" There, at the cemetery, it doesn’t say Natasha Ignatenko. There’s only his name. She didn’t have a name yet, she didn’t have anything. Just a soul. That’s what I buried there. I always go there with two bouquets: one for him, and the other I put in the corner for her. I crawl around the grave on my knees. Always on my knees. [She becomes incomprehensible.] I killed her. I. She. Saved. My little girl saved me, she took the whole radioactive shock into herself, she was like the lightning rod for it. She was so small. She was a little tiny thing. [She has trouble breathing.] She saved . . . But I loved them both. Because—because you can’t kill something with love, right? With such love! Why are these things together—love and death. Together. Who’s going to explain this to me? I crawl around the grave on my knees. "
― Svetlana Alexievich , Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster
![Svetlana Alexievich quote : There, at the cemetery, it doesn’t say Natasha Ignatenko. There’s only his name. She didn’t have a name yet, she didn’t have anything. Just a soul. That’s what I buried there. I always go there with two bouquets: one for him, and the other I put in the corner for her. I crawl around the grave on my knees. Always on my knees. [She becomes incomprehensible.] I killed her. I. She. Saved. My little girl saved me, she took the whole radioactive shock into herself, she was like the lightning rod for it. She was so small. She was a little tiny thing. [She has trouble breathing.] She saved . . . But I loved them both. Because—because you can’t kill something with love, right? With such love! Why are these things together—love and death. Together. Who’s going to explain this to me? I crawl around the grave on my knees.](/image/2211005.jpg)