Crossed out of the lists

The hunting season for extra Chernobyl rescuers is opened in Kharkiv. Every year on 26 April the country recalls its heroes. In Kharkiv every one of 13 thousand Chernobyl rescuers gets a scarce financial aid, a present to children and a congratulation card. The term for a consecutive re-registration of the heroes of Chernobyl finished by the first July this year. 649 persons were crossed out of the lists. So, the lists are growing, somewhat compensating the death rate. The question is how the extra Chernobyl heroes get to the lists and how they get the proper documents. Here is a story that explains a method of doing so. A Chernobyl rescuer, an invalid of the third group, a medical doctor Tatiana Chuchula got a document after re-registration on 21 May 1997. Once, during coming to her job, she was reprimanded by the transport controller that her document of a Chernobyl rescuer for free transportation was incorrect — there was no stamp and no signature of Ivan Bey, who is in charge of such documents in Kharkiv city administration. Doctor Chuchula handed her certificate to the proper department of the Moskovskiy district of Kharkiv. Certainly, bureaucrats did not hurry and in three months informed the doctor that her certificate had vanished. They promised to give the doctor a duplicate. They even promised that this duplicate would have the needed stamp and the needed signature. It appeared that such mysterious losses of originals have a tendency to occur in many districts of Kharkiv. Where they get and for how much, one can only guess.

Since the English review covers two issues of the original ‘Prava ludyny’, we have the opportunity to get the response of the official person to the above-placed note.

The note ‘Crossed out of the lists’ in the previous issue of ‘Prava ludyny’ is especially interesting for the readers who are professionally connected with the problems of the Chernobyl rescuers. Here is the commentary of Maya Sheremet, the deputy head of district commission of protection of the Chernobyl rescuers. ‘The case described certainly must not considered typical, this is a rear exception. Although our commission does not deal with the questions of re-registration of the Chernobyl rescuers, I have permanent contacts with them and never heard that disappearance of the IDs is a frequent phe-nomenon. Re-registration is a serious matter and mistakes here are impossible. What has happened with Tatiana Chuchula may be explained only by carelessness of the workers of the district department. Certainly, such mistakes are inadmissible. People worry because they got the privileges at a very great price. We do our best to assist the Chernobyl rescuers, find some money for the aid to our clients, pay for medicine, etc. This is, of course, not sufficient. The main evil comes from state bureaucrats. We cannot fight with them without the public aid. That is why we a glad when newspapers support us’