CPOY 76 Team Picture Story Silver: Bryansk Region
The Bryansk Region is located in Central Russia southwest of Moscow and near the borders of Ukraine and Belarus. As a result of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 26, 1986, part of the territory the Bryansk region was contaminated with long-lived radionuclides. Currently, many of the residents continue to live in contaminated areas. During the Soviet era, it was a highly developed agricultural region. But after fall of the USSR it lost this importance.
Larisa Ivanovna picks a water lily on the Krivoy River in the village of Smelizh. During the Second World War, this village was considered the capital of the partisan movement and was burned down by the Nazis in 1943. But immediately after the end of the war, local residents rebuilt it from the trees of the Bryansk forest. For many years a prosperous collective farm worked here, but after the fall of the USSR, it collapsed and the village gradually began to lose its inhabitants: someone left, someone died. But lately, people have begun to return to it. So, Larisa Ivanovna returned from Khabarovsk. Like her fellow villagers, she wants to live closer to nature and lead a simple life.
