Safety above all else: a radiation survey took place at the National Chornobyl Museum

Specialists of the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear and Radiation Safety (SSTC NRS) carried out a radiation survey of the premises of the National Museum “Chornobyl”. Items from the collection that were removed from the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and the Zone of Unconditional (Mandatory) Resettlement (ChEZ) and donated to the museum by private individuals.

In total, more than half a thousand museum exhibits were examined, including a collection of Ukrainian folk towels, napkins and curtains of the mid-20^th century, which were collected by Museum scientists during a scientific research expedition to ChEZ in 1994 and 1996, church paraphernalia (icons, old prints, candlesticks, a fragment of an iconostasis, etc.), household items of the beginning of the 20^th century, measuring equipment (dosimetry equipment), items of phalerology and numismatics, maps of radiation contamination, etc.

According to the survey results, no exceeding of the ermissible values of the ambient equivalent dose rate of gamma radiation was detected in the premises and from the surfaces of the museum exhibits (the maximum exposure dose rate values were 0.10 μSv/h). Not a single radioactively contaminated item was detected in the museum’s collection.

The photo was provided by the press service of the SSTC NRS