Vasil Ihnatenko Ivanovich

Vasyl Ivanovich Ignatenko was born on March 13, 1961 in the urban village of Bragin, Belarus. According to the testimony of his relatives, he was born in the village of Sparyzhya, Braginsky district of the BRSR, 47 km from Pripyat.

After graduating from high school, he studied at the Gomel School of Electrical Engineering. He served in the fire brigade in Moscow, and after demobilization he tried to get a job as a firefighter in Chernihiv, but due to the lack of vacancies, he moved to Pripyat.

Senior sergeant of the internal service, master of sports of the USSR, worked as a firefighter at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. He took a direct part in extinguishing the fire at the NPP on the night of April 25-26, 1986.

He died on May 13, 1986. Buried at the Mytinsky Cemetery in Moscow.

Family

The wife is Lyudmila, a Ukrainian from Ivano-Frankivsk region. After Vasyl's death, she lived in Kyiv. The Swedish documentary film "The Voice of Ludmila" (2001) is dedicated to her.

Daughter Natalia was born after the death of her father, with a heart defect and died within a few hours.

Awards

• Hero of Ukraine with the award of the Golden Star Order (April 21, 2006, posthumously) — for a heroic deed in the name of the lives of current and future generations, personal courage and self-sacrifice, shown in the liquidation of the accident at Chornobyl NPP.
• Award of the President of Ukraine — Cross "For Courage" (May 8, 1996, posthumously) — for personal courage and bravery shown in liquidation of the accident at the Chernobyl NPP.
• Order of the Red Banner (posthumous).

Commemoration

Ukraine

In many cities of Ukraine there is Street of Heroes of Chernobyl, to which Vasyl Ignatenko belongs. There is Vasyl Ignatenko Street in the city of Yagotyn.

Belarus

On August 25, 2007, a commemorative plaque in honor of the hero of Chernobyl, Vasyl Ignatenko, was installed and consecrated in the city of Bragin. Monument on the central square of Bragin, exhibition in the Bragin Historical Museum (September 2008).

In the cinema

Vasyl Ignatenko is mentioned in the documentary film "Chernobyl: Two Colors of Time" (Ukrtelefilm, 1986-1988). The Swedish documentary "The Voice of Ludmila" (2001) is dedicated to him and his wife Ludmila. The story of Vasyl and Lyudmila Ignatenko is one of the key ones in Svitlana Usenko's documentary drama "Split into Atoms" (1+1, 2016). One of the main subplots of the miniseries "Chernobyl" (2019) is dedicated to Vasyl's feat and subsequent fate, where the authors use the perspective of him and his wife to depict the fate of the first liquidators of the Chernobyl accident and their loved ones.