HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’: Did People Refuse To Leave During Evacuations And Are There People Living There Today?

Episode 4 of HBO’s gripping mini-series, Chernobyl, showed an elderly woman refusing to leave her home during the evacuations following the nuclear disaster. How accurate was this depiction? Did people really refuse to leave Chernobyl — and are there still people living in the exclusion zone today?

When reactor 4 exploded inside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, it was some time before evacuations commenced. During Episode 4 of HBO’s Chernobyl, it showed that during these compulsory evacuations that there might have been people resistant to leave the toxic zone. While there is not a lot of hard evidence to confirm or dispute this, there are plenty of oral stories of people not wanting to leave their homes after the Chernobyl disaster and, there is plenty of evidence that some people returned after the evacuations.

As BBC reports, some people have returned to their homes and are now living in the exclusion zone. Many of these people are elderly, having not wanted to leave their family homes at the time of the evacuations and returning as soon as they could — even if it wasn’t allowed. These people are often referred to as “Samosely,” which translates to self-settlers and many of them are elderly women, also known as the Ukranian babushkas.

It is believed that approximately 200 people now live within the Chernobyl exclusion zone after either refusing to leave or resettling shortly after the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, according to The Express. However, this number could be higher.

As of 2007, the average age of these self-settlers is 63. While it was illegal for people to return to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, in 2012, an allowance was made for elderly people currently residing in the exclusion zone to remain there. However, younger people are still not allowed to live there, although some people still ignore this rule. It is believed that these allowed residents to get social support from the government. While these self-settlers do get government support, many survive in addition to the government handouts by growing their own produce — on the contaminated ground of the exclusion zone.

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— The Smiling Grape Company (@SmilingGrape) January 28, 2018

In 2015, a documentary was released that followed the women who chose to return to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, according to The Guardian. In this documentary, one woman, Hanna Zavorotnya, described how people were forced to leave and how she eventually returned.

“Shoot us and dig the grave,” she told soldiers who were trying to evacuate people.

While Hanna didn’t initially want to leave, she was forced out of the area. However, she eventually sneaked back into the exclusion zone and returned to her home in the summer of 1986.

As time has passed, many parts of the exclusion zone have been opened again to visitors for short periods of time. Many scientists spend time in Narodichi, a town on the outer limit of the exclusion zone. Along with the scientists, others have returned to this town — including children, according to BBC.

“The children were evacuated together with teachers to ‘clean zones’,” Tatiana Kravchenko, a kindergarten manager said.

“In three months we were sent back, and we had only 25 children. Eventually, people have come back, new children have been born and gradually the kindergarten started filling up again. Now we have 130 children here.”

Narodichi has now been rezoned and much of it is considered safe enough for habitation some 33 years after the Chernobyl disaster.

Chernobyl is currently airing on HBO every Monday at 9 p.m. until June 3.