Biography
"Divers", or "Chernobyl divers" - the three of the three heroes-liquidators, engineers of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, who saved the world from the second explosion, which could occur a few days after the accident in the 4th power unit. Two of the legendary troika - Alexey Ananenko and Valery Blessov - alive today, although many sources by mistake or inattention "buried" them.Childhood and youth
The future hero of the liquidator was born in the Soviet Republic of Komi in the fall of 1959. Ukrainian by nationality. His early childhood passed in the city of Inte, rich in coal deposits and arose due to the development of the field. About the parents of Alexei Mikhailovich Ananenko there is no information, except for the miser definition in the Ukrainian Wikipedia: "Peasant Family".
When the son turned 2 years old, the parents moved to the village Tulinovka, which in the Tambov region. Here in 1977, Alexey received a maturity certificate and in the same year she went to the Russian capital, becoming a student of the Energy Institute.
In 1983, Ananenko was awarded a diploma in the specialty "Nuclear power plants and installations" and were awarded the qualifications of the "engineer-thermophysics".
Career
After the end of the Moscow university, the young energy engineer received a direction to the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and in the same 1983 was appointed by the operator, and then the mechanic engineer of the reactor workshop. In this position, Alexey Ananenko worked when a catastrophe happened on the Chernobyl.
3 years later, in 1989, the senior engineer was transferred to Kiev, to the Department of Atomenergoproekt Institute. Here, Alexey Mikhailovich developed reports on the analysis of the safety of Ukrainian nuclear power plants, analyzing the estimates of the consequences of possible radiation accidents.
In 1993, Ananenko worked in the Scientific and Technical Center of Nuclear and Radiation Security as the head of the Laboratory of the Division of the Calculated Analysis of Teplogidraulic Processes. Next year, the knowledge of experienced energy was required in the state station of Ukraine, where he was entrusted by the leadership of the emergency dispatch department.
In the mid-1990s, Alexei Ananenko was transferred to the Ministry of Environmental Safety. Later, he headed the department for emergency preparedness and response in the Ministry of Ekoresources of the country. Ten years since the spring of 2001, Ananenko worked in the state nuclear response committee, where he continued to oversee issues of emergency readiness and response.
In the fall of the 2010th, energy left the post of the head of information and crisis management and early, as a participant in the elimination of the consequences of the Chernobyl accident, was reserved. But to conduct the lifeless life of the pensioner Alexei Mikhailovich could not: in the spring of 2011, there was a director of the Institutional Development of the Association "Ukrainian Nuclear Forum". In this position he worked for 7 years.
The Chernobyl accident
The catastrophe, which happened in the spring of 1986, became a turning point in the biography of a young mechanic engineer Ananenko, who served the 3rd and 4th blocks of the nuclear power plant, and his colleagues Valery Branch and Boris Baranova. The "peaceful atom" revealed and rebelled "peaceful atom" put the world and millions of people on the line between life and death. Throw specialists of the Chernobia had to turn into "divers" and descended under the exploded 4th reactor to open the water drain valves from the reservoir pool (bubbler).
In the US-British TV series "Chernobyl", released on screens in 2019, the creators seen a few events of those fatal days, turning the annenenko nuclear engineers, Baranov and Branchov in volunteers who caused to descend into infected by the Barboter radiation.
Later Alexey Mikhailovich shared in an interview with journalists memories of those terrible days. The liquidator told that he and two of his colleagues really realized the level of danger, which their lives were exposed, but did not have volunteers: they were chosen and sent to the bubbler, because they knew where the drain valves were located. Liquidators stayed under the ground 2-3 hours, but remained alive, having received a non-critical dose of irradiation.
One of the "divers" should have kept the lantern, illuminating two others those valves. The light of the lantern from time to time Gus, and liquidators had to act on the touch, in the pitch darkness. The process of immersion in the deadly pool and the actions of liquidators are shown in the series quite truthfully, but on the surface no one met the heroes with applause: this is a fiction of the scriptwriter.
In the photo taken in youth, Alexey Ananenko has a mustache. As he told in an interview, she had to part with her vegetation on the face when the accident happened: the mustache "collected" too much radiation.
For your act, the engineer received a reward - a premium of 80 rubles. Later, in 2005, Ananenko awarded the diploma of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and in 2018, President Petro Poroshenko presented Alexey Mikhailovich the Order "For the courage" of the 3rd degree.
The heroes of liquidators saved the lives of millions of people of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and European countries from the re-explosion, because the molten radioactive "lava", in touching with the water of the tank, could explode, destroying the remaining three blocks and lifting a huge steam cloud into the air.
Later, the feat of the "Chernobyl divers" and firefighters prevented by the world man-made catastrophe were perpetuated in the monument. The pathetic inscription on it - "those who saved the world" - does not exaggerate perfect heroes at all.
Personal life
With his wife Valentina Alexey Ananenko met in Kiev, where he was transferred 3 years after the accident on the Chernobyl. They got married and settled in a high-rise building on Troyeschina, erected for liquidators. The personal life of the hero was happily. He, together with his wife, has been going together for many years. There are no information about the children of Ananenko.The Liquidator's wife told that he learned about the fate of her husband not immediately: Alexey did not like to remember what happened. The details of those terrible days were shared by Ananenko's friends, and the series was aware of the scale of the tragedy, which, although he sins inaccuracies, but the atmosphere of the catastrophe still passes.
In 2017, a misfortune happened to the liquidator: at the pedestrian crossing he fell under the wheels of the car and spent more than a month in a coma. But again managed to win a duel with death and remained alive, although the state of health leaves much to be desired.
Many details of the 1986 events erased in memory of Alexey Mikhailovich. The heroic past and the awards did not become a source of well-being: Ananenko lives on a modest retirement, and the money for treatment after an accident family was collected independently.
Alexey Ananenko now
At the time of the accident, Ananenko turned out to be the youngest of the Troika - he was 26 years old. Alexey and his colleagues - 28-year-old insane and 46-year-old Baranov - looked into the eyes of death, but remained alive, avoiding radiation sickness and the bitter fate of hundreds of colleagues.
Baranova did not become in 2005: the eldest of the troika "divers" died in Kiev from a heart attack. In 2019, the Kiev residents turned to the city authorities with a request to assign the name of the hero the street on which he lived.
Now Alexey Ananenko lives in the Ukrainian capital and continues to fight with the consequences of an accident. From April 2018 he retired.