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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 them fell mysteriously ill. Instead of the usual single village cemetery, Karabolka has eight.

In 2002, the Shchurs, he a businessman and she a chemist, began measuring levels of contamination in the area in order to provide local people with hard facts on which to base their claims for redress from the government. "Karabolka is not supposed to exist," says burly, bearded Nikolai, 52. "Officially, the population was resettled after the accident. But they were really left here to their fate."

Justice, though, is not something the Shchurs are willing to leave in the hands of fate. Through the Helping Hand Foundation, which they set up in 1997, the husband-and-wife team also offer legal aid to the general public, work on improving the prison system — most recently by helping create a radio network inside prisons — and set up courses on human rights for journalism students and prison officers. But they are realists. "I don't like revolutions," says Nikolai. "They usually create more dictatorships."

The Shchurs got their start in the early 1990s when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika opened up a new era of liberalism and political activism. They created an independent laboratory to monitor environmental contamination, in particular from radiation. Local authorities were not amused. Nikolai was charged with embezzlement, and later Tatyana was too. He ended up spending six months in prison awaiting trial. During that time, he wrote a brochure, Survival in the Legal System, which takes a newly detained person step-by-step through the judicial process and the rigors of Russian prison life.

The Shchurs' dream is to educate a new generation of journalists, lawyers, teachers, wardens and police with an understanding of, and a respect for, human rights. But they realize this is ambitious. "Nothing will really change until a generation grows up in Russia that is completely free from fear," says Tatyana, 54. Adds Nikolai: "We'll see the first results in about five years, when our journalism students have found jobs. Then we'll have some idea of how successful we are."

• PAUL QUINN-JUDGE
• From radiation poisoning to prisoners' rights, Nikolai and Tatyana Shchur take on Russia's toughest issues