37 years ago, on 26 April 1986, the Chornobyl disaster broke out, which is considered the largest in the history of nuclear power both in terms of the number of people killed and affected by its consequences and the economic damage. The legendary Dynamo forward Oleg Blokhin shared his memories.
Oleg Blokhin"I didn't take part in the match against Spartak - I got a minor injury and didn't have time to recover for the game, but I took the field in the Cup Final and scored a goal. I remember one of the French newspapers wrote that Dynamo won the Cup Cup thanks to Chornobyl. They said we had swallowed radiation and started running like crazy. The whole of football Europe was buzzing about it.
In Kyiv, rumours about the Chornobyl tragedy started spreading the very next day after the accident. At first, I didn't believe them - I thought it was a duck. I did not send my family away from Kyiv. But after returning from France, I talked to a KGB general who lived in my house. He said that a serious thing had happened in Chernobyl. I immediately sent my family to Myrhorod to my wife's relatives.
I remember how actively the lawn was being watered. And not only at the base in Koncha Zaspa. They were removing radiation in this way. In Kyiv, Khreshchatyk and Pechersk were flooded with water. We drank red wine. However, we were sitting at a meeting and did not have such an opportunity. I got a dosimeter from somewhere. My daughter was three years old then. After a walk, I would bring the dosimeter to Iryna's clothes and it would crackle. For some time, we did not take our daughter outside at all," Blokhin said.
