In 1986 I was 7 years old, and had known nothing but the Cold War my entire life. My dad was in the Swedish Coastguard, and very aware of patrolling right next to the Soviet Union on a regular basis. Sweden at the time, and still today, suffers from being in between two world paradigms – one open to the west, and one that certainly in 1986 was as closed off as possible, with little knowledge shared with the outside world as to what was happening. War was a real option at any time, and there were several very real incidents along the coastlines of Sweden that indicated that Russia was preparing, staging, and actively moving towards action. I was in first grade.
It was scientists in Stockholm, Sweden who first reported on a possible radiation leak from the Soviet Union, and called the world’s attention towards a likely nuclear reactor issue. I can’t remember who told me, but having been fascinated, along with my dad, about all things history, the Iron Curtain was already something I “knew” about, and when the news broke, instantly realized how close the reactor was to where we lived.
Chernobyl was less than 800 miles southeast, and with winds aggressively pushing the radioactive clouds our way. A new fallout reality started to build quickly in my mind. Dad had a fantastic book series on the history or World War Two, and I’d been through them many times. Nuclear bombs were a known thing to me. Radiation poisoning was a terrifying option. And here I was, hours and days away from a new reality.
Feeling helpless, I compartmentalized the facts, and soon found mom and dad reassuring me all would be ok. “Surely, the clouds will dissipate, and all will end well,” mom said under her breath, smoking a cigarette in the corner of our kitchen. Dad, more stoic, and a realist (like me, now) was less optimistic. “Maybe we can move to England. We enjoyed Scotland on our honeymoon.”
A few days later, iodine tablets arrived in the mail from the Swedish government offices dealing with civil crisis and wartime readiness. Just in case. Just in case of what? As time went on, more was known about the terrible accident at Chernobyl, and the Soviet Union had opened up, and asked for help. The damage was real, though, in Sweden. All of the reindeer population up north was doomed, and he Lapplanders, or Sami people – a native people to the north of Sweden, Norway, and Finland, had to cull their entire herds. Turned out the radioactive clouds released their poison all over the upper arctic. Salmon stock, too, was gone for a few years. Entire livelihoods crushed.
We never had to take the iodine. Chernobyl became one more world event in my very limited life experience. The Berlin Wall fell a few years later, and Europe was never the same. Living a car ride away from Berlin, or an overnight train ride to Paris puts things in perspective. Here, we’d be in Pittsburg. There, back in the 1980s, in a whole different world. Growing up during the later stages of the Cold War has certainly shaped my worldview, and led me to appreciate how I grew up. Life was different then. Or was it? Are we, perhaps, stuck in a loop with events that help shape who we are, and it’s not so much what happens, but how we react, embrace, and move on from these events that shape us?