“Our Long Journey to April” is the testimony of a professional who went from operator, shift supervisor of the power unit, shop supervisor of the Chernobyl NPP to its chief engineer in the most difficult post-accident months. After the launch of power units No. 1 and No. 2 and the completion of the construction of the “Shelter” of power unit No. 4 of the Chernobyl NPP, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of the USSR State Committee for Nuclear Safety, headed the commission of the committee to investigate the causes and circumstances of the accident at power unit No. 4 of the Chernobyl NPP on April 26, 1986. In the book, the author reconstructs the chain of events that led to the accident and shows that the explosion was caused not only by miscalculations of the RVPK-1000 project and personnel errors, but also by the lack of a legally regulated system of authority and responsibility for ensuring the safety of nuclear power in the USSR. For the first time, a look at the scientific and technical causes of the accident is combined with an assessment of the hypocrisy of the state system, which acknowledged the reactor's defects behind closed doors, publicly exposing the operating personnel as the only ones responsible for the accident.

This is a book about the role of man in the inextricable link of the modern world "man - machine". This is a book about the responsibility of those who create technology and those who operate it. This is a warning about what happens when "expediency" becomes higher than safety.