A motorcycle tour through the ghost town left by Chernobyl

Post by **Arkady** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 10:18 am

This chick does frequent tours through the Chernobyl Disaster area and takes pictures. The site has some really eerie pictures of abandoned houses and such. Definitely worth a look.

http://www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed/

Mistress Eve(L) · Post by **Mistress Eve(L)** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 11:30 am

WOw, those pictures were incredible, and even more incredible when you realize that is the russian equivelent to Oakridge, if disaster struck.

littlepockit · Post by **littlepockit** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 12:43 pm

its odd how looking at the pictures, i wasn't truly moved until she got into the apartment building. seeing how people, even if they got away, had to leave absolutely everything. i wonder how many, if any, survivors there are? by survivors, i mena employees of chernobyl, not the townspeople. there are still people being affected by the radiation, obviously...

Coor · Post by **Coor** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 2:35 pm

I did a paper on chernobyl for half of my Chem final, and looknig at those pictures just reinstills the tragedy those people had. It's amazing.

Monophonic · Post by **Monophonic** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 3:45 pm

some of those pics are absolutely haunting.

celticsmith · Post by **celticsmith** » Sat Mar 27, 2004 3:50 pm

Despite the tragedy....life goes on.

I studied russian language and culture for several years, as has the Bear. It was really neat to be able to read the signs. Especially the "Party of Lenin leading the way into the future!" propaganda on the side of the building where the laundry was hung out to dry 2 decades ago and is still there. Ah the Irony....

One of the first phrases you learn...in any language really.... is "Hello, how are you?" the word for "Hello" in Russian has 8 consonants and three vowels, and very few people say it. The closest I can get to it in this font would be "Zdrastvueetsye". Which, ironically, translates literally into... (and I know the SF buffs will love this)...."Live long and prosper".......I kid you not.

....and secondly....NEVER ask a Russian "How are you?" unless you REALLY WANT TO KNOW.......and I mean all of it. A veritable littany of medical complaints will gush forth.

I love how she types too...I can actually hear her accent in her writting style. I also love how she is pefectly aware of the radiation and it's dangers to herself and her person....she just doesn't care very much. A charcter quirk found in many russians I have met. That cavalier attitude about things that you get when you have to live in a world like theirs has been. "...Not the best choise...for there is no best choise...Not even a good choise really....but it is the least BAD choise....so that will have to do..."

I remember seeing tapes from Chernobyl one year after the accident as they were trying to determine the cause of it and to see if the primary danger was over or still progressing. The scientist at the time was leading the camera crew through the ruins of the plant (really!) trying to find a path throught the least dangerous areas.....at one point the guide turns around to the camera crew and says "Through this next room you need to run quickly....if you walk then you will not make it back out of the plant and live...the radiation is very high here." Then he opens the door and runs off through the room....leaving the rather stunned camera crew behind. They did eventually follow anyway (reckless idiots) and they were rewared with a prize. On the other side the russian scientists had a control station for their remote viewing robot. The camera crew was able to plug in and show the first (and to my knowledge only) footage of the reactor core. Not in the reactor, mind you, but in the very bottom sub-basement of the plant where it had burned it's way through the bottom of the reactor. It is still there too....no way to get it out or even get close enough to deal with it. It is fortunate for everyone that it Had stopped there though. If it had burned through the floor and kept going the area of disaster would have been much larger as it pierced the crust. vaporizing the ground water of the immediate area causing violent earthquakes and eventually piercing the mantle giving birth to the Volcano .....Mount Chernobyl....

As I said.....not the best of results....but it was the least bad one.
Mostly.....anyway.

She is right though...it is like a modern day Pompeii ....Almost like that city they have in Brazil...the one in the middle of the jungle that never got used because the didn't build a road to it. Regiem changes and stolen monies caused it to be stillborn. But where the one in Brazil is pristine and virginal as the jungles take it back....this city is more like a brutally murdered corpse.

The obstetics chair in the middle of the street was rather odd.

There are people who still live in the "gray" areas mostly old people with no place to go... When asked if they are worried about the radiation that usually answer...."I am very old, what does it matter. I would rather die at home a little sooner that live longer and never see home again."