You are to be impressed with “Chernobyl” NationalMuseum conception as well as with its dramatic and expressive way of artistic means used there. “Chernobyl” NationalMuseum is a very informative and technically equipped museum. You will be told about the nuclear explosion in 1986. It is one of the most tragic pages of the Ukrainian history and of the world history too. “Chernobyl” NationalMuseum is one of the first museums opened in independent Ukraine. There are no analogues to “Chernobyl” National Museum by the nature of the collected material and by the concept of its presentation.
#1
There are seven thousand exhibits in the museum. They are documents, maps marked with Top Secret sign, photographs. There are some relics brought from the Zone such as ancient icons, objects of folk art, crafts and everyday life of former local residents there. You can see personal belongings of the liquidators, copies of state decisions on the secrecy of information related to disaster.
#2
The main concept of the exhibition is the very artistic, emotional and philosophical approach assisting to understand that tragedy of the previous century. The audio-visual and informative facilities are used widely there. One of the “gems” of the museum is a three-phase interactive diorama showing Chernobyl nuclear power plant before, during and after the accident. You feel as if you were witnessing the explosion and the destruction of the nuclear power plant. Then you see new shelter being constructed over the destroyed unit. You can see the interactive model of the 4th reactor in the museum too. There are some computer programs on disaster and its consequences that can be used by visitors.
#3
After entering the museum you go along the symbolic way to Chernobyl. There is an uprooted apple tree there. It is used as the symbol of the biblical tree of life. You see vivid red fruits which have always been the symbol of prosperity and joy. The apples are rolling on the road towards us, recalling the life that ended in the land of Ukrainian Polesie in one moment. Above the road there is a church banner brought here from the Church of St. John in Dlinny Les village. The village was abandoned in 1986. Two thousand years ago St. John wrote about the ominous star named “Wormwood”. Along the road there are road signs mentioning 76 villages and some towns abandoned because of high level radiation. The road seems leading to the exclusion zone. That’s the area where thousands of people lived. But now the connection between generations is interrupted. Twenty-four thousand years – unthinkably many for our consciousness – is life span of plutonium. The plutonium was blown from the Chernobyl power unit into the open sky in April 1986…
#4
In the center of the final hall there is a real size top of reactor blown into the air in 1986. You can see the established there covering of the destroyed Archangel Michael’s church in Krasne village. There is a swinging Polyessie style boat – a symbol of Noah’s ark – instead of the font. Children who visit the museum leave their favorite toys in the boat. Above the covering and the boat with toys there are two angels – white and black angels spreading out their wings – as the symbols of a good force and an evil force.
#5
Photos of 70 years long history of the Soviet Union ended with the Chernobyl tragedy seem to be spilling from the collapsing symbolic iconostasis which had been created with the Soviet regime. There are portraits of party leaders and government members. There is the renovated iconostasis too. Some fragments of original ResurrectionChurch iconostasis and St. Michael’s Church iconostasis are used there. The original churches were burned by looters. The holy gate of the iconostasis has been wrapped with barbed wire. There is a sign “Caution, radiation!” on the holy gate. There are figures in protective suits and respirators used as decoration of the iconostasis.
Useful information
Address: 1, Horevoy Lane, Kiev
Opening Hours: 10:00 – 18:00, on Saturday: 10:00 – 17:00
Closed on Sunday
j_or_n, 1 year ago
Visiting the Chernobyl Museum in Kiev
There is a poem on the walls of the Chernobyl museum:
UPROOTED © Yet from these strange ashes hope will rise
If a man’s thoughts dye his soul
What kind of stain do his deeds leave?
A hazardous spill on himself and upon the laps of others
Who share the same air
Breathing in and out
In and out
Now, there’s bitterness that abounds
In the bread basket to the north
Uprooted family trees with forgotten people
In yellowed photos dangling town
Wooden cradles set ablaze
In the forest
Where blue light sprang from place to place
Luminescent
Deadly beautiful
Reminiscent of sparklers
Crackling at a May Day parade
The rain has become hot tears pouring down
Falling down
Dropping to the earth
The fragmented rivulets on a musical score
Splash on these paper lives, fragile and all too brief
The muffled sobbing is a melody
But only to the ears of Him unseen
It’s an aria of the heart that sings a Capella
The high pitched notes of pain
Yet he who suffers much speaks a wordless language
That can be understood, although the tongue is mute
It transcends dialects, country lines
And political ideologies
Uprooted, yet not alone
I have seen lives irrevocably changed
In one moment in time
From one thoughtless choice, a careless decision
Leaving ancient villages empty
Doors are swinging on squeaky hinges
For all eternity plus seven years more
And the plastic dolls of stolen youth
Sit on dust covered window panes
Vacantly gazing at the loss
Uprooted, yet not alone
Heartbreak and tragedy
Are no respecter of persons, traditions, religion
Or plans
It is blinded by skin colour
And the coins in one’s purse
I have been told that fear is like rust
That eats away hope, little by little
Corroding all confidence
This invisible acid obliterates desire
Until we are mere shells with nothing left inside
Uprooted, yet not alone
I believe that love is a salve
To be spread on the wound to heal and soothe
Able to mend the innermost places
That are hidden from man
Faith causes that page to turn
Just because today’s sunshine is blocked out by the clouds
Doesn’t mean the sun is gone
If God seems silent
It doesn’t mean he has left us
Or doesn’t hear our cries
Perhaps we are the ones who are not listening
To the voice that is gentle and low
Tender and always near
We must be quiet and still
He is here
And anxious to woo us to Him like a lover
He will be revealed once more
Uprooted, yet not alone
There is a day that dawns upon all of our broken lives
That we are able to see clearly
If we look with unjaded eyes
We can see that we are all people with ruined dreams
With unrealized plans
Yet, somehow they can fit perfectly
Into His bigger picture
And will be breathtakingly beautiful
In time
Uprooted, yet not alone
From these strange ashes
Hope will rise!
LAUNA
Launa was an American student that wrote the poem for school.
The Chernobyl Museum, located in Kiev, contains a small but impressive collection of art, photos, poems and models. The first thing that caught my eyes when I visited it some years ago were photos of the collapsed Twin Towers in New York that were hanging on the wall, while a Geiger Muller Counter was exposed in the hall. The route to the first floor is flanked by plates with the names of Ukrainian villages, located in the vicinity of Chernobyl.
One of the exhibitions is devoted to Pripyat, a town of nearly 50,000 residents that was built in 1970 to host the employees of the Chernobyl power plants. In 1986, 36 hours after the disaster, the entire population was evacuated. They never returned.
A model of the surroundings of the power plant, innumerable photographs and other documentary material are exposed the museum, as well as a replica of the town of Slavutich, built after the disaster according to ancient Ukrainian tradition for the families of the rescuers. In a separate room there is a chronologic view of the events at Chernobyl in words and pictures, while the middle of the floor is reserved for a 1:1 scale model of nuclear fuel rods. While descending the stairs to the exit, the name signs of the villages are now provided with a red diagonal stripe.
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