Sanitary treatment for people and decontamination of clothes, shoes and protection material

This poster is part of the civil defence (Гражданская оборона) activities and education in the USSR, focused on defence measures in the event of nuclear war or a nuclear accident. During the Cold War, most nations developed forms of civil defence to respond to a possible nuclear incident. Switzerland and Albania built atomic bunkers for every family and the US issued informational booklets, films and radio programmes. The Soviet Union constructed its nuclear civil defence in line with their idea of a ‘winnable nuclear war’. The poster is No 18 of a series of 25 educational posters issued by the civil defence authorities and approved by the Scientific Council of the USSR State Committee for Professional and Technical Education. According to information on the poster, it was first printed in January 1986, before the Chornobyl nuclear accident, and was reprinted in 1987, in Odessa, after the disaster. The immediate aftermath of the Chornobyl nuclear accident was mainly dealt with by civil defence personnel, many of whom died as a result. The Chornobyl accident significantly changed the global way of thinking about nuclear power, with some historians arguing that it played an important role in the abandonment of the Soviet idea of a ‘winnable nuclear war’, thus helping to end the Cold War. The Soviet Union initially tried to hide the extent of the disaster, a strategy that ultimately resulted in more victims. The post-disaster reprinting of this educational poster depicting protection measures that failed the victims of Chornobyl shows the rigidity of a system unable to learn from its mistakes and thus to reform itself.

Inscription Translation: Translation of texts on poster: Sanitary treatment for people and decontamination of clothes, shoes and protection material. Complete sanitary treatment for people –- carried out after leaving the epicentre of contamination to uncontaminated territory. It involves washing people with warm water and soap. In doing so, you have to change or treat underwear, clothes and shoes. Radiation measurements after complete sanitary procedures Complete procedure for people who go from contaminated to non-contaminated territory. Facility for complete disinfection. Path for people, path for clothes. Undressing department, showering room, dressing room. Deactivation. Removal of radioactive substances from contaminated surfaces until acceptable levels of contamination. Deactivation of clothes by washing at the decontamination station. Decontamination of poisonous substances from contaminated objects Disinfection. Elimination of pathologic germs and toxins