PMJA Award for Best Podcast-- "When Vanya Came Home" Alabama Public Radio

“I had no idea, back then, what it would mean twenty years later,” said Susan Lee of Pelham, Alabama.

Lee’s story, and that of a nine year boy from the former Soviet nation of Belarus, are at the heart of Alabama Public Radio’s entry for the PMJA Award for Radio Podcast, titled “…it’s me, Vanya.”

The three member Alabama Public Radio news team collaborated with the University of Alabama’s Center for Public Television on this two year project. The story was brought to life with original raw audio that "sat in a box" unheard since it was recorded two decades ago, until APR and CPT unearthed and digitized this material for use in our podcast. The program coincided with the 35th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster.

The results are being felt to this day.

Please click here to listen to the program.

https://www.apr.org/award-entries/2021-10-06/when-vanya-came-home-a-podcast-by-alabama-public-radio

Our program pairs contemporary interviews, conducted in the U.S. and in the former Soviet nation of Belarus, with twenty year old, never before heard audio that was recorded to preserve the Alabama program. This enabled our listeners to relive this piece of history from an insiders’ perspective.

The Lee family took in nine year old Ivan Kovaliou in the year 2000. At that time, he went by the childhood nickname of “Vanya.” After a forty day stay, he returned to Belarus, and the Lee’s lost contact in 2004. That changed eight years later with a note on Facebook messenger from a Belarusian college student.

“It’s me, Vanya,” it said.

APR and the University of Alabama’s Center for Public Television CPT were there as the Lee family and Ivan were reunited at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International airport, almost twenty years after his time in Alabama.

We balanced the views of the Belarusian people along with the “children of Chernobyl” organizers by seeking out the mother/daughter translation team of Vita Lutsko and Larisa Shapavalenko. Not only did they work with the host parents, but Shapavelenko raised Vita in the shadow of Chernobyl. Both currently live in Belarus, so we arranged for a producer in Minsk to collaborate on the interviews.