2011-06-30

The ghosts of the firefighters

I'll throw you right into another mystery of the Zone. In my Chernobyl report, I mentioned having found a firefighter's helmet at the ferry port, close to the Pripyat kafé: 

"Pripyat kafe is close to the ferry port. No boats are around, but a firefighter's helmet has been placed on a chair there. Maybe this is the one taken from the hospital's basement? No, the readings are not high enough, or perhaps the radioactivity has just rubbed off on the idiot who brought it there."
The readings were obviously irrelevant, I've come to understand, and the idiocy was less... 
In the same report I mention searching the Pripyat hospital:

"Having seen images of the above mentioned room before, I don't realize I've found it but then it becomes clear to me, that a lot of clothes, boots, and a partiular helmet have been removed. I wonder who could be stupid enough to do something like that - risking contamination for old, wet, radioactive clothes. There's no way this could have been done by any liquidator. It's happened too recently. Whomever is responsible, he's likely to pay a high price."
Now even you who did not read that report before, have a chance to catch up, and thus I can proceed.
The question was still "What happened to the firefighters' items?"; at the same time I started to receive questions  about where I found that helmet, and eventually it all added up, as I received new information. 

Wrong angle for the scavengers!
The helmets were taken away to be protected from scavengers wanting trophies and souvenirs, but the procedure to decontaminate and transport these items to a safe and official environment, would be too difficult, and thus the helmets were simply hidden in what was hoped to be a safer place...

Unfortunately this wasn't safe enough. The helmets were found and are now lost once again, and it was a surprise that one of these helmet was to be found, peacefully resting by the water...

Another photo of "my" helmet was displayed, when it was still in the hospital basement. Burn marks on the left side of the visor and the black spot where the visor is shut and locked indicates it's the same helmet.
I wonder if it's still there, and if so - for how much longer.

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