Overview:
A Chernobyl survivor in Parker reflects on loss, resilience and building a new life in Colorado 40 years later.
As the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster approaches on April 26, 2026, Olga Skuratovich still remembers the fear.
She was a child in Kyiv when Reactor No. 4 exploded at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986, releasing radioactive material that would contaminate vast swaths of Ukraine and beyond. She didn’t fully comprehend what had occurred at the time, but she was certain that something was wrong.
“It was a few hard years, let me tell you,” Skuratovich said. “I was little when it happened, so I didn’t really know what was going on. It was tough. It was lonely. It was scary.”
Radiation seeped into food, air and soil. Supplies became scarce. Families scrambled for safe groceries.
“I remember my mom had to take a train to Moscow overnight to buy groceries and bring them back to Kyiv,” Skuratovich said. “People were dying because they had cancers of different kinds that were just coming out of nowhere.”
In the days following the explosion, Soviet officials downplayed the disaster. Public events continued despite dangerous radiation levels.
“They were supposed to have a major parade in Kyiv, where you were having nuclear fallout, and they went through with it,” said Dr. Erin Hutchinson, University of Colorado Boulder history professor and author. “They exposed all these people marching out in public to radiation. In a context where the leader of the country is saying, ‘We need to have transparency,’ but then the government wasn’t acting that way.”
Hutchinson said the disaster exposed deep flaws in the Soviet system, including a disregard for safety protocols and transparency.
“You had this complicated nuclear technology that was very delicate, but in the Soviet system, you didn’t have very much regard for safety and regulations,” Hutchinson said. “It was a disaster waiting to happen.”
The fallout extended beyond health. The catastrophe intensified Ukrainian frustration with Soviet leadership, contributing to the independence movement that would culminate in 1991.
“We can see Chernobyl as kind of starting this domino effect of making people more disillusioned and starting to think that maybe they’d be better off without the Soviet Union,” Hutchinson said. “Ukraine was the largest Soviet Republic besides Russia, so when Ukrainians said, ‘We don’t want to be a part of this anymore,’ it was devastating to the Soviet Union structure as a whole. It’s like California seceding from the United States.”
For Skuratovich’s family, the answer was not reform. It was departure. When she was in fifth grade, her family immigrated to the United States.
“I totally assimilated. I love this country,” Skuratovich said. “It is truly a land of opportunities. Whatever you want to do, everything is possible. It’s just a matter of believing it and actually doing something about it.”
She learned English, excelled academically and earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Colorado Denver, graduating with a 3.9 GPA in graduate school. At 18, she married. At 23, she gave birth to her daughter, Alyssa. After divorcing seven years later, she raised her daughter as a single mother.
“In Ukraine, women weren’t encouraged to advance themselves,” Skuratovich said. “I wanted to be a strong example for my daughter.”
Today, Skuratovich is known in Colorado as the founder of Metro Dispensary and one of the first five people in the state to receive a marijuana license, and one of the few women in the industry.
Her daughter, Alyssa Zislis, now 20, is a student at the University of Colorado Boulder. “I’m currently pursuing my Bachelor of Science and Business Administration,” Zislis said. “I’m going for a minor in sociology and a certificate in international affairs, and I’m also currently working at a local law firm.”
She describes her mother as her “role model’ and “an example of how to be a strong woman.”
Looking back, Skuratovich sees Chernobyl not only as tragedy, but as a turning point that shaped her resilience.
“I came as a kid. I did not speak the language. I did not fit in. I did not come from money,” she said. “So you would think the odds are against me, but they aren’t. All of these things actually teach you to be resilient and to be creative and have the motivation to strive for more. If somebody else can do this, why can’t I? That’s what motivated me.”
Four decades after the explosion that changed her childhood, she hopes people remember the lessons of Chernobyl, especially the cost of silence.
“I just feel that we need to learn something from it and put measures in place to make sure it never happens again,” Skuratovich said. “I think people should’ve been informed immediately so they could protect themselves. It was really scary, and I just really hope this never happens again and we can learn from it.”
