Helping the self-settlers of Paryshiv: food and garden work.

That summer we went to Paryshiv every month. We brought food, and once there we got to work in the gardens: the self-settlers are elderly, and work on the land is getting harder for them. The tourists who came with us also wanted to help, so everyone dug together.

Once it was our turn to be treated. Our hosts brought out blueberries from their garden. One of our guides had a scintillation dosimeter with him and, of course, measured the berries. They contained slightly more cesium than the norm, but only a little.

The berries were incredibly tasty. Some hesitated, some laughed. And those who dared got to taste real self-settler food - from a garden where for a quarter of a century nobody has told anyone what may be grown.