The Museum of Embryology

The museum of embryology has a morbid looking collection of embryos and foetuses, life that never came into being. Professor Gennady Vasilievich Brukhin explains: “Most frequently, environmental circumstances are to blame”. Some of the embryos have abnormalities typical for the effects of radiation. There is a child that was born without separated legs, a condition, professor Brukhin explains, “that looks like the mermaid from Andersen’s fairy tale”. People in Mulomovo speak of children that were born, looking like ‘fish’. One of the other foetuses has ‘panther skin’, as in the photo, where bone-like tissue forms on the skin. “These were from the area bordering the Techa River”, says Gennady Brukhin. The women in the villages around the area claim they all have to give birth in one state-supervised clinic. They say that when a child is still born, it is taken away from them and they never get to see it.