At 11.0 am we set off for the small village Pakul which means resting place and from which the invading Mongols and Tartars continued into Europe. The flat straight road was flanked by forests of birch and pine and fields which stretch uninterrupted for miles. As we left Chernihiv Dr. Vasily Pasechnik and Anna Yakubova pointed out villages destroyed by the Germans over 50 years ago. When we entered the radiation zone they pointed out villages destroyed by the radiation at 60 curies per square kilometer. The black soil was rich but it was as a cursed land.

Snow is expected on the 14th of December. At 11.20 am we drove through the first flurry of snow--it was right on time to the hour. On the right of the road was zone two at 15 to 30 curies and on the left was zone three at five to fifteen curies, here in Pakul 35 km from Chernobyl and here lived Maria Borisko, mother of Dr. Anna Yakubova who was brought up on this two acre small holding.

Maria more than welcomed Victor and me, it was as if this was home. The conversation revolved around the harvest and the produce. It is the reality we lack in our cities. Without the harvest we cease to exist. The potato harvest had been excellent this year, but the rye and barley harvest was poor due to weeds. The wheat and barley is fed to the animals. Maria Borisko has stopped baking her own bread this year.

Rabbits are kept for meat and two were stolen last week and the remaining three survived because they hid themselves. The collective farms of the past have been returned to individuals, but then they cannot afford the machinery to plough and harvest the large fields and some have remained unattended over the last three years. Although there is a benefit in the fields lying fallow, they also need constant care and became overgrown if neglected for years. Fields are planted with lupines at intervals, which are legumes and restore the nitrogen balance of the soil. Lupines are then harvested for cattle food. The following year the cereal crop is abundant. During the present economic crisis chemical fertilizers cannot be bought and applied to the fields, lupines are not only cheaper but better and provide a crop. A local collective farm of 200 hectares was sown with rye and barley this year but it was not harvested and is now rotting in the fields. This is the result of the combine harvester not working because of thieving of mechanical parts, general disorganization and incompetence. At the same time an adjacent farm can be managed with energy and foresight and be highly productive. In the west the soil is just a substrate to hold the roots of a plant using fertilizers to provide nutrition.

Sometimes in the USSR the preparation of chemical fertilizers has been delegated to the most junior and inexperienced workers on a farm and they have thought that the correct quantity is good, but double the quantity is twice as good, or incorrectly prepared, and the soil has been poisoned for years. Some farms were not fertilized at all because of laziness except by the road where the agricultural inspector would look.

Ukrainians are now offered land but are not accepting it. There used to be mixed farms of cattle, sheep and geese with cereal farming, but this is disappearing and vast fields of monocultures are preferred. If chemical fertilizers could be afforded, we would use them.

Maria Borisko has two daughters, Anna, head of Polyclinic No. 2 and Ludmilla about whom she would not tell us and a son who studied mechanical engineering and lives in Kyiv. When asked why her children were such achievers, she said she taught them to work hard and not steal.

The radio was not working and it could not be repaired, she said, because the repairer is always drunk. When the radio is repaired I shall be able to listen to lies all day long, she concluded.

The round table was laid and in came the black pot. Everything baked in the black pot in the wood oven is delicious, even in zone three. Perhaps it's the microwaves from Chernobyl, said Victor. We are less than 25 miles from the Chernobyl reactor at this point. All the food was home grown and you are as a captive, joked Maria Borisko. We all gathered around the table including Maria Borisko’s sister-in-law Maria Carunda.

Chernihiv beer won third place recently in a Moscow beer competition after Germany and Holland and is now exported to Holland.

In came another black pot—rice and pumpkin with a plate of blini--small pancakes filled with cottage cheese. The Czechs built the beer factory in Chernihiv, but they found the beer was not up to their standard. On investigation they discovered that the ingredients were being stolen. Now it is up to standard when it is brewed according to the recipe and has become the prime beer of Ukraine due to the quality of the barley and local artesian water.

The Vodka toasts came first and we touched glasses. The meal had begun. The peppers were delicious and the recipe was discussed--boiling water and vinegar in equal parts, one liter with sugar 300 grams or honey 250 grams. Then there were also potatoes, cabbage, grated carrots, smoked mackerel from Vladivostok and rye bread.

Dr. Pasechnik said that he could not eat so much as he had to drive. Ukrainians always leave an empty bottle. The two Maria's had just been paid their August pension and then only 40% of it which came to 15.9 hryvnas (1.8 hryvnas = 1 US dollar). Maria Borisko's husband, a much decorated regular soldier, died in November 1995. So the small holding was dug, sown and harvested by Maria, her son when he visited from Kyiv and neighbors, by hook or by crook, she said, payment being by honey, eggs or other produce.

Something strange was happening to the bees. For the past five years the bees were turning black with a covering of microorganisms destroying the hives. [If there is a bee expert who understands this infection , please contact M. Frohn on CompuServe at 101557,1462 or Victor Kubik at 71251,1271] Everything turns black. For the past three years the tomatoes have turned black and rot after a fog or mist. One day everything looks good, then it rains and half the crop is destroyed. What is in the rain she asks? If this problem is not solved we could all starve. Now the cucumbers turn yellow and cannot be canned (canned US = bottled UK). Maria suspects that the microflora has mutated as a result of the radiation. The region has even had to import tomatoes from the south of Ukraine. There was a time when the local collective farm sent 80 tons of cucumbers to Chernihiv every day. Analysis has not revealed radioactivity in potatoes, carrots or beet roots. Potatoes do not take up the radioactivity in the soil but mushrooms do and no one should eat the mushrooms in the Chernihiv area although the inhabitants of the radioactive zones do so--the Sayenko complex. The forests are full of mushrooms and when marinated they are delicious.

Victor and I were escorted around the garden now in Winter mode. The summer house is where the canning (bottling) is performed because in Summer it is too hot to have a fire in the cottage, it was filled with pumpkins and black cabbages, fine inside. In the cellar the root crops are stored away from the extreme cold. We parted with hugs and photographs.

In the evening we all met in the all white private room of the "Druzhba" (Friendship) restaurant. The table was a picture to behold. The children of the Centre, Victor and I would be on television at 7.0 pm.

The three doctors, Pasechnik, Yakubova and Zenchenko are known as the "Troika" or threesome. Their success lies in their mutual respect for each other. Vasyliy Pasechnik is obviously their leader and founder, he has a quiet strength, but he does not dominate. It is their brotherly love for each other which enriches them, they said. They were joined by Halyna and Victor Ostrik who is the administrator of the Centre. Beware, I said, administrators can take over. He already has, they laughed.

The system of governance of their institution is that all contribute their opinion and advice, but it is Dr. Vasily Pasechnik who makes the final decision, which is made in the light of their advice and is not necessarily his own. This works.

Chernihiv is a city of over 300,000 people. The population has fallen by 5000 since 1986 because most women are having only one child. This decline in the birth rate is due to so many economic, psychological and social problems and living is so expensive. The radiation was 400 times greater than Hiroshima and spread over a vast area reaching to the Baltic. In Ukraine there is an unwritten law--you cannot do anything that you want to do, but if you want to, you can!

Then came the jokes. The situation is so serious that there must be jokes. As the man drinking a whiskey on the Titanic said, "I know I ordered ice, but this is ridiculous." Customer in a restaurant, "These mushrooms are not shining, would you please turn them on." The Japanese came here and were always checking their Geiger counters, but after a few Vodkas, they did not even switch them on.

The toasts and speeches continued. Halyna Ostrik, a small figure, stood up and delivered a most passionate speech of thanks to Victor and me with tears streaming down her face. I replied, "You are all welcome in my home." "We'll start walking," they laughed.

I know these people have never laughed so much.