People living in this Kiselevka Village in the Mahilyow Region, Belarus, are so accustomed to the words ‘Chernobyl’ and ‘radiation’ that they stopped paying attention to their meaning. They give birth to children, farm and gather together by the evening fire. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster didn’t affect their life style at all.
These photographs were taken before (1980-1982) and after the catastrophe (1990 and 2000) by photographer Alexander Stepanenko whose family, together with other families, still lives in the contaminated area. They say that if they had been told right away about the nuclear accident, they might have moved to another village built for them 30 km away from where they today now but now it is too late.
Location: The Mahilyow Region
via rodinki.newsib.ru
Are you sure these pictures weren’t taken in 1880 instead of 1986?
Outstanding – among the best I have seen on ER for the way they capture a sense of time and place. The one of a woman sitting on the cow’s back watching her friend milking is special.
Which are before and which are after?
OMG, how many of them are barefoot!! The poverty was (or IS) something else!
In Russia, in the countryside, people often walk barefoot. It’s a tradition. Poverty is not to blame. Chinese rubber shoes worth $ 3.
Some people love walking barefoot, so that’s not poverty. The house door is few meters away, why bother wearing shoes in your own backyard?
Not to soil the house with mud from the yard, genius.
u getting the energy from the earth when you walk barefoot! Many athletes run marathons barefoot… what r u talking about?
Among the best photos i’ve ever seen! As Maesrobert nicely stated, incredible captures.
I love the one with a pond and the girl in the background.
People’s Commissar, just a guess, but i’d say the new ones start with the one where that woman is stumping the radioactive sign in the ground. Beside the obvious message of that particular photo (radioactive from here on), this is where beautiful young women simply disappear in the rest of the photos. =)
I agree. One of bettest photos on ER. Late Soiet Union with its poverty, rooting infrastructure, medieval living conditions. Yet smiled peoples.
Idyllic rural life (with Comrade Lenin patiently watching over things)…
You are a big Master! It is real life!
i miss that time.. it was amazing.
Good looking people.
its not very often that I feel moved by photographs. These are stories. Incredible.