Voices from Chernobyl

MONOLOGUE BY A DEFENDER OF THE SOVIET GOVERNMENT

What’re you writing there? Who gave you permission? And taking pictures. Put that away. Put the camera away or I’ll break it. How do you like that, coming here, writing things down. We live here. And you come around putting ideas in people’s heads. Saying things. You’re talking about the wrong things. There’s no order now! How do you like that, coming around with their microphones.

That’s right, I’m defending the Soviet government! Our government! The people’s government! Under the Soviets we were strong, everyone was afraid of us. The whole world was watching us! Some were scared shitless, some were jealous. Fuck! And now what? What do we have now under democracy? They send us Snickers and some old margarine, old jeans, like we’re savages who just climbed out of the trees. The palm trees. We had a great empire! And now how do you like that, coming around here. A great empire! Fuck!

Until Gorbachev came along. A devil with a birthmark. Gorbie. Gorbie was working for them, for the CIA. What are you trying to tell me, huh? Coming around here. They’re the ones who blew up Chernobyl. The CIA and the democrats. I read it in the papers. If Chernobyl hadn’t blown up, the empire wouldn’t have collapsed. A great empire! Fuck! Now they’re coming around here. You could buy a loaf of bread for twenty kopeks under the Communists, now it costs two thousand rubles. What did the democrats do? They sold everything off! Ransomed it! Our grandchildren won’t have shit.

I’m not a drunk, I’m a Communist! They were for us, for the simple people. Don’t feed me fairy tales about democracy and freedom. Fuck! This free person dies, there’s nothing to bury him with. Old lady died not long ago. She was lonely, no children. She lay in her house for two days, in her old house shirt, under her icons. They couldn’t afford a coffin. She was a hard worker, a Stakhanovite. We refused to go out to the fields for two days. We had meetings. Fuck! We met together until the chairman of the kolkhoz came out and promised that every person who died on the kolkhoz got a free coffin, and then a calf or a pig and two cases of vodka for the wake. Under the democrats—two cases of vodka—free! Half a bottle is medicine, for us, from the radiation, but a whole bottle a man is a party.

Why aren’t you writing this down? What I’m saying? You only write down what you want to hear. Giving people ideas. Saying things. You need political capital, is that it? Stuff your pockets with dollars? We live here, we survive here. No one’s guilty! Show me the guilty ones! I’m for the Communists. They’ll come back and they’ll find the guilty ones. Fuck! Coming around here, writing things down.

No name given