L4. Maids of Muslyumovo. Women from the Tartar/Bakshir village of Muslyumovo in Chelyabinsk watch Western scientists measure radiation levels in the Techa River as it flows past their town. The Chelyabinsk reactor, 35 kilometers upstream, made plutonium for the first Soviet atomic bombs. From 1949 until 1953 the plant dumped liquid high-level radioactive waste directly into the Techa. The waters turned black and villagers downstream fell ill. Forty years later, these women are learning that those illnesses were due to radioactivity in the water. Soviet doctors were forbidden to use the term “radiation sickness” -- they were ordered to replace it with the phrase “vegetative syndrome”. Village of Muslyumovo, Chelyabinsk, Russia. 17 March 1991.
These photographs by Robert Del Tredici are protected by copyright and are available for purchase as high-quality digital prints on archival paper or as silver gelatin prints from bdeltredici@hotmail.com.