40 years ago – on the night of April 26, 1986 – a nuclear reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near the city of Pripyat. As a result of the explosion itself, two people died – the operator of the main circulation pumps Valery Khodemchuk and an employee of the commissioning enterprise Vladimir Shashnok. Total number of post-accident deaths due to exposure It is evaluated Fifth. Affected Pripyat residents have been given housing, including in Kiev’s Troyshina. In particular, Natalya, the widow of Valery Khodemchuk, moved to one of the Chernobyl high-rise buildings. On November 14, 2025, she died during the bombing of the city – a Russian “witness” plane hit the house. “Ukrainian Pravda” on the eve of the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster He tells About the residents of this house, their memories and fates against the backdrop of the war between Russia and Ukraine. “Medusa” retells this material.
Natalia is the widow of the first person killed in the Chernobyl disaster, Valery Khodemchuk. In November 2025, to the house where she lived in Kyiv, He hits Russian “Witness” – Natalia suffered 45% burns to her body and died. She was 73 years old.
The house where Natalia lived is one of the so-called “Chernobyl” candlesticks on Balzac Street. 40 years ago, nearly 16 thousand people from Pripyat moved here. Ukrainska Pravda journalists Rustam Khalilov and Mikhail Kriegel spoke with some of the residents of the Chernobyl house.
Fourth floor. Samoilenko’s apartment
Albina Samoilenko, who lives on the fourth floor of a high-rise building, remembers a lot of good things about Pripyat. It was a “city of the future”: a sports complex, a music school, shops where the word “shortage” was not known, a Ukrainian-style tavern with waiters in embroidered shirts, and white sand on the banks of the Pripyat River. The apartment consists of four large rooms with new furniture.
At the time of the accident, Samoilenko was working a shift at a decontamination shop. I didn’t hear the explosions, but I guessed what happened after work, when I was driving by Building 4. Albina knew that her husband, a dosimetrist, might have been there, but she didn’t understand the extent of what had happened. On my way home, I stopped at the store to buy groceries for May 1st.
The next night, she returned to work, but the station staff were told to pack up and leave town. They told us to take sports clothes and food for three days in case we had to sleep in tents. It was possible to take seven bags of personal belongings – ceramic figurines brought from Pripyat are still kept in her apartment, Ukrainska Pravda correspondents wrote. All things were checked with a dosimeter.
Housing in Kiev was found quickly – the Samoilenko family moved to a new apartment on August 2 of the same year. The secret turned out to be simple, as the house on Balzac Street was taken from other people, says Albina in an interview with the newspaper Ukrainska Pravda. It was a cooperative building built with money from future residents. They were waiting for the house to be renovated “excellently”, and at that time people who came from Pripyat moved in. Samoilenko says:
So, of course, we were not greeted with bread and salt. The story was the same in the house next door, they cut the door and smashed the windows. We get along well here. But after two years these people [вложившимся в строительство] Housing was built.
The four-room apartment had bare walls and unpolished wooden floors. Our first night on Earth, we slept on Pravda. Sitting on a bench at the entrance, Albina’s husband examined the entrants’ belongings with a dosimeter. He said that it was necessary to get rid of it – many had to get rid of the carpets.
In Pripyat, Albina Samoilenko received a radiation dose of 84, and her husband – 170 (the norm is 0.5 to 1). Both were treated for a long time, including in the 6th Clinical Hospital in Moscow, where the Chernobyl victims were transferred. Albina talks about her current life:
We have a free travel certificate. She shows him in the minibus and hears: “Are you still alive, Chernobyl victims?” That’s why I don’t use this identifier. I’d rather pay.
In 2010, Albina’s husband died of lung cancer. According to her, at home “all the men collapsed,” and many developed cancer. On the fourth floor, all the men were already dead.
Ninth floor. Ananenko’s apartment
In the HBO series Chernobyl, there is a scene in which three divers are sent to certain death – where they must drain water from the swimming pool beneath the destroyed reactor to prevent another explosion. Among them is a young man with a red beard named Ananenko. He survived and today lives in a house on Balzac Street.
Alexei Ananenko’s wife Valentina recalls:
When the series came out, teachers from our neighborhood school were teaching a lesson about Chernobyl. They talked about three divers who died after this operation. Our neighbor says: No, this man lives next to us.
Born in Russia, Alexei graduated from college in 1983, and chose Pripyat for his future workplace: good salary, magical nature. After the accident, he worked at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on a rotational basis for another three years; At the age of 29 he was fired for health reasons – due to heart problems. He got a job as an engineer in Kyiv.
Valentina was born in the Kharkov region and worked as a seamstress in a knitting factory in Kiev. She and Alexei married six years after the disaster – and at the same time she moved into his apartment in Balzac. Two rooms, 28 square meters, where he and his mother live. Her mother-in-law, according to Valentina, was worried that Alexei would not marry for a long time (he was 32 years old on the day of his wedding) – he was afraid, he did not know what would happen to him tomorrow.
Alexei and Valentina watched the series “Chernobyl” and told “Ukrainskaya Pravda” – according to Ananenko, that there were mistakes there. Instead of scuba gear, they only had petal respirators; After completing the task, no one treated them to vodka. However, thanks to the series, according to the family, Alexei received the Star of Hero of Ukraine – in June 2019, Vladimir Zelensky signed a decree on the award. Valentina concludes:
I think it’s only because Alexei’s last name was in the movie. Maybe it’s fate.
In 2017, Alexei was hit by a car at a pedestrian crossing, suffered a brain injury and spent 36 days in a coma. Energoatom allocated money for his treatment, but this money was only enough for two weeks in the hospital.
At the beginning of Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alexei and Valentina first left for Slovakia, but then returned. During the bombing, they do not go to the shelter, which is located 300 meters from the house. Alexei sits with the dog in the corridor, and Valentina stays in the room. In November 2025, when Shahad arrived, “it was loud,” Valentina says:
First, “Shahid” arrived, then frost hit, then the heating was turned off. It seems that only at the beginning of May there should be a tender and they will start completely restoring these two burned out apartments. It’s very scary on the seventh floor. Everything is black there, and no one cleaned anything.
Despite her fatigue, Valentina radiates peace. She says she knows every morning why she wakes up – to do something for Alexei: “If I was alone, I probably wouldn’t do half of it.”
Seventh floor. Khodymchuk Apartment
In the series “Chernobyl,” there is a scene dedicated to the first person killed in the accident. A man in a white coat looks for Valery Khodemchuk, the main circulation pump operator of the 4th power unit. In one of the rooms he meets a confused colleague who asks: “Is this war?” Valerie will never be found, only a shirt will be placed in the coffin.
Forty years later, in another war, his wife Natalia, in whose apartment “Shahed” ended up, was also killed. She died the next day from her burns in the hospital.
Today, the site of her apartment, Ukrainska Pravda writes, is pitch black, the windows boarded up to keep out the cold. Six months after the bombing, the intense smell of fire is still present on the stairs.
A few days before Natalia’s death, Albina Samoilenko met her from the fourth floor. According to her, the neighbor lived an active life and was very sociable – for example, she gathered around her women who knit stockings and woolen belts for the front. The new batch was delivered before the bombing. That day she wanted to go to the dacha, but changed her mind.
Natalia met Valery in Pripyat. He worked at a nuclear power plant, and she was a saleswoman at a local canteen. They married and in 1975 got a spacious apartment where they raised two children. About their last meeting with Natalia I remembered:
Valera was preparing for the night shift; A movie about arranged love was shown on TV. I hugged him and asked him if he married me for love. He smiled and replied: “Of course, for love!”
The famous Ukrainian artist Maria Primachenko was Valery’s aunt. She gave her deceased nephew a painting depicting a blue bird with outstretched wings. The picture is written like this:
This bird flies looking for its man. He was nowhere to be found. His body was scattered throughout Ukraine.