Alexander Sirota

Alexander Sirota
Born (1976-06-07) June 7, 1976
Kiselivka Kherson area, Ukraine
Occupation journalist, photographer, filmmaker
Employer All about Pripyat and Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Alexander Sirota (Ukrainian: Олександр Юхимович Сирота, Russian: Александр Ефимович Сирота); (born June 7, 1976, in Kiselivka of the Kherson area of Ukraine) is a Ukrainian photographer, journalist, filmmaker. He writes in the Russian and Ukrainian languages. As a former inhabitant of city Pripyat and an eye-witness and victim of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster he has devoted many articles, photography and video reports to Pripyat and Chernobyl catastrophe. He was the editor-in-chief the Internet of the project pripyat.com, vice-president of the International public organization "Center Pripyat.com". In May, 2008 he became the winner of the ІХ-th International competition of films, TV-programs, Internet-projects on the law-protective and law-enforcement subjects "Golden George" and has received the diploma and a prize "The Big Tape of George". Member of the Union of journalists of Ukraine since 2008.

Biography

Alexander Sirota was born on June 7, 1976 in village Kiselevka of the Kherson area, Ukraine. Since 1980 he lived in Kherson, then — in Komsomolsk city of the Poltava area. And from 1983 he lived with his mother (Lyubov Sirota) in the new city of Pripyat (the satellite of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant — only 1,5 kilometers distant), where he studied in the school № 1 to April 26, 1986 before the Chernobyl catastrophe.[1]

In April 1986 I was not yet 10 years old. For me, then a care free little boy, and for my age group the cosy little streets of our town, all its yards and back alleys, and also the nearby wood and the Pripyat River, were the scenes of our childish play and "war games". That fatal Saturday, 26 April, was no exception. I remember how my friends and I, after school, ran down to the stream and played on its banks almost until nightfall, building fortresses and dugouts. ... ...the evacuation itself then also seemed like an exciting game, only now with real camouflaged military helicopters flying low over the roofs, with real armoured troop-carriers, with militiamen in flak jackets and gas masks standing along the road, with an endless line of buses taking us and all the town's population "for three days" to an unknown destination. We did not know and did not understand then that we were leaving our town for ever...

Alexander Sirota "I want them to remember" [2]

On April, 27 all inhabitants of Pripyat where evacuated.

Since 1987, he lives in Kiev where in 1994 finished high school № 267. He has studied in Kiev International Solomonov University on the historical faculty. He has worked in the Kiev "Green device of city", the operator of the gas station, the worker of installation of the equipment in the firm of civil engineering, then — as technical director and the deputy director on commerce in several companies on the construction of swimming pools.

The article of Alexander Sirota about Chernobyl tragedy "I want them to remember" was the first experience of journalistic work, which at once has been translated into English and is published in the magazine of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations.[3] After this publication, in April, 1996 has been invited by International ecological organization Greenpeace in the USA for participation in the international action GREENPEACE "Testimonies tours", where Alexander Sirota (nicknamed "Sasha") was included as the representative of Ukraine in mass actions and meetings with the public and the Ukrainian diaspora, which were devoted the 10th anniversary of Chernobyl catastrophe.

Photos of Alexander Sirota: View of the center of ghost town Pripyat including Chernobyl power plant, 2007

Now his articles and photoreportings are published in various mass-media (including the newspapers "Literature Ukraine", "PostChernobyl", "Your Health", etc.), and his video-reportings were included in the programs of many Ukrainian and Russian TV channels and in BBC. In December, 2006 his video-reporting about the marauding in the Chernobyl zone and Pripyat was broadcast by the 5th channel of the Ukrainian TV. As a result, the criminal charges of plunder and export of materials from the radiation-polluted zone were filed and a governmental commission for investigation was created.[4]

From January till March, 2005 on public principles worked as the editor of the section “Literature and the Art” of the Internet—project Pripyat.com. Then and nowadays he works as the editor-in-chief of this site. In 2006 also he has been elected by Vice-president of the International public organization the "Center PRIPYAT.com", the primary goal of which is the report of the truthful information about the thrown city Pripyat, Chernobyl catastrophe and its consequences to the most people of the world. Just with this purpose they organizes and carries out fact-finding excursions in the Chernobyl zone and Pripyat. As Alexander has told in the interview to the correspondent of Russian Information Agency (RIA NEWS) Ivan Sheglov: "I would like very much that everyone, who visited Pripyat, could not live so that a dead cities there were after him..."[5]

On the website pripyat.com as editor-in-chief Sirota has placed "An Appeal to the President, the Government and the Supreme Rada of Ukraine, to the Chapters of all countries of the world, the Council of Europe, UNESCO, the United Nations"[6] A petition to make Pripyat a city-monument initiated together with the newspaper "Literature Ukraine" for granting to city of Pripyat of the International status of the City-museum, and to the 15-km zone of alienation around of Pripyat, including the city Chernobyl, — the status of historical-ecological reservation, as the monument of the greatest technological accident of a planet.[7]

Also among many projects of Pripyat.com is still one project named "The Photo of your home" also very interesting for the former inhabitants of Pripyat.[8]

Articles, interviews, a photo- and video-reports

References

  1. ↑ Pripyat. The city of the workers of atomic power.
  2. ↑ Alexander Sirota "I want them to remember" — DHA NEWS *September/October 1995* No. 16
  3. ↑ "DHA NEWS” No.16, September/October 1995.
  4. ↑ "Wanna some radioactive batteries?"
  5. ↑ "Chernobyl 23 years later"
  6. ↑ "Ogoniok" № 4998
  7. ↑ Pripyat - the City-Museum — the video scene of 5-th channel Ukrainian TV.
  8. ↑ Yevgen Goncharenko “Pripyat. Winter Fairy Tales Reports from Chornobyl Area”

External links

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