Growing Mushrooms (Instruction for the population living in the territory contaminated with radioactive substances)

Automatic translation: Mushroom picking in the forests of the republic is a long-established, traditional occupation for the population, which, in addition to aesthetic satisfaction, also has consumer value (as an additional source of food). In the former Soviet Union, the republic ranked first in the procurement of white (dried) mushrooms and second in pickled mushrooms. As a result of the disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, more than 1.7 million hectares of the republic's forests are contaminated with radionuclides. Radioactive contamination has violated the established regime of use by the population of forest gifts (mushrooms, berries) due to their ability to accumulate a significant amount of radionuclides, the entry of which into the body is a source of human exposure. It has been established that the specific activity of fungi for cesium-137 can be 20 times higher than its concentration in the substrate on which they grow.