News

330 families from contaminated Muslyumovo village received compensation

Publish date: November 14, 2007

The 330 families from contaminated Muslyumovo village received 1 million roubles (ca. $41 thousand) compensation each for their old houses.

Muslyumovo is situated some 30 km downstream of Mayak Chemical Combine, the only settlement left along the banks of the contaminated Techa river.

According to the state financing program on solving Techa environmental problems and social problems of Muslyumovo inhabitants, signed by the Russian Nuclear Federal Agency (Rosatom) and Chelyabinsk region administration in November 2006, Rosatom and Chelyabinsk region allocate 600 million roubles (ca. $25m) each for 2007-2008.  Muslyumovo inhabitants can also move to the new Novomuslyumovo village instead of compensation. For some strange reason Novomuslyumovo village is situated close to Muslyumovo village. Big families cannot afford a big enough flat for 1 million roubles; therefore they end up again in the house on the contaminated land close to the same radioactive Techa River. For today 208 families agreed to move to Novomuslyumovo and 530 families will move to other regions. The process of relocating will finish in the end of 2009.

September 2007 marked the anniversary of that accident – one of humankind’s largest nuclear catastrophes. Fifty years ago, a tank with radioactive waste blew up at Mayak, in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, sending deadly radioactive clouds across vast territories of the Ural Mountains.