A graduate in architecture from the Institute of Roads and Transport in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Protsenko had been Pripyat’s chief architect for seven years, with her own office on the second floor of the ispolkom. It was from there that she oversaw the execution of Pripyat’s new construction projects, with a profoundly un-Soviet eye for detail. Barred from Party membership by her Chinese birth, she brought an outsider’s zeal to her work.
Here’s a woman who painstakingly helped create a city that its residents considered an absolutely model place to live, working “frugally with small supplies of hardwood, ceramic tiles, or granite to decorate the interiors of Pripyat’s public buildings.” She then helped manage the supposedly temporary evacuation of its inhabitants, standing outside buffeted by irradiated dust giving directions to bus drivers before leaving the place to the irradiated wildlife, a silent symbol of Soviet decay.
Protsenko spent years working to make the city the best possible place to live, only to see it destroyed. Another interesting figure: Dr. Angelina Guskova, the doctor who treated the fireman and others who arrived deathly ill from radiation sickness in Moscow. She was one of the world’s leading experts in radiation sickness, because she had treated the victims of Soviet nuclear accidents over and over again in her long career; as Higginbotham wrote, “in 1970 she completed a book that described the possible consequences of a serious accident at a civilian nuclear power plant.
That’s the thing about Chernobyl: It’s impossible to know just how many were affected. And while the HBO series is a valuable reminder that disaster has far-reaching consequences, the miniseries format means picking and choosing to create a narrative, and somebody always gets left out.