened in Chernobyl because the government wasn’t allowed to tell them,” he said about those in attendance who have family members and friends in Ukraine. “So, they’re learning from me.”
The babushkas might not know about all the specifics, either, but they won’t leave. And despite time constraints, Haritan was in no rush to leave when he visited with them.
“I wanted to let them know that I loved them, that I would tell the people back home about them, and this is my connection to my homeland, my roots,” he said. “Never forget them, but also knowing that I’m not going to return ever to see them again.”
Harry Funk/The Almanac
“Before” and “after” depictions of the accident site on display at the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum in Kiev (Photographs taken Nov. 12, 2010)