Atoll

In the period between 1946 and 1958 the U.S. conducted in total 67 nuclear tests on the atolls Bikini and Enewetak About 7000 people evacuated from Bikini demanded to recognize them victims of the U.S. tests However, only 1865 people received an official recognition Half of them died of different diseases a film by Alexey Abakumov ATOLL Time… I have flown through three continents I have sailed across the ocean To find myself on the beach where people once managed to stop time You can see it if you go down down to the bottom of the lagoon A few minutes' submersion... cylinders with diving gas... experience and care… And finally… What is it? Lifeless ship frames Underwater graveyard of steel giants Who has placed them here? Who has doomed them to rot and decay? Who has caused time to stop for them? It happened on July 25, 46 Worlds away from the mainland… In the most desolate place in the Pacific Ocean… Dozens of warships and trading ships languished on the surface of the lagoon Still alive but already doomed The reason was a bomb under the bottom of one of the ships The atomic bomb Baker Americans were preparing an underwater nuclear explosion Avid cameras were pointed at target ships The clock was still ticking for them But the physicist Holloway was about to stop it At 10.30 p.m he activated a remote detonator When the smoke cleared it turned out that the ships withstood the blow Only one cruiser was missing Yes, exactly the assault landing ship which had been loaded with the bomb disappeared It simply vanished But an hour passed… two… And the fatally injured vessels one after another began to disappear in the depth of the lagoon The most long lasting was agony of the aircraft carrier Saratoga Eight solid hours!.. Eternal silence reigns reigns in the graveyard for ships They are beyond time They have no name One can only guess guess that these remains of ship body... gun turrets... used to be the destroyer Anderson Just the very vehicle which was involved in a fierce battle with the Japanese Navy of the Santa Cruz Islands Now she rests at a depth of one hundred and fifty-seven feet sent there by the world's first underwater nuclear explosion And what is this? Who can recognize in this ship body eaten away with rust a former menacing combat weapon of the U.S. Navy The submarine Apogon The veterans have a sad fate Nobody will ever batten down Apogon's hatch and command: - Rig for surfacing! We were told on the land about this ship flipped upside down Japanese cruiser "Nagato" Americans made her a target in revenge for Pearl Harbor From the bridge of this very cruiser Admiral Yamamoto gave the order to attack the naval base in Hawaii Today water is clear But, they say, before testing testing it was even more clear: the bottom was visible to the depth of about hundred feet But after first conducted explosions visibility dropped to thirty feet The lagoon has turned into into bouillon teeming with plankton And what big plankton these are! One to three inches long! Radiation! And here is the famous Saratoga! The testers did to the vessel what armada of Japanese airplanes airplanes failed to do in the famous battle of the Solomon Islands At that moment they they fell out of the clouds Two were shot down but their bombs hit hit the aircraft carrier Then the ship was attacked by kamikaze The flight deck was warped Fires broke out in different places The power supply failed The crew fought the fire and repelled new attacks Against all the odds the ship did not lose buoyancy She was alive and did not lessen her speed Did she deserve her fate? Next to the aircraft carrier the airplanes swept away from the deck rest in peace Just crumpled metal But why such anguish emanates from this common grave? I look at the scale of my dosimeter Now the radiation level is normal Sixty years ago it was more than twenty times the norm The deck of Saratoga used to be be inhabited by unusual shellfish species Mutants? Maybe, I think Probably the place where time had been stopped was about to be taken by an alien time and an alien life? It is hard to breathe not only because of the depth Ruined ships extinguish hope They seem to warn: our "yesterday" may be be your "tomorrow" Madmen live near you They have the power and authority to stop time all over the Earth And then, instead of the Sun murderous domes will rise above the land and the sea And all clocks and watches will freeze But my watches tell me me it's time I went upwards! I slowly climb up up the body of Saratoga I try to shake off the dreary silences of the lost ships Let them rest in peace! But even when on land I think of the unhappy fortune of Bikini I think of the people who from time immemorial had inhabited the shores of the atoll They were forced to leave their homes and condemned to long wanderings in outland Now the third generation of islanders is waiting to be back home It is expected that radiation on the island will completely decay in 50 years I want to believe that all wounds resulted from nuclear explosions on the atoll will heal New palm groves will rustle in the wind And fishermen will enter the waters of the lagoon without fear Life will return to Bikini! Author and cameraman Alexey Abakumov Voice over Igor Taradaikin