Life in a PO Box

Tomsk-7 is a walled city. Cars are checked through the gates one by one, each closely scrutinized by soldiers. Only KGB cars are waved through without inspection. Average Russians wishing to visit Tomsk-7 must obtain a special visa. The only way to call into the city is from a pay phone at the border, miles away from any other town. All mail directed to the city must be addressed to a single postal box. Which is why they call Tomsk-7 pochtovi, literally “post box.”

Tomsk-7 (pop. 100,000) is one of ten post box cities in Russia. Also known as The Nuclear 10, these military-industrial complexes remain closed despite the end of the Cold War and the fall of Communism. Tomsk-7, for its part, contains the largest nuclear facility in the world, the Siberian Chemical Combine. Now, even after nearly a decade of societal change, the city is an isolated pocket of the Soviet era.

Just inside Tomsk-7’s perimeter fence stands the city monument, an indescribable bit of Soviet art, something like an atom. The name on the atom has been recently changed from Tomsk-7 to Seversk, which means "northern town." Each of the cryptically-named Nuclear Ten have been quaintly renamed. It is seemingly an attempt to redeem the cities in the public eye -- to forget that they were once A-bomb factories. Krasnoyarsk-26, for instance, sounds much less threatening as Sniegersk (Snowville). Interestingly enough, to the local residents the town is still Tomsk-7.

The Best and the Brightest

The wide main street of Tomsk-7 is lined by a broad swathe of hedges and trees and flower beds. Everything is green and clean. It is a Soviet Emerald City. Built in 1954, Tomsk-7 has always been a privileged place to live. The Cold War was a boom for the city. Plant workers were pampered. Their wages were higher than the national average, and they were supplied with the best food and other goods via train direct from Moscow.

Glasnost and perestroika came as a shock to Tomsk-7. Change here was not welcome. Though there had always been many restrictions on personal freedoms – citizens were guarded with the same intensity as the nuclear weapons they produced, the new "openness" brought Tomsk-7 little but misery. Until Gorbachev’s reforms, it had been against the law for journalists to even mention the secret city, but as the regulations were eased, the national press battered Tomsk-7 with a hail of criticism. Newspapers attacked the city for its envied privileges and for the threat the nuclear plant posed to the region's health.

The greatest injury to the citizens of the fenced city, however, was that they were condemned for what they were once revered. Their deadly work had once been essential to the survival of the country. Now they were labeled "Enemies of Mankind" by environmental groups and peace activists.

Moreover, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cold War fizzled, and subsidies from Moscow dried up, making local residents’ futures uncertain. Once guaranteed, the priviledged pensions, health care, education and housing allowances are all in jeopardy. In short, changes of the last few years have cast a cloud of confusion and depression over Tomsk-7.

Sailboats and a zoo

Yet, compared to most Russians, the residents of this nuclear town still live in a moated castle. They are shielded from many of the troubles other Russians face everyday. There is no poverty in Tomsk-7, no bad parts of town or beggars on the street, as in nearby Tomsk (one of Siberia’s oldest cities, with a population of 520,000, Tomsk stands 16 km to the south of Tomsk-7). Most significantly, there is little crime in the city, whereas the rest of Russia squirms under the thumb of organized crime.

Tomsk-7 is especially a palace for children. There are parks, a sports arena, a puppet theater, a beach on the River Tom with a sailboat club. Tomsk-7 even has a zoo. Beyond the extravagance of just ´having´ a zoo in the middle of Siberia (it's not a particularly impressive zoo), it serves an important purpose, as do all of the special facilities for children: it keeps the nuclear physicists' kids happy.

Tomsk-7 also has a new, white marble school. The teenagers there seem like regular kids, perhaps a little better dressed, maybe a little more orderly. But what is most striking is the school itself. New, clean and modern, it is in total contrast with the schools in Tomsk, which are literally crumbling.

A visitor asks a class of English students there, "How do you like living in a closed city?"

A pretty blond girl immediately pipes up, "Everything is better. We don't have crime. The city is clean. There are better things in the stores." Her classmates break into uncomfortable laughter and her teachers blush, embarrassed by the girl's bragging -- another thing for which people from Tomsk-7 are frequently faulted.

Should Tomsk-7 be opened?  "Oh, no," agrees the class. No doubt, they echo the sentiments of their parents. A 1994 poll found that 87 percent of the city's inhabitants think Tomsk-7 should stay closed. Thus, the 15-foot-high fences topped with curls of razor wire and rigged with motion sensors will remain, for a few years at least.

Nevertheless, there has been some "opening up" in Tomsk-7. School children from Tomsk, for instance, are now given tours of the famous zoo. Journalists from Tomsk are routinely allowed into the city. But one of the most significant steps has been the creation of a television station in the city, which would have been completely disallowed a few years ago -- after all, the city’s mere existence was a state secret.

Studio 7 is billed as a non-governmental station, but, as Managing Director Georgi Nikolaevich Radygin admits, "There is some question about the independence of the station." The city administration and the komsomol (Young Communist League), for example, provided all the studio's start-up funds. Moreover, 51% of the Board of Directors is controlled by the city and the rest is held by the Russian Union of Youth (the new name for the komsomol), of which Radygin himself is the First Secretary. "For this reason," he explained, "we can only really say that it is only partially independent."

The newscasts and other programming are unrestricted, Radygin said. "We can say what we want to say. We may discuss all issues and criticize." There is progress, said Radygin, but the old system dies slowly. One can only expect it to take twice as long in a place like Tomsk-7.

There are symbolic reminders of the Soviet Union's slow -- and in Tomsk-7, regretful -- death throughout the city. The monuments still stand, as do the giant hammers and sickles, Lenin's resolute grimace, the Bolshevik slogans on the sides of buildings and the photographic displays of honored workers. But the red paint has faded and is peeling. It seems as if no one can bring themselves to restore these symbols of the past. Yet, neither can they bring themselves to tear them down.

A Favorable Summer Wind

Throughout the month of May in Western Siberia, it stays light until midnight. On those long evenings, the light is soft, and the sidewalks of Tomsk-7 are crowded with strolling citizens. The air is full of mosquitoes. The stores are closed, but there are plenty of vendors. On nearly every corner, women in lab coats sell Kvas, a drink made from bread.

For many amblers, Tomsk-7 is their hometown. They grew up here. Their friends, family -- everything -- is here. How does one live in a closed nuclear city? It seems pretty natural. But it is unlikely that anyone in Tomsk-7 ever completely forgets about the potential danger posed by the Siberian Chemical Combine, especially after the reminder they got in 1993. On April 16 of that year, a nuclear reprocessing plant in the city exploded.

Interestingly enough, it was through Radygin’s otherwise conservative Studio 7 that the international environmental organization GreenPeace warned the residents of Tomsk-7 of the possible consequences of the explosion. Of course, they had to have official permission to do it.

As it turned out, the 100,000 inhabitants of Tomsk-7, as well as the half-million citizens of Tomsk, were lucky that day. Prevailing winds blew the radioactive cloud that formed north, away from urban areas of the region. While much of the 1,000 hectares (2,471 acres) contaminated was wilderness, there was also a small village. A village named Georgievka.

Beyond the Fence

A sign on the road that leads to Georgievka reads "Radioactivity Danger Zone." Not much further on, the dirt road turns onto a single, paved lane that runs through the tiny Siberian village of Georgievka. The government paved the road in 1993 to cut down on radioactive dust after the explosion at Tomsk-7.

Just off the paved road, a grandfather watches his little vnuchka (granddaughter) waddle back and forth, picking up stones, twigs and handfuls of powdery dirt. He says he is not worried about radiation, about plutonium in the dirt. He shrugs, "They say it's safe."

According to official reports, radiation levels in Georgievka have remained under international safety limits since the explosion. Nevertheless, in the days after the accident, Georgievka evacuated its children. Most of them have returned now and receive medical examinations twice a year at the expense of Tomsk-7.

"How can we live if we worry all the time?" asks the grandfather. "We've gotten used to it," he says unconvincingly, and asks to borrow his visitor’s radiometer. As he checks the ground around the little girl, she tries to play with the strange-looking instrument. The levels read normal, and he hands the meter to a friend standing next to him. "He can't live without radiation," he jokes.

Further off the road, in a field, a farmer works on his dump truck. Alexander Timofeevich is a big, barrel-chested man. He has a round face with a wide jack-o'-lantern grin and witty eyes. He did not give his last name.

Timofeevich recalls hearing about the explosion on the radio. "I was shocked and afraid for my family and business,” he says.

It was more than a week after the accident before officials told the residents of Georgievka they had been contaminated, Timofeevich says. Nevertheless, regional politicians and officials from Tomsk-7 assured the villagers that there was no reason for concern.

Nonetheless, Timofeevich went to the regional governor to find out what was going on.

"He patted me on the back and told me that everything was all right,” Timofeevich said.

Unsatisfied, the farmer borrowed a military radiation meter.

"The results exceeded my imagination," he says. He found spots around his home where radiation levels far exceeded the norm.

Scientists came to the village and took soil samples, put up signs warning people not to hunt or pick berries or mushrooms, and paved the road -- "Our own little Autobahn," Timofeevich calls it bitterly. There were investigations by scientists from the US, France, Germany and Sweden. The studies all contradict each other, he says. "One commission says there is no heavy metal contamination; another says there is."

Alexander Timofeevich’s livelihood has been all but destroyed by the Tomsk-7 accident. "No one wants meat from Georgievka," he says, motioning to pigs roaming around his truck. He had been prosperous before the accident and had had plans to enlarge his farm. "But all that is impossible, now," he says. It's even difficult to find people to work for him now. Everyone is afraid to live in Georgievka.

There is not much he can do. He checks his meat and milk for radiation, but, he says, "we don't have the equipment to do it properly." He keeps his animals away from areas known to be contaminated and buys "clean" fodder from outside the region. "Once," he said, "I asked the regional governor about getting some kind of compensation, and he laughed in my face."

"Nothing of significance" has been done to help the people of Georgievka, says Timofeevich. "Everything they did was for show. Our personal well-being is not their concern." For example, in the three months after the explosion each of the 40-some families in the village received 3,000 rubles compensation from the government -- a nearly useless sum, even then. They were also given food, though not much; some meat; vegetables and "bad apples."

As Timofeevich speaks of his troubles, it is clear how heavily they weigh on him. It's in his voice and eyes and in the urgent way he smokes his cigarettes. "I am a strong man, but sometimes I don't think I can take it," he says, looking away. In the months after the explosion, he was so worried about his family and his business that he nearly had a nervous breakdown, he says.

Why not leave? "My money is invested in this farm and in my home," he answers. "I've got too many relatives here. I can't leave them." He stops for a moment.

"They say everything is 'O.K.,' but whether it's true or not, nobody knows. Even now, we can't say how dangerous it is here. Nobody can tell."

"The dust we breathe, the water we drink," says the Russian farmer, "we think it is dangerous."

Surprisingly, few people have moved away from the village. People have actually built dachas and moved in. "It's those people from pochtovi," chuckles Timofeevich, suddenly amused. "They're optimists. They're not afraid of anything."