Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990 TAG: 9005110340
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEAN MARBELLA THE BALTIMORE SUN
DATELINE: BALTIMORE LENGTH: Medium
But what they have seen.
Animals deformed beyond the sickest imagination. A land charred and reduced to rubble and twisted structural remains. And, most hauntingly, children, sad-eyed and uncomprehending.
"When I go to these places and look into the innocent children's eyes," Igor Kostin says quietly, "I feel like a spasm through me."
The children, their parents, their farms, their land - they are the victims of Chernobyl and the obsession that has consumed Kostin's life for the past four years. He has photographed them nearly continuously, from just hours after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant melted down to the present, capturing the initial disaster and chronicling the lingering aftereffects.
An exhibit of about 100 of the Soviet photojournalist's dramatic and wrenching pictures is traveling the world. The 53-year-old Kostin, who lives in Kiev, about 60 miles from Chernobyl, was in Baltimore Wednesday to promote the exhibit.
The experience so changed his life - "flipped it over," he says - that Kostin has become a man with a mission: The story must be told.
"I'm living now in a different world. I'm living in a different dimension now," Kostin, who speaks no English, said through an interpreter. "For a person who was in hell, everything else is sort of minor after that.
"Because of what I saw with my eyes, I think it is almost impossible to translate, to explain, with even the most sophisticated language," he said. "I cannot do it. I cannot find the right words."
He is compelled to return, again and again and at substantial personal risk, to the site of the most devastating nuclear power disaster ever. Even several hospitalizations for radiation poisoning have failed to stop him.
"I'm a professional journalist, and I had to do what I did," he says. "I am a courageous person. The journalism profession is a very specific profession. I think it is not for normal people."
He's been back to Chernobyl some 40 times and no doubt will be back again. He hopes someday to publish a book about it.
"I am always there. It is like a magnet. Because Chernobyl is the history, and somebody should do this for the history, in the name of history," said Kostin, who was an industrial designer before he became a professional photojournalist 16 years ago.
A bearish, mustached man, Kostin is by turns agitated, intense, eloquent and uncomfortable. His need to convey what he now knows is overwhelming at times. It's like looking at his photographs - you want to turn away occasionally.
"It's very important for me to know if I was able to communicate this feeling.. . .Because this is not a show of Igor Kostin's works. I really don't want to be hero of the day. It's not about me. This is about the sorrow of the people. And my people suffering," he says in a tumble of words and a flailing of arms.
"I don't want any people in the world to go through the same thing," he adds. "If this documentary in the smallest way, to some extent, will be able to keep some hotheads, to prevent them from doing something unreasonable, if these pictures will be an alarm bell to any parliament, I will be very happy."
He hopes the photographs reach out on a "human level. Because we are all the same people. We are the same flesh and blood, but living under different circumstances."
The exhibit, which was organized by an Italian company called IMAGO, has been displayed in five European cities and has drawn big crowds and attention.
Two weeks ago, the photographer was named "Person of the Week," by ABC's "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings."
Kostin said his very presence in the United States, promoting photographs of a disaster that in other times might have been hidden and denied by Soviet leadership, is testimony to the new openness in his country.
"Five years ago, I couldn't think about it," he said of his trip to Europe and the United States to promote his exhibit. "Five years ago, I wouldn't have been able to get those pictures."
And now, what started out as a professional photography job has turned into a personal cause.
"In this zone, I know every stone, every tree, every dog. When I walk by and a dog is barking, I think he is saying, `Hello, Igor,' " Kostin says with a rare smile. "But this is the biggest tragedy.. . .In some places that are ecologically contaminated, the people and the children are still living there, eating food grown in contaminated soil. We're asking for help. Anyone who can help."
by CNB