Russian Resistance

The fields where cattle graze and the river where they drink in Karabolka, a picturesque village in the southern Urals, some 1,500 km from Moscow, are irradiated. Also affected, say Nikolai and Tatyana Shchur, are the village wells and the plots where a dwindling group of some 400 villagers grow their vegetables. Ethnic Russians were moved out almost 50 years ago, when an accident at the Mayak nuclear plant 50 km to the southwest made this one of the most contaminated places on earth. Ethnic Tatars were left behind, and for over 30 years were not told why so many of...