Children of Uranium (excerpt)

I AM IRRADIATED; THEREFORE I AM

There are several legends about the discovery of the uranium ore deposits from Baita. Some of them say that Soviet would have been accidentally discovered the ore in the early 50s. Others say that the Germans were informed about its existence and they even built an acces road. It is said that if the Germans would have had enough time to exploit the ore, the faith of the war and the world would have been diffrent. Or maybe not
In 1952, the uranium mine from Baita, in the Apuseni Mountains, Romania was seized by the Soviet Union as war debts. The Russians started here a colony and transformed the locals into miners.
Today, the ones who survived those times and their families still live in the shadow of a controversial past.

Romania is changing, but there are things from the past that still remain a secret. The old people from Baita Plai, retired from the uranium mine nearby remember how many decades ago the Russians came and shortly thereafter they developed a small city and proceeded with the massive exploitation of the ore. The main objective: support of the Soviet military nuclear program.
Almost eight thousand Romanian miners were working day and night, around the clock, in four shifts. There was no concern for the labor or environmental protection. Most of the mines employees didnt even know they were extracting uranium, but quartz or lead.

People were not supposed to talk about this and they still dont. Even though in february 2009 the uranium mine was officially decommissioned and the entire area entered in an environmental program, as an irony of the faith, the uranium comes back home as radioactive waste. By a Government decision, some galleries of the former uranium mine from Baita Plai were transformed into the National Radioactive Waste Storage.
Now, in the miner colony Baita Plai there are still 92 people a small and poor community living in a place that seems devastated by an atomic bombing. They ignore the fact that here the radiations are three times higher then the normal dose, because their only concern is to survive. But besides the poorness, the myth of uranium insinuates in their daily routine.

Children of Uranium, 2009
A film by
IULIAN MANUEL GHERVAS & ADINA POPESCU

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