Servant of the People in Kyiv

The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is located next to the city of Pripyat. It can be said that this new town of Pripyat was newly built to accommodate more than 50,000 nuclear power plant employees and their families, so the residents of the entire town are all employees and families of the nuclear power plant.

On the way to Pripyat, Gladkov, who was sitting in the passenger seat, began to introduce Haniyev to the situation of the town, such as its population, area, and industrial distribution.

By the time Haniyev parked his car in front of the three-story municipal building in the center of the small city of Pripyat, he had a clear understanding of this city with a population of more than 60,000, which was entirely a living area for the families of nuclear power plant employees.

Although Pripyat looks small, it has all the necessary infrastructure and departments, such as banks, amusement parks, schools, hospitals, post offices, telephone offices, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs' on-site security bureau, each of which performs its duties in maintaining the stability, unity, prosperity and stability of Pripyat.

When Haniyev's car drove into the streets of Pripyat, he found that the houses here looked very new. After all, the entire city has only a history of 16 years, and all the planned and constructed buildings and structures have not experienced too much baptism of time. It looks more developed and new than Chernobyl, and looks more like a new city representing the style of the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

In Haniyev's eyes, this place is probably like some remote county town in a big Eastern country in the future. The green area accounts for a large proportion, but the residential areas are all new buildings with more than ten floors. The low buildings with three or four floors are either office units or government buildings. Whether in terms of planning or image, it looks similar to the new cities built in the Eastern country in the 21st century.

Chapter 041 The Eve of the Accident

After Haniyev followed Gladkov into the Party Committee and Government Building in Pripyat, Haniyev didn't need to say anything. As an old local boss, Gladkov had arranged for office staff to prepare an office and a bedroom next to the office for Haniyev as early as yesterday, and all the office and living supplies were also available.

However, what surprised Haniyev was that Gladkov arranged a young and beautiful female secretary for him. This female secretary was Natasha, a clerk in the regional party committee office, whom Haniyev had met once before.

It is said that she is the granddaughter of a retired regional leader and was arranged by Chekhov to work as deputy director of the office in Pripyat. Now, just two days after taking up the post, she has become the secretary of Mayor Haniyev.

Haniyev has not yet married, and Natasha's figure and appearance are not inferior to those of movie stars. Haniyev naturally knew Gladkov's intention, and he was also happy to come into contact with beautiful women, so he nodded with satisfaction to Natasha's gentle smile.

With Gladkov's care, Haniyev felt very comfortable even though he had just arrived in Pripyat. When an official comes to a new environment, he generally has to be honest and work for a long time. At least ten days or half a month is not enough to familiarize himself with the situation.

However, when his leader is a good friend and acquaintance, no matter whether Haniyev understands the work or not, with the help of this leader, he will be able to get started and understand it quickly, which will be of great convenience for him to gain a foothold as soon as possible.

After Haniyev took office, there was still no first secretary in the leadership team of Pripyat. The new first secretary was Nicholas, the former mayor of Beshev. It was said that he was promoted to the position of first secretary of Pripyat because of his outstanding work ability.

The so-called outstanding work ability can only fool outsiders. As old bureaucrats, Haniyev and Gladkov only inquire about Nicholas's background and connections.

As the local boss, Gladkov was obviously more informed than Haniyev, so he had secretly told Haniyev that the father of Secretary Nicholas was the Minister of the Ukrainian Shipbuilding Industry.

When Haniyev learned about this, he suddenly realized that the man was the son of a real high-ranking official. No wonder he was promoted to deputy director of the Chernobyl Regional Committee and first secretary of Pripyat City at the age of about 30.

After waiting for about two days, at noon on April 25, Secretary Nicholas, accompanied by the director of the regional committee, Petrov, arrived in Pripyat and took up his post.

As the current top leaders of Pripyat, Gladkov and Hanyev, along with seven or eight other team members including the deputy secretary, deputy mayor, and trade union chairman, stood in front of the city government building to welcome them.

After meeting the young first secretary, there were routine meetings, dinners, etc.

Since Secretary Nicholas does not understand the local situation, even though he has a strong background, he has just arrived and most of the work still depends on Gladkov. Gladkov and Hanyev have the best relationship, so in the short term, I am afraid that these two leaders will control all the work in the city.

After all, Haniyev is the mayor and Gladkov is the second secretary. If the two of them join forces, even if Nicholas is the first secretary, he is not familiar with the local situation and is indeed unable to compete for power with the two of them. He can only be sidelined by them.

However, Haniyev was not concerned about fighting for power, because he knew very well that it was already noon on April 25th, and in his memory, at 1 or 2 a.m. on April 26th, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant would explode according to the original historical line, releasing countless radioactive particles, affecting the entire Eastern and Northern European countries and millions of people.

Haniyev had no intention of fighting for the little things in front of him. What he wanted to do was to avoid accidents, or if it was unavoidable, to save people's lives as much as possible, and take the opportunity to gain fame and fortune and become a political celebrity.

However, Haniyev is now a low-ranking official with little influence, and all he can do to avoid the accident is to remind the regional secretary.

At the same time, in order to resolve the accident as early as possible, Haniyev invited Gladkov to visit the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on the second day of his appointment, that is, yesterday, under the pretext of inspecting production, and had a heart-to-heart talk with the chief engineer and other leaders of the nuclear power plant.

During the conversation, Haniyev earnestly asked them to strictly follow the relevant regulations of the nuclear power plant for safe production, not to be careless, not to neglect management, etc. As for the effect, Haniyev had no confidence.

Strictly speaking, the administrative level of the nuclear power plant is on the same level as that of the Chernobyl area, but it is under the jurisdiction of the Chernobyl Committee in some matters. The administrative levels of Haniyev and Gladkov are not as high as the chief engineer of the nuclear power plant, so no one will really take what they say to heart. Haniyev has no confidence at all that whether his opinions will be listened to.

If he could have come to Pripyat to be the mayor earlier, Haniyev felt that he could use his status and power as mayor to slowly guide the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to attach great importance to safety production, and inspect and maintain equipment, carry out safety production training, and other methods to avoid the explosion that would happen tonight.

But the time was too short. Haniyev had just taken office and he didn't know any of the people in the nuclear power plant, nor did he understand the work situation. He had not even met other leaders of the nuclear power plant except the chief engineer and a few office staff.

More importantly, Haniyev did not know which unit of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant had the accident, or the exact time and cause of the explosion, so he had no way to make any advance arrangements.

Haniyev had figured out this problem long ago, so he donated anti-radiation clothing to the fire department and the Ministry of Internal Affairs in advance.

It can be said that Haniyev's current mentality is to put the lives of hundreds of thousands and millions of people first, and he has no thoughts of getting promoted, getting rich, or seizing power. This is not to say how great he is, but the snake also concerns the life safety of himself and his family.

Haniyev knew very well that the accident might happen in less than 10 hours. If no accident happened by then, everyone would be happy, and he would no longer worry about this major accident that might endanger the lives of himself, his relatives and friends.

But if it happens, not only the small city of Pripyat, but even the Chernobyl area will be wiped out.

At that point, no matter how powerful the city of Pripyat was, what mattered? What mattered was whether or not one could save one's life.

The sense of crisis made Haniyev burst out with extremely strong work efficiency and subjective initiative. He has been making preparations for both situations. One is to do work in advance to avoid accidents as much as possible. At present, he has done the best he can do in this work.

The second was to prepare that if an accident occurred, he would, as the mayor, immediately convene a meeting of the municipal committee and implement a series of plans, including fire fighting and disaster relief, gradual evacuation of the people, etc., which he had already formulated in accordance with the emergency plan after the nuclear power plant accident provided by Reuters.

Haniyev knew that a few hours after the accident, Sherbitsky, the First Secretary of Ukraine and a member of the Presidium of the Soviet Union, would learn the situation firsthand and order rescue and evacuation, but the reaction was still too slow.

What is even more infuriating is that in the following days, around April 30, Sherbitsky called Gorbachev and asked him to cancel the May Day celebrations to prevent hundreds of thousands of people in Kyiv from being contaminated by radioactive sources in the air. However, Gorbachev was not thinking about the safety of the lives of the Ukrainian people, but about taking the opportunity to completely defeat Sherbitsky, the leader of his resistance to reform.

Therefore, Gorbachev, in his capacity as General Secretary, ordered Sherbitsky not to cancel the May Day celebrations, but Sherbitsky still managed to shorten the time, and it was only within a few days that the hundreds of thousands of people in the entire Chernobyl area were completely relocated.

This was roughly what Haniyev knew, so he didn't want to wait two or three days before evacuating the 400,000 employees and their families in Pripyat to the south. This would expose most of them to severe nuclear radiation, and as the mayor, he himself would also be at risk of dying from radiation.

So Haniyev wanted to plan and prepare in advance, and even formulated an emergency plan. He would wait until the accident happened in the early morning, immediately call the team to a meeting, and then approve the plan. He would actively apply to the leaders of Chernobyl and even the leaders of Kiev for vehicles, requesting more trains, and use modern cars, trucks, trains and other means of transportation, and even horse-drawn carriages, to quickly relocate people in advance. This way, he could minimize casualties and subsequent impacts, and he, as the person in charge, could also escape.

Chapter 042: The Nuclear Age (1)

Haniyev's worst-case scenario was that if the accident still happened, as the mayor of Pripyat, he would have to do everything he could to save the 40,000 to 50,000 residents of Pripyat, and at the same time relocate more than 15,000 people from the state-owned forest farms and three collective forest farms, as well as more than 200,000 citizens of Chernobyl.

So when Haniyev learned this morning that the last batch of anti-radiation suits had arrived at the state-owned forest farm, he immediately arranged for Grigory and Belanov to mobilize the militia company to stop the car, and then asked Grigory to drive the car himself to deliver the anti-radiation suits on the car and the more than 8000 sets of anti-radiation suits stored in the forest farm to him.

Because of Haniyev's good reputation, Lev Zubov, the deputy director of sales at the Zaporizhia Military Uniform Factory, was impressed by Haniyev and agreed to send the remaining large quantities of radiation protection suits to Chernobyl first, and then collect the balance before unloading.

However, Haniyev currently has no money. He still owes Lev Zubov a balance of 28 rubles, and he has no place to pay this money.

But it had to be used urgently tonight, so Haniyev directly arranged for Grigory and Belanov to use force to stop the vehicle, control the driver and the sales manager who was pressing the goods, load the goods together with the forest farm's inventory and send them to Pripyat.

What Haniyev said was that the city would need the money urgently tomorrow, but there was not enough money to settle the outstanding debts for the time being, so they could only use it as an emergency measure first and settle the accounts later.

Grigory and Belanov naturally believed everything Haniyev said, but they had no idea that Haniyev was completely bluffing and had no money at all.

After the leadership team of Pripyat city got familiar with each other, it was already nightfall.

There was a kitchen in the city government, so Haniyev arranged for them to have some steak together in the evening. He also reached an agreement with Gladkov to persuade Nicholas and others to drink some fermented grape juice purchased by the forest farm.

After drinking several barrels of "grape juice", the Pripyat city leadership team was a little drunk, which was exactly what Haniyev wanted. He immediately arranged for Nicholas to stay in the administrative building as well.

It was quiet after 8 o'clock in the evening. Lying on the bed in the office suite, Haniyev was not sleepy at all. Of course, it was not because Natasha lived in a bedroom not far away.

Haniyev couldn't sleep simply because he knew that an explosion would occur at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant tonight or early tomorrow morning. This was an accident that would change the fate of the Soviet Union, the fate of millions of Soviet people, and even his own fate for decades to come.

This accident was fraught with danger for Haniyev, but there were also benefits in crises. He was not strong enough in heart, and how could he have the mind to sleep when facing such a major change that would happen in a few hours?

Although he was lying in bed, he tossed and turned and couldn't fall asleep. Many fantasies and thoughts kept popping up in his mind, making him dizzy after a while.

Haniyev kept going over his plans and contingency plans for dealing with the accident over and over in his mind.

Because everyone was staying in the administrative building after drinking some wine at dinner, Haniyev's goal was to have everyone together when the accident happened so that they could hold a meeting and respond quickly.

Although he couldn't sleep, in order to avoid not having the energy to deal with the accident, Haniyev forced himself to close his eyes and lie on the bed to rest.

He seemed to have fallen asleep unknowingly, and at 12:40 in the middle of the night, he suddenly heard a ringing in his ear. Haniyev knew that it was the alarm clock he set.

Sitting up suddenly from the bed, Haniyev turned on the lights in the room and turned on the TV series to see if there was any nightly news.

Haniyev anxiously changed channels and turned off the TV. Then he remembered that Grigory would arrive at night, so he immediately put on his clothes and went downstairs.

In addition to the city government, Haniyev saw a guest house not far away, with a pickup truck parked in front of the door.

After entering the hotel, Haniyev asked Grigory for his room number and woke him up, then went with him to carry more than a dozen sets of radiation protection suits into the administrative building.

After returning to his office and sitting down, Haniyev looked up at the time. The clock on the wall had already reached 1:15.

Haniyev felt that the accident might happen soon, so he and Grigory sat in the office and drank tea quietly.

Grigory had no idea what Haniyev was doing. After a moment's hesitation, he asked, "Secretary Haniyev, why are you moving radiation protection suits in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"

Haniyev had already thought of an excuse and said casually, "I heard that the nuclear power plant has been conducting some tests these days. I don't know the details, but didn't Reuters and other foreign media report the dangers of nuclear power plant accidents a few days ago? I'm worried about something happening. If you're sleepy, come sleep on my bed and I'll sit with you for a while."

Grigory nodded, secretly thinking that Haniyev was making a fuss out of nothing. Although he admired Haniyev's ability and vision in using the nuclear power plant's safety incident to promote and reuse him, he found it difficult to understand why he spent a huge amount of money to purchase anti-radiation clothing and was so nervous that he stayed up late at night to move more than a dozen pieces to the room.

However, Grigory's progress was all thanks to Haniyev, so he naturally didn't dare to show his dissatisfaction. He just nodded and said, "I'm not sleepy either. I'll sit down and keep you company."

Haniyev nodded and stopped talking, staring intently at the clock.

Tick, tick, tick, tick…

The clock ticked by one hour, and Haniyev remained nervous.

The night was extremely quiet, and the sound of the clock was the loudest noise. However, Grigory was really tired, so he fell on the sofa and fell asleep unknowingly.

Haniyev kept staring at the clock. When the hand pointed to 1:20, Haniyev became more and more nervous. Every minute after that seemed extremely long to Haniyev.

Soon, the pointer pointed to 1:23. After dozens of seconds, Haniyev suddenly felt a light outside the window, and then heard a huge explosion in the distance, followed by a tremor under his feet and a buzzing sound of the window glass.

Haniyev suddenly stood up, feeling the trembling of the building, the roar in the air, and the sudden flash of light in the darkness outside the window. His face was very strange, a mixture of relief and sadness...

But no matter what, after hearing the huge explosion, Haniyev knew that the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant occurred unimpeded.

Since the worst outcome that Haniyev feared, the nuclear power plant explosion, has happened as planned, the next thing to do is to find ways to carry out disaster relief and avoid risks.

Just as Haniyev came back to his senses, he heard another louder explosion. Although the sound was still far away, it was much louder than the previous one. It felt like thunder and tsunami, shaking the doors and windows.

Haniyev leaned over to the window and looked out, and sure enough, he saw flames in the night sky in the direction of the nuclear power plant and a blue-white light shooting straight into the sky.

Grigory had been awakened by the loud explosion. He got up sleepily and looked at Haniyev, who was leaning against the window looking out. He asked in a trembling voice, "Secretary Haniyev, what's wrong?"

Haniyev turned to look at Grigori, who looked panicked, and said in a deep voice, "The nuclear power plant exploded."

"what!"

Grigory was so frightened that his face turned pale. He jumped up excitedly and shouted, "How is this possible? This... this... If this nuclear power plant exploded, wouldn't it be the same as a nuclear bomb explosion? What should we do...

Secretary... Secretary, what should I do?"

"Calm down. Listen to me and you won't die."

As Haniyev said this, he left Grigory and turned around to take out a printed emergency plan from the bottom drawer of his desk. This was a fire extinguishing and evacuation plan that he had worked hard on for many days based on the expert guidance materials given by Anato.

Haniyev briefly flipped through the emergency plan he had printed to see that the contents had not changed before nodding in satisfaction. He then looked at Grigory and instructed, "Hurry and put on your radiation protection suit. Then drive the car over and get it ready. The radiation protection suit in the car may be needed at any time."

Grigory was anxious, but when he saw Haniyev's calmness, he gradually calmed down. He hurriedly put on a radiation-proof lead suit and an asbestos mask, then turned around and left, quickly going to drive.

After getting into the driver's seat, Grigory started the car, his heart trembling. He suddenly felt terrified and thought: Haniyev had already sensed the accident was about to happen? Could he be a fortune teller?

Chapter 043: The Nuclear Age (2)

Haniyev hurried to the office and first called the main control center of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to inquire about the details of the explosion.

As the incident happened suddenly and the secretary was away, the station chief Brukhanov, who was in charge of the work, immediately reported to Haniyev after receiving a call that the explosion was caused by a malfunction during the testing of Unit 4.

Now the fire alarm has automatically sounded, and Dyatlov and Nikolai Fomin, the two chief engineers of the nuclear power plant, have also gone to the No. 4 machine room where the accident occurred to deal with the accident.

Upon learning that an explosion had indeed occurred and was not under control, Haniyev, as the mayor, immediately issued an order to Brukhanov, requiring that all units of the nuclear power plant closest to the explosion and fire points be shut down immediately, and that the evacuation of personnel from the nuclear power plant be arranged as soon as possible.

Although in terms of administrative level, even though the three nuclear power plant bosses Brukhanov, Dyatlov and Nikolai Fomin are one level higher than Haniyev, the nuclear power plants are under local management, and they can ignore Haniyev when there is nothing to do.

Now that an accident has occurred, especially when Stationmaster Brukhanov is frightened and at a loss, Haniyev issued relevant orders in his capacity as the mayor of Pripyat, and Stationmaster Brukhanov accepted them instantly.

After hanging up the phone, Haniyev called the Second Fire Station of the Chernobyl Armed Police, which is adjacent to the nuclear power plant. Upon learning that they had already set off, he shouted, "Hurry up and get Lieutenant Pravik on the line! Are you all going to die?"

Pravik, quickly deliver the radiation protection suits and gas masks I gave you. This is a nuclear power plant generator explosion. Nuclear radiation is everywhere. If they don't wear radiation protection lead suits, they will die if they get close!"

Haniyev's roar echoed in the corridor of the municipal building. After Lieutenant Pravik, the head of the second fire station of the regional armed police, hurriedly agreed to hang up, Haniyev hurriedly turned around and sounded the emergency alarm.

When the emergency alarm sounded and all the team members and staff got up and ran over, Haniyev called the Pripyat City Military and Armed Police Combined Fire Brigade, the District First Fire Brigade, and the Forest Fire Brigade one by one.

They were required to wear radiation-proof lead suits and gas masks before going to extinguish the fire. It was directly pointed out that it was a nuclear power plant explosion and there was a risk of nuclear radiation and pollution leakage. They were required to strictly follow the highest standards of protective measures.

By the time Haniyev finished the call, his throat was dry and smoking.

He walked out and saw the panicked Nicholas, Gladkov and others, and said in a deep voice: "The Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded during an experiment just now. It has caused a fire and nuclear radiation leakage. It's a serious problem and we can't solve it. Secretary Nicholas, please report to Secretary Chekov immediately.

Secretary Gladkov, let's hold an emergency rescue meeting right away. This is an urgent situation, and we need to do everything we can. Otherwise, if serious harm is caused, I don't know if everyone will be exiled to Siberia to work in the mines, but it's certain that we won't be able to hold official positions!"

Perhaps it was Haniyev's last sentence that woke everyone up, and everyone seemed to have just woken up from their dream.

Nicholas agreed and asked Haniyev a few simple questions, then rushed to the office to call Chekhov to report.

Without waiting for Nicholas, Haniyev dragged Gladkov and the other team members to the conference room. He threw his printed emergency evacuation plan on the table and said, "This is the plan I just wrote this morning. I originally planned it as a safety production document, but I didn't expect it to be used tonight. Everyone, take a look!"

Although everyone was a little confused when they were first awakened by the explosion, they were all scared and broke out in cold sweats after hearing the alarm and what Haniyev said. At this time, they all knew that it was right to listen to Mayor Haniyev.

Gladkov hurriedly picked up the document in front of him, quickly read it over, and said, "It looks very well written. Let's approve it. Put out the fire, evacuate, and leave. The extent of the nuclear radiation is still unknown, so we must prepare for the worst!"

Deputy Secretary Dmitrievich frowned and said, "Secretary Nicholas hasn't arrived yet. Wouldn't it be against the rules for us to just pass through?"

Haniyev slammed the table and said in a deep voice, "A single minute of delay could put a civilian's life in danger. How are we going to handle such a serious matter? Every detail will be investigated. Which is more important, procedure or the lives of the people?"

Dmitrievich was silenced.

Gladkov keenly realized that Haniyev possessed the best qualities of a politician, that is, calmness, sophistication, wisdom and clarity. In such a situation, he could stand up at the first time to support the overall situation and make the fastest and most rational response. Perhaps after the accident was handled, Haniyev would be promoted and reused again.