The Story of a Photographer and Chernobyl Engineer, part III - Mushrooms

My contact and correspondence with Aleksandr Vladimirovich has increased, and he's come to encourage my work. "It's very good that young people from other countries are interested in the disaster" he told me, wishing me good luck and also offering to try to answer any questions I may have, and yes - as you can probably guess I have a lot of questions, and I have only just begun phrasing and typing down the first of all these questions...

In a hopefully near future you will be able to read the results of this communication. 

Still to this day, people are warned not to pick or consume any mushrooms from Chernobyl or the fallout areas, but Vladimirovich has a different story to tell:

Picking mushrooms in Chernobyl, by A.V Strannik.

"So what about fearing your environments? People are drawn to the exotic, to apples and mushrooms. By now we have good, foreign instruments to measure radiation; the levels of contamination and not just alpha, beta and gamma radiation.

Having measured the levels of radiation from the mushrooms we found, we weren't afraid - it was almost equal to the normal background radiation, only a little higher."

Still, there was a general fear and scepticism agains teating anything growing near the area. But...

"When the mushroom were cleaned, and frying, the scent spread through the room, even the most doubtful came around to taste it; two large portions each and it was all finished."

[Note: The conditions have changed since August 1986. To be on the safe side you should not ingest mushrooms, berries, or any other crop rich on potassium, as potassium is a natural radioactive element in the human body, and also potassium resembles caesium, why mushrooms tend to absorb the latter as well.]