Katya Cengel found herself at a strange crossroads when leaving college. She needed to find experience to go work for a prominent newspaper, but she was looking for adventure. With the Berlin Wall coming down and cries for democracy in Eastern Europe at the time, the former U.S.S.R. was not exactly the place one would expect a young Californian to go willingly. The book From Chernobyl with Love covers Katya’s years working in Latvia and the city of Kyiv. From going to the site of the poorly covered-up Chernobyl disaster site, living in an Eastern Bloc apartment, and the pretty terrifying world of medicine in the Ukraine, Katya learned a great deal of how to navigate a world where she barely spoke the language.
From Chernobyl With Love is not just a personal memoir, but also a look at what happens to people when they’ve undergone multiple regime changes, civil war, and starvation. Many people in Eastern Europe have experienced things folks in America are only learning about. The book is fascinating and filled with moments where one wonders what they would have done in Katya’s place. A great deal of her personal stories have to do with meeting her fiance and her friends that helped her navigate Latvia and the Ukraine.
From Chernobyl With Love is available from the University of Nebraska Press November 1, 2019.
