40 years later, the truth about the “Bulgarian Chernobyl” comes to the surface through the research of scientists and dosimeters. While the cloud of iodine-131, cesium-137 and strontium-90 passes over the country, the state apparatus is busy not with saving citizens, but with preserving ideological comfort.
Analyzes show that criminal negligence continues a year later. In the spring of 1987, Bulgaria experienced a second radiation peak. The reason is not a new incident, but the refusal of the managers to buy clean feed. Thus, animals are fed contaminated grass and hay from the previous year, and radiation re-enters people’s homes through milk and meat.
While the average Bulgarian consumes goods that under normal circumstances would be declared “unfit”, the elite send their personal food stocks to be checked in specialized laboratories. “They were eating food that they imported from uncontaminated territories of Europe,” says Petar Uzunov from Sofia University. This is the most striking symbol of division in the totalitarian state – biological survival for the elite and radioactive roulette for the people.
