Lida Masanovitz, 74, stands beside her husband, MIkhail Masanovitz, 73, as she speaks to her daughter on the phone. After the Chernobyl accident on April 26, 1986, Masanovitz's daughter was hospitalized and treated for thyroid. An estimated 7 million people in the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Russia and Ukraine suffered from radiation-linked ailments, including thyroid and circulation problems after the accident.
As the world gets ready to mark the 25th?anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, life in the desolate zone around the closed plant goes on. While many cities, towns and villages were evacuated in the aftermath of the world's nuclear accident, the remaining residents of Redkovka - some 35km from the exploded reactor - say they refused to leave their homes after radiation had fallen on their village. Radiation levels were only measured here a decade after the accident - too late for many. Today, the village lies almost empty and in disrepair. Its final residents are a handful of elderly people living off the land, eking out their final years in the shadow of Chernobyl.