MF: You have a career as a lawyer. Why did you also decide to become a writer and how did the decision to write affect your career trajectory?

MM: I've always been drawn to writing, since I was a little girl and wrote stories about my friends' adventures with hypnosis and some rather spooky séances. If only I had kept them! But I became interested in journalism largely because of my Ukrainian heritage. When Ukraine was a republic in the Soviet Union, being Ukrainian in America meant being anonymous. Virtually no one except other Ukrainian-Americans recognized it as a separate place, which meant that my roots were from nowhere. It was spooky, like being partly invisible. I thought that by becoming a journalist, I could get the word "Ukraine" into print, thus making it – and my ethnic identity – more real. What I could not have predicted was that Ukraine would become independent – in other words, a really real place.

But by then, I had already given up practicing law and was living in Kiev, where I was a volunteer in the independence movement. My job was to write up Ukrainian news and fax it to Western news bureaus, which were only dimly becoming aware of all the non-Russian republics. Those contacts eventually led to reporting and writing for the Los Angeles Times, as well as other publications.

Ironically, the decision to take up journalism had an unexpectedly positive effect on my legal career. During Ukraine's parliamentary elections in 1998, the regime discovered defamation lawsuits as a way to punish opposition media and several prominent newspapers were shut down under the weight of huge damage awards. In writing a story about it for the Los Angeles Times, I realized there was a huge need for a legal program to help Ukrainian journalists. This eventually became the IREX U-Media Legal Defense and Education Program, which is funded by US-AID. I've been the director for eight years and am proud to say it is Ukraine's leading media defense organization.

MF: Anyone who’s spent any time in places like Ukraine, Russia, or many parts of the former Soviet bloc knows it can sometimes be incredibly difficult to get things done on a daily basis. In writing Wormwood Forest, you took on a project that required a great deal of planning as well as the possibility of, as you say, “picking up extra lifetime radiation doses.” How many trips did you make to the Zone, and how did you prepare for them?

MM: I made 14 trips to research Wormwood Forest, but continue going back as an unofficial tour guide for journalists or friends visiting the zone. As of last count, I've been there 23 times. I can't say that there was anything particularly difficult about organizing my visits. Chernobylinterinform – the official government agency that handles all visitors – was always accommodating and helpful. My only preparations usually consisted in gassing up my car and packing lunch. And, of course, taking my dosimeter.

MF: Did you write while in the field or did you do most of the writing elsewhere? One of the things that really struck me about the book were the wonderful descriptions of nature interwoven with information about radiation. For example, a scientist you interview remarks on some beautiful chanterelle mushrooms while bemoaning the fact that they can’t be eaten because of their high levels of radiation. I also liked the way your dosimeter appears throughout the text almost as if it were a character. How did you come up with this technique of making radiation an active force in your book as opposed to just describing its effects?

MM: I never thought of the dosimeter as a character, but I guess you're right. It was my constant companion, beeping away its readings. I always did my writing in my home office but what really transformed the way I wrote was my purchase of a digital recorder. Before that, I had a clunky tape recorder that I never used because it was too bulky. Instead, I would take extensive notes in the field but those were often indecipherable since I was so often on the move. (Try taking notes while off-roading in a Soviet army jeep!). Then, when it was time to put it all on paper, it seemed to lose its immediacy. But when transcribing dialogue from the digital recorder, it came alive.

Another thing that changed was my approach to research. I used to extensively research whatever issue interested me and then go out to the field. But what I usually ended up with was a mass of notes, and no place to put them. There was simply too much information. So, I changed that. Before traveling, I researched just enough to know the issues and ask intelligent questions. Then, upon returning home, I focused on writing the story of my trip, doing just enough research to fill in the factual holes in the narrative. So, say I'd be writing about my safari to find Przewalski's horses. The story would be swimming along, thanks to my digital recorder, until I hit the point where I had to explain about plutonium. That's the point where I'd dig through my plutonium file, maybe do a few interviews and Google searches, and then write up the plutonium part before returning to the story. That method became my mantra: story first, then research.

MF: The result of the Chernobyl accident is a mind-boggling intersection of environmental disaster and environmental miracle—a nuclear sanctuary. It’s an area that’s laced with plutonium, strontium, and cesium, and if this were the setting of a work of science fiction, it would be barren and uninhabitable. Instead, it is a flourishing, although radioactive, wonderland where plants and many species of animals, some of which are endangered in other parts of the world, thrive. What does this say about human attempts to preserve nature? Do we best protect nature by creating areas that keep most people out?

MM: I call it the Chernobyl paradox: by forcing the evacuation of such a huge region – twice the size of Rhode Island – radiation has allowed wildlife to thrive. James Lovelock, author of the Gaia theory of Earth as a living organism, recently proposed sprinkling tropical rain forests with radioactive waste to keep out developers. I always thought his idea was wacky until a journalist colleague who actually met him told me that one has to see the mischievous twinkle in his eyes when he says such things. Still, he has a point: it seems the best way to protect wildlife is to make an area unsafe for people. Indeed, the only real danger to the zone's wildlife isn't radiation, it's poaching.

MF: The Zone of Alienation has a fascinating subculture as well as interesting cultural reverberations. There are workers and scientists who live there, elderly people who have returned to spend the rest of their lives in contaminated homes, poachers who hunt the bison and moose, occasional fugitives and illegal aliens, visiting researchers, people who travel into the zone from time to time to check on property, and people who just want to see the aftermath of the disaster. How does living here affect its inhabitants and the ways they choose to live their daily lives? What are some of the mythologies of Chernobyl that resonate in the region’s popular culture?

MM: The zone's people – whom I call Homo chernobylus in my book -- are so varied as to defy generalization. The 300 or so samosels, or squatters, who live permanently in their original homes in the Ukrainian zone, are overwhelmingly elderly women. They are semi-legal, but tolerated by the Ukrainian authorities. Yet, they are so different. Some are gregarious. Others are reclusive. I've seen both and the gregarious ones are a joy to visit. Despite their difficult lives, with wolves howling in their yards at night, they are welcoming and hospitable. Belarus doesn't tolerate any people living in its zone – if they exist, I never saw any.

There are also about 5,000 people who do maintenance work in the zone, and another 4,000 who are working on decommissioning the Chernobyl nuclear station – the last working reactor was shut down in 2000. These are engineers, drivers, cooks, forest rangers, translators, police – in short, very different people and professions. But none of them actually live in the zone and they are overwhelmingly concentrated in two places, the power plant and the town of Chornobyl. The rest of the territory really is a no-man's land.

As for myth, the most widespread is the perception that all health problems were the result of the disaster. I will not dispute that Chernobyl may have had health effects that are not universally recognized as radiation induced. I'm sure that it has. But it's very difficult to tease out the health effects of the disaster from the tangle of medical conditions caused by poor public heath care, bad lifestyle choices (especially smoking, drinking and diet) and the social stresses of the Soviet Union's collapse.

MF: Finally, what were some of the most surprising and unexpected things you learned—about nature, about yourself, about disaster and people’s response to it--from writing Wormwood Forest?

MM: The most important lesson I learned, and that is the subject of my book, is that nature is more resilient than we thought – if we leave it alone. By getting rid of people, radiation has allowed nature to thrive. To paraphrase Pogo (who was also making an environmental statement), we have met the environmental disaster and it is us.

Mary Mycio lives in Kiev, Ukraine, where she directs the IREX (International Research and Exchange Board) U-Media Legal Defense and Education Program.


Learn more:

Memories of a Meltdown by Mohamed Makhzangi. An Egyptian doctor recouts treating Chernobyl victims.
Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences by Jim Smith and Nicholas A. Beresford. A detailed look at the accident and its effects.


Click here to read our other interviews.