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Rick J Scheidt, The Babushkas of Chernobyl, The Gerontologist, Volume 58, Issue 1, February 2018, Pages 193–195, https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnx188
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Video: The Babushkas of Chernobyl (70 min)
Co-Producers and Directors: Holly Morris and Ann Bogart
Available:http://thebabushkasofchernobyl.com/
Release Date: 2015
There is a magnetic attraction in the stories of elders, who by choice or happenstance, face unique, and extreme life scenarios that exceed the imaginations of those of us who live securely under the thicker part of the normal curve. The Babushkas of Chernobyl is a riveting watershed for gerontologists. It illustrates a rare, dangerous environmental event involving a remarkable group of older women (Babushka—a Russian grandmother)—a fascinating story in its own right. It has added value for gerontologists seeking person and environmental factors contributing to successful aging. More important, it provides an unintended instance of “the forbidden experiment”, affording environmental gerontologists the opportunity to explore unseen person-place dynamics—e.g., place belonging, personal agency, and environmental adaptation—in extremis (Wahl & Oswald, 2013).
The event is the April 26, 1986, explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant reactor No. 4. The Babushkas of Chernobyl introduces us at the outset to startling facts of this horrific tragedy: The fire resulting from the explosion lasted 10 days. The event released 400 times as much radiation as the Hiroshima atomic bomb. A 2,600 square kilometer radioactive area of rural woodland and marshland around Chernobyl was designated as “the exclusion zone” and declared uninhabitable and closed forever. Thousands of residents, including many rural villagers, were forcibly relocated to towns and villages beyond the zone. Upper estimates place the death rates from radiation induced cancers in the tens of thousands.
