The Means of Mutation

Chernobyl forest winter time. On courtesy of bbc.co.uk

Is the exclusion zone a radioactive death trap or a haven for wildlife?

Performing a simple internet search on Chernobyl wildlife, you will undoubtedly find many article praising the Zone for its richness of species, but taking a closer look at it all, it is not at all what it seems. 

The popular idea of that the Chernobyl area has turned into a large natural zoo of eastern Europe may derive from repeated sightings of wolves, boars and wild Prewalski's horses because it is indeed true that these creatures roam freely in the zone but if spending just a brief thought on it all, it only means one thing; that wild animals tend to seek places uninhabited by humans. It doesn't mean that they're not affected by radiation. 

After the Chernobyl disaster, different kinds of research have been performed, in order to determined exactly how the fallout has affected flora and fauna but even to this day, 28 years later, it is not fully known how. As I have written in previous posts, we don't even know enough about how concentrated amounts of radiation affect living organisms to be able to understand the full extent. 

A relatively common belief is that the shorter the life span of a species, the faster it adapts to changed environment but if so would indeed be the case, all the insects, rodents and smaller birds of Chernobyl would be fully adapted by now, but obviously they are not. We find an example in a study made by made by a team of researchers from Norway, France and the US (led by Professor Timothy Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US, and Dr Anders Möller from the University of Paris-Sud, France.), concerning small birds of Chernobyl. The study was performed on 550 individuals from 48 different species of birds and the result showed that the average size of the brains of those birds was about 5% smaller than those of birds not residing in the exclusion zone. The conclusion was that this was a direct effect of radiation, and this divergence was especially significant concerning younger individuals. Stressed birds have the ability to change the size of some of their organs in order to become less sensitive to difficult environmental conditions and especially migrating birds that travel long distances often shrink certain organs as they use up energy. The brain is however the last organ to be sacrificed, according to Möller and Mosseau, which pretty much leaves increased background radiation as the only plausible reason. 

However, the research of Anders Möller and Timothy Mosseau doesn't stand uncontradicted. The Ukrainian biologist Sergey Gaschak who was a former colleague of Möller and Mosseau, implies that their research is all wrong. "You can measure an animal 10 times and 10 times you can get a different result" Gaschak said in an interview for the magazine "Wired" in 2011. Further on, Gaschak claimed that his data was distorted and misinterpreted by Möller and Mosseau, but there was no description of how, other than that Möller stated that Gaschak didn't want his name published on the paper. We face something implying a personal drama between the researchers, so I'll leave the part of Sergey Gaschak with the words that his dream concerning the Zone turning into a permanent healthy wildlife reserve may, due to radiation, be quite impossible in the near future. I will get back to Gaschack once I've investigated him further. 

Let's get personal for a brief moment. During my stay in the zone, I noticed that the mosquitos seemed to be significantly larger than average mosquitos, but also that their bites barely itched at all. Mind you, these are subjective observations so I cannot grant the accuracy of this, but still - may it be that radiation has affected the substances of the female mosquitoes' saliva that normally cause an itch? Personally, I cannot tell whether it's like that or not, but one thing I know for sure is that getting bitten by a Chernobyl mosquito won't hurt you more than getting bitten by a "normal" mosquito. The exposure to radiation has hurt the species rather than turning them into mutated threats to other species. So no - Spiderman could not happen in real life. 

Other studies, performed by Timothy Mosseau has shown that the forests around Chernobyl aren't decaying the way they should. We're talking about the same forests that suffered heavy fallout; that were cut down, but still grew back, heavily radiated. The reason why the process of decay has become inefficient is, according to Mosseau, that even the decomposers, insects, microbes and fungi, are affected by the increased levels of  radiation.

The Red Forest is now composed largely by dead trees, but they are not decaying:  

“Apart from a few ants, the dead tree trunks were largely unscathed when we first encountered them. It was striking, given that in the forests where I live, a fallen tree is mostly sawdust after a decade of lying on the ground.” 

Timothy Mosseau with his samples. From this article. 

says Timothy Mosseau in an interview with the Smithsonian. You may read the full article here.
Mosseau takes up a direct problem regarding the Zone, as well as he takes us back to an old question: Exactly how has the high levels of radiation affected the flora of Chernobyl, in other matters than killing and deforming them? Cases of gigantism of trees, mushrooms and berries have been reported, but how does that correspond to the truth? We do know that flora reacts differently to radiation than fauna. We know that for example soybean plants in the zone do not only produce fertile seeds, but has evolved to protect themselves against radiation and by now we also know that  at least some kinds of fungi are highly capable of feeding on radiation. Plants and fungi may have an innate defense or ability to cope with radiation, but of that we still know too little about these things to get to proper overall conclusion. Effects are probably varying from species to species concerning flora, and only further research will make us wiser.

A Slight Case of Overspeeding

Elena Filatova. Photo from Wikipedia.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before my writings would come to touch the case of Elena Filatova. This far it has not been a priority to me to write about her, but having twice in one month been asked whether I have anything to do with it (which I of course do not), I decided to finally take up the subject.

Elena Filatova, also or better known as "the Kid of Speed" is a now 37 years old Ukrainian woman who in 2004 gained internet fame after publishing the story of her solo adventure to the Chernobyl Zone - on a motorcycle. Yet to this day Filatova is still a legend to some, but as a matter of fact her site had not been online for a very long time before people started questioning her story, doubting the amount of truth in it. From various sources, some seeming more reliable than others, came different reports of her story being fake.

On Filatova's website, there are a few photo essays from her journeys to the area around Chernobyl; villages (inhabited as well as abandoned), buildings, nature and even some from Pripyat, but it should also be noted that a significant number of photos from her first essay are not her own (the photographers are however accredited). Going through the site, there is absolutely no doubt that she has been in the Zone and also seem to have a genuine interest in the history of the Chernobyl disaster, but... the first thing that was questioned was exactly how Filatova really traveled there the first time.

"[The essay] "Ghost Town" was under attack from the very day I put it online" states Filatova on her website, not specifying any of the met floods of accusations. The main questionings were however regarding whether she really rode that bike to the Zone. There were rumors that there are a matter of fact was no bike, but that Filatova along with her husband and had gone by an official Chernobyl Interinform vehicle. Later, the official guide Rimma Kiselitsa [who unfortunately passed away in 2006] confirmed this by stating that Filatova had been to the Zone on an ordinary booked one day trip, carrying a motorcycle helmet with her. Kiselitsa had been by no means impressed by Filatova and her husband as they would move items from different buildings to arrange them for photo compositions in a manner that made it all seem like they were doing it for sensational effects. Concerning the photographic excesses of Filatova, there are also several stories, but I will not get further into those.

"I have known Elena for years, so I know how much is fake and how much is true. ...I know that she cannot even ride a bike. The bike is her ex husband's. ...She can only ride a bicycle or little scooter."

...read parts of an electronic message sent as a response to the American author Mary Mycio's statement of Elena Filatova's motorcycle tale unfortunately being untrue. I will however not take this message into any account as the author of this message to me is unknown and I thus cannot verify its amount of truth. Let it be an example of a rumor.

The stetements of Mary Mycio, (at the time [2004] stationed in Kiev, writing a book [Wormwood Forest] about Chernobyl for the Joseph Henry Press publishing company), however adds more detail and substance to the rumors. Having heard about the woman who all alone on a motorcycle had traveled the exclusion zone, she wanted to find out more about it but after performing research she could report, amongst other things, that: 

"They organized their trip through a Kyiv travel agency and the administration of the Chornobyl zone (and not her father). They were given the same standard excursion that most Chernobyl tourists receive. When the Web site appeared, Zone Administration personnel were in an uproar over who approved a motorcycle trip in the zone. When it turned out that the motorcycle story was an invention, they were even less pleased about this fantasy Web site."

Torn loose rumors or reliable facts; there is one main feature that gives us a solid reason that Filatova's motorcycle adventure didn't happen and this is the fact that private vehicles are forbidden in the Zone and that visitors may journey through it only by an official vehicle or approved tourist bus. 

Since facing all these accusations, Elena Filatova decided to change the contents of her website. These days the text is merely hinting that she was in the Zone with her motorcycle and many photos have been removed or replaced. 

Looking into this issue, there is only one question that I experience cannot be answered in a rational way; the question of "why". Why would anyone want to make up a story like that? What profit is there to possibly gain? Obviously none, as Filatova decided to withdraw parts of her story and the "evidence". However, all was not futile because at the time she did manage to bring a certain attention back to a disaster that the world wants to forget. 

On Hold

Then there's been a few days of silence again. 

This time it has to do with the information I am trying to receive, as I continue trying to follow up the situation concerning the closed Chernobyl Zone and get answer to questions like:

Why the fickleness and sliding doors-inconsistency? Is the fact that some people are let into the Zone and some are not, just a matter or chance or a sign of that there simply are no solid regulations behind the decision of closing up?

What is the purpose of firing experienced guides and replace them with young people who know nothing about the exclusion zone?

And concerning a matter as important as the rest: In the official statement when closing the Zone, the begun construction of the New Safe Confinement was listed amongst the reasons of the decision, and I am also trying to find out the amount of truth behind that. 

Having previously had contact with Anton Usov, Ukrainian Principal Advicer of the EBRD concerning the Shelter matters, I have attempted to contact him again to find out what the current status is. Is the project coming along according to plans?

Mr. Usov will be out of his office for another week, but after that, I hope to be able to tell you more about this.

The Break is Over

I left you with a piece of history, not announcing the forthcoming break that I would have to make due to critical lack of time and I didn't plan to resume my maintenance of this blog until December but late events, or rather news that recently have come to me from different directions, have given me a reason to pick up the writings sooner. Because the changes concerning the Zone wait for no one.

The Slide Doors of the Zone

First of all I'd like you to refresh your memory by readin this post about the closing of the Zone.

As I reported at that point, the ban would be due till October this year. October has now passed with quite a large margin so exactly what are we looking at now? To put it shortly, just another mess that constitutes the administration of the Chernobyl Zone, but here are some further details.

The ban was not lifted in October, and over the last two weeks every request to enter the Zone has been officially denied. The tours from local travel agencies and hotels were the first to disappear from the list of who would be granted entrance to the Zone, and this happened even before October, with some exceptions. The conditions back then were that only journalists and scientists would be allowed, but lately the restrictions have come to affect journalists as well. 

But how come then that at the same time, within this time span of two weeks, people who are neither journalists or scientists have been allowed into the Zone, when others who already had their documents of permission signed and granted had these permissions withdrawn at the very day of their journey? Journalists and environmental architects were even stopped at the first checkpoint and sent back to Kiev, so again how come that some people are granted access and others not? This has happened for sure and to that question there can only be a limited number of answers of which the first is that it is all about a matter of contacts - If you know the right persons, you will always have access to the Zone no matter what, but from my side this is only speculation and I do not encourage anyone to adopt a conspiratorial way of thinking regarding this matter.

The other explanation is what shows on the surface - nothing less than the headless and unstructured way of the local government to administrate the Chernobyl matters, or as one of my sources put it:

"It changes from day to day, depending on so many idiotic reasons and on who makes the decisions."

Furthermore, they decided to fire almost all the long term employed Chernobyl guides; men that have been working in the Zone for years and who are very familiar with all the places withing the 30 kilometer radius. They have been replaced with young guides who may know the English language but nothing about the Zone.


We have now, again, learnt that Chernobyl is a disaster, but not necessarily always only in a nuclear matter. 

Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant under construction, and the closing of the Zone II

Do you remember this image? In August I wrote a brief note about it. 

Since then I haven't become much wiser concerning exactly what these cylinders are, although a theory was that they might be cooling towers, which isn't very likely. Maybe storages. It's the closest guess I can make.

The other day I stumbled upon a satellite photo of the ChNPP on which I could locate the six cylinders. I've 
circled them in red, as you can see. According to this photo they don't even seem to be there anymore, but my eyes may play tricks on me.

When in Chernobyl, I didn't get to see more than a brief view of the NPP and came nowhere near these buildings, and now the NPP all another no-go area of the Zone. Tourists may see the 4th block and Sarcophagus from a distance but that's it.


This leads me to tell you further about the closing of the Zone. For a long time I kept quiet about it because I thought that the fewer people who visit the Zone, the better, but I do realize that me keeping my mouth shut means nothing - everyone who wants to enter the Zone will find a way. 


Many people have asked me about the closure since I made the above post; "Why?" and I asked myself the same as it as far as I'm concerned was a highly illogical thing by the Ukrainian government to do after having opened up the exclusion zone only 6 months due to closing it again. 


If the Zone was really closed, all those websites offering Chernobyl tours, would have called off their services, wouldn't they? It was said that only journalists and scientists could enter the Zone, and I bought it too, but only a short time after, I found out what was really the fact, and the fact is that it's all getting organized in a way that is supposed to make it seem harder to get into the Zone but will make people pay more to get there by having to go through intermediaries. From this view it's truly harder to get to the Zone as there is now more bureaucracy involved, but I've read reports from various people who have been there since the announcement of the closure so it seems that the Zone is far from closed. 

New horizons

These days research craves more time and effort then it allows me to write here. Today, I cannot provide you with any articles or news as I'm currently going back in history on many different levels concerning all this. What I can give you is another update of what has recently happened in the process.

Of my exhibition only  a few days remain. On Sunday I'll be dismantling it all. The response this far has been only positive but I am very disappointed concerning the Gothenburg City Library's way of handling things so I am not likely to exhibit there again in this way. 

Anders Markgren, assistant information officer at the Forsmark NPP, did not respond to my message. I will have to phone him.

I have taken the book project into further concideration and have started to look for publishers to support this future part of the over all Chernobyl project. Next week we'll have the annual Book and Library fair here in Gothenburg. It's the largest event in Sweden concerning this area and almost all publishers, major as well as minor will be there exhibiting. And so will I, in matters of hunting for those publishers. My hopes are not too high, but if someone get hooked it's just a bonus because no matter what I'll go through with this. I'm not going comersial; merely trying to raise an interest.

Perhaps joint efforts with a likeminded. The picture has changed.

Pripyat - A Brief Subjective Perspective of Home

Rannebergen and Pripyat, or the other way around?

I travel a lot. Or at least I try to do it as much as I can, because having spent over 25 years in the same vincinity started to take its toll already several years ago. My family moved to Mölndal, the nearest town south of Gothenburg, when I was five years old and thus I grew up in the surroundings of Gothenburg.

When I left my parents' home to live on my own, I ended up in a concrete block, where I still reside. Being a student at that time, I never found the time to make myself a proper home, but this was a place to study and to sleep. Eventually I came to greatly dislike this place, spare for in summer time, because in the summer, it's truly beautiful here with the forest, lakes and ..swamps. If you bother to walk further into the woods.

I always loved traveling and as soon as I was old enough to go on my own, I did. In the beginning I would return to my home with a sense of excitement and joy from the new impressions, because of that home is sweet home. August 2003 was the last time I sensed that feeling. Nothing happened - time just caught up with me and I realized I didn't like it here and since then I've returned to this city, from every journey, not thinking "home sweet home" but rather "not again..."

My return from Ukraine and the Zone in May this year happened during a rainy night. It was dark and cloudy. The next day, when visiting my mother, I saw the wind tear the trees just like that day in the Jupiter plant. There was no thunder but it was almost the same. Or was it just that my mind hadn't left the Zone? It felt surprisingly nice to be back. A few days later, it struck me why. I was on the bus, approaching my block on the hill, almost covered by trees and growth, and I was made aware of how it all resembled Pripyat. Whilst still in Ukraine, I published this video. One friend gave his feedback: "It looks like Angered" (Rannebergen is in the Angered region) and another one said "I thought it was Mölndal" but not until weeks later I understood what they meant.

What happened to me in the Zone?

Did anything at all happen? If so, I didn't notice it. It felt quite natural for me to be there, especially in Pripyat. There was nothing threatening about these old, decaying buildings; nothing fearsome. On the contrary, it was all very peaceful. In my  travel report I've mentioned how I deliberately avoided sticking to our group. This was because that I wanted to explore and examine the Zone without any cameras clicking around me all the time. I wanted to feel it. And I did. Through each building I went through on my own, images became clearer. But always interrupted. We must move on.

And that's another reason why I must get back there. I haven't seen half of it. And every day that I return to my concrete block on this hill, I'm reminded of it. 

A Brief Story About Pripyat.

Welcome to Pripyat. The monument on the road to Pripyat still remains.

The town of Pripyat was founded in 1970, to be inhabited by future employees of the nuclear power plant that at the time was under construction about 3 kilometers away.

Pripyat was refered to as an "atomgrad", that is an "atom town" (in the Soviet Union there were nine atomgrad, each of them connected to a nuclear power plant and founded for the purpose to house the workers) and would eventually come to be inhabited by close to 50 000 people from 25 ethnic groups.

In 1977, the first of the ChNPP's four reactors was ready to operate and två years later, Pripyat was officially proclaimed as a city.

Pripyat is commonly and often spoken about as a "young" city, where the average age of the citizens was 26 years. Most of the inhabitants were of course employed at the NPP, but naturally, the town also had an evolved infrastructure with factories, a hospital, schools, police office, fire brigade, culture centers and so on.

May 1st celebrations in Pripyat. From pripyat.com

A solid education was highly valued and in Pripyat there were no less than 15 elementary schools, five secondary schools and one training school. Any higher education than that was not offered, but neither was there any direct need for it, as it was natural for the inhabitants to stay, settle and live their lives in Pripyat rather than look out into the rest of the world. As a matter of fact, it was a question of the opposite; every year approximately 500 people arrived from different parts of the Soviet Union, to become citizens of Pripyat.

Pripyat offered its people a good life. There were all the attractions and comfort that a modern Soviet city could offer, and more. The small city was before its time and thus in many ways manifested the Soviet ideals of happiness through work and ideological connection and fellowship and even today you can see many traces of the old communist Soviet - especially in the school ruins, where Lenin still lives on and the walls are still decorated by sayings and epigraphs like:

"The quality of knowledge today is the high efficient work of tomorrow"

Pripyat was also a city of architectural and cultural innovation. New projects were designed and put to be tested in Pripyat before being adapted to the Soviet standard and many new constructions were on blue prints. A shopping center; an arts gallery; recreational and educational centers for children ("Pioneer's Palace"), and a hotel were all planned to have opened by the end of 1988. 

After the explosion in the 4th reactor, many Pripyat inhabitants gathered on the railway bridge, just outside of the city, to watch what was happening at the nuclear power plant. . They saw beautiful flames in all the colours of the rainbow - it was the graphite burning and the flames reached higher than the pillars of smoke, but what the onlookers didn't kow, was that the radioactive wind that swept right towards them, exposed them to a dose equivalent to 5 Sv (500 Roentgen. Exposure to 750 Roentgen/h, that is 7,5 Sv, is a certainly lethal dose for a human being). They had been told not to worry - all levels of radiation were perfectly normal. 

Of the people standing on the railway bridge (nowadays also known as "death's bridge") that night, no one survived.

The citizens of the city were urged to continued calm; they were again informed that there was absolutely nothing to be alerted about and it took just over 36 hours before Pripyat was finally evacuated. The following is the information that reached the people on Sunday the 27th of April:

"Attention, citizens of Pripyat! The City council informs that due to the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the radioactive conditions in the vicinity are deteriorating. The Communist Party, its officials and the armed forces are taking necessary action to combat this. But, with intentions to keep people as safe and healthy as possible, prioritizing the children, we need to temporarily evacuate the citizens to the nearest towns of the Kiev region. For these reasons, starting from April 27, 1986 14:00 every apartment block will have a bus at its disposal, supervised by the police and city officials. It is highly advisable that you bring your documents, vital personal belongings and a certain amount of food with you, just in case. The senior executives of the public and industrial facilities of the city have decided on the list of employees who will remain in Pripyat to maintain these facilities in a good working order. All resident buildings will be guarded by police during the evacuation period. Comrades, as you will be leaving your residences temporarily. please make sure you have turned off all lights, electrical equipment and water, and shut the windows. Please keep calm and orderly in the process of this short-term evacuation."

And indeed the evacuation of Pripat was handled  orderly as well as efficiently and  within only a few hours the city was completely emptied, spare from soldiers and the workers and officials that had been oredered to stay. Believing that the evacuation would last for only a few days, people only brought their most necessary belongings, but most of them would never see their homes again. There were those who tried to return, having realized that Pripyat was forever lost, to fetch belongings of affection. Some succeeded, but many more encountered alarm wired buildings and armed military.

Not only Pripyat was evacuated, but at all, about 100 000 people were forced out of their homes, of which approximately half were from nearby villages. Of these villages, many were completely destoryed, but to where the houses remained, some people would choose to return; most of them old people who neither could nor wanted to adapt to a new life at a new, to them strange place, and thus they returned to their old houses and farms.

Resident buildings of Pripyat, May 2011

Today Pripyat is a ghost town. Nature has made its re-entry; roads and streets are almost completely over grown and the windowns of the buildings gape dark and empty and the most of it has been plundered and destroyed by the passing through of outsiders. 

The official frequency of visitors to the Zone is approximated to a couple of thousands per year, but no one knows for sure how many illegal visits are performed every year. 

To gain access to the Exclusion Zone (the 30 km radios around the ChNPP), special permission is needed, but nonetheless many have ignored this and instead found other ways to enter, often motivated by the "adventure", but also to gather "souvenirs" and trophies, and thereby also more likely to cause even greater destruction than the "normal" tourism, which is held under relatively strict control.

Pripyat is decaying naturally, just like any other place created by man that's left unattended, but the destructive tourism is increasing the effect.

"Take nothing but photographies,

leave nothing but footprints."

Since the 20th of June and forth, the Ukrainian government have closed the Zone for all tourism.

The last helmet lost.

It looks like I finally, and sadly enough, can close my case concerning the lost firefighter's helmet.

If you've followed this blog regularly, you already know that this helmet has been an important question to me ever since I found it out there, and then I concidered myself lucky because as this discovery became known also to certain others, a search begun to try to find and save this last helmet, but today I received bad news. - The person taking on the task had searched in vain:

"I did try to find it and spent a lot of time on these searches but unfortunately without any success. I assume someone already took it as a “souvenir”

For me personally, this is very sad, and in the aspect of the Zone as a museum this is a big loss. Another piece of history has been removed.

Moscovian "stalkers" arrested in the Zone

Photo on courtesy of http://ukr.obozrevatel.com

C.G Jung, the psychologist and psychiatrist would have called it synchronicity, because only shortly after having written my article about tourism in the Zone, two news items show up related to the contents: First the announcement of the closing of Chernobyl for visitors and now this.

Recently, four men from Moscow, aged 25 to 36 years old, were arrested by police for illegally visiting the Zone. According to the source - the Ukrainian internet newspaper Obozrevatel [Oбозреватель], these "Stalkers" had already spent two days in the Zone when finally reaching their goal - the town of Pripyat. After that, the men moved on to an abandoned village in the area, where they were surprised by an ambush. Failing to escape from the police, the four were brought in and interrogated. 

One of the prisoners claims to have tried to get into the Zone before, but having been denied accees, he gathered his comrades and instead snuck in through the back door. The men also brought utilities they claimed were for hunting and protection against wild animals; two hunting knives and a Schmeiser gun. The items have been confiscated as a part of the investigation, and the results of this investigation will decide on what further actions shall be taken against the four.

The Russians have already been fined; forced to pay a total of 500 UAH, and have been handed over to authorities who will decide the fate of these foreigners.

The Zone is closed!

Friends, this is only a short newsflash.

Barely 36 hours after having posted my article about tourism in the Zone, information reaches me that the Zone now is closed. This was decided by the Ukrainian government on June 20th. Last week I heard something similar from a relatively uncertain source, but now it appears as a fact.

What does this mean? 

It means that till further notice, there will be a ban including everyone from outside the Zone, with only a few exceptions (journalists, for example) and all this is said to be due to "reorganization" of the Exclusion Zone, and the ban is said to be due till October this year. 

Currently, I don't know more than this, but as soon as I do, I'll let you know.

Over and out.

Dangerous tourism

What is a tourist? Some light minded character who driven by an impulse decides to go to a place without knowing anything about it; a sheep in the horde who follows along because of that it might lead to something interesting or simply because that's where everyone else is going/because it's recommended, or is it just anyone who for the first time visit a strange place, regardless of purpose? The latter, I find it hard to agree to.

When traveling to, and entering, the Zone, thinking of myself as a tourist was the last thing I would ever do. I was there to try my theories, to explore the things I had read about and seen on so many documentaries before, and above all - to find out what the Zone was really like. Thus I was utterly surprised, and - I admit - a little insulted, when it showed that I as well as the others of our group were labelled as tourists in two different reports, both documented by group members. 

The first one was displayed by Daniel Cronin, an American photographer, who made two journeys to Chernobyl during that week. Before joining us, he had gone on a typical bus trip with approximately 45 other people to spend one day in the Zone. I remember Cronin telling us that he also wanted to get to know what it was like to visit Chernobyl as "an ordinary tourist" before joining up for the more in-depth four days with the rest of us. We all became a part of his photo project Disaster Tourism.

A few weeks later, another group member, Kieran Culligan, presents his travel report, and again we are refered to as tourists. It should give some perspective, shouldn't it? Or at least show another point of view. -As this is the internet and people tend to misunderstand things unless having it typed onto their noses, I must underline that I'm in no way criticising neither Cronin or Culligan, but this will all eventually lead to a point.

Photographers, explorers or just tourists?

I had barely returned to Sweden when I was told by a friend that he had posted the link to my photos to an internet discussion group, and when I finally joined, it was to find that there was already a full discussion going on and above all, criticism concerning the photo appearance of group members wearing short sleeves in the Zone. They were generally discarded as ignorant tourists. Comparisons were made, to women entering the Zone by bus, wearing short skirts and sandals, and now we're starting to get somewhere.

Last year it was officially announced that Chernobyl would open to tourists this year. Even before then, it was possible to join a trip to the Zone, if staying at the right Kiev hotels and having enough cash. These excursions were announced as something exotic and exclusive with every part of the trip described in advance in order to make the foreigners feel safe. Along with this, were more or less serious private expeditions from (mainly) eastern Europe running - small individual businesses either trying to make money from interested parts, or simply filling a car in order to not have to pay for the petrol all by themselves. 

When the news were broken, in mid December 2010, that the Zone would henceforth be "available for everyone", many of these one man initiatives disappeared, but one's loss is another's gain and more hotels through tour companies swiftly hooked on to the new trend of making money from the disaster.

So now the Zone is open for everyone.

This isn't true. It merely means that more companies can use the new intermediates required to get access to the Chernobyl area and the more money you have, the easier it is. Emergency Situations Ministry spokeswoman Yulia Yershova said that "experts are developing travel routes that will be both medically safe and informative for Ukrainians as well as foreign visitors" which sounds good, but still isn't satisfying. The routes are safe, no doubt about it, but the tour guides (not the local, required guides. but those coming from outside the Zone) are said to often lack in knowledge of the sites as well as the common precautions, and that's why we're likely to see shorts and mini skirts in the Zone,  if happening to come across one of these tourist groups.

As a side note, but a relevant one, I remember when standing by the amusement park, and a roaring bus parked next to our van. Moments after, a larger amount of chattering people came pouring out of it. As I stood there trying to understand what was so special about this particular place, I suddenly understood what was not: These people simply came out from the bus, took the mandatory shots like ithis was something they did every day, before returning to their vehicle. The large group of people made me move from this site, encouraging me to find my own places, and I did, but not until having avoided yet another bus full of tourists. 

What can they do? What harm can they do? If given the proper instructions, probably only a minimum. Another advantage is the restricted time they have on each site - there's no room for personal adventures. The bus people are held strict, even if not told what to wear and what not to wear, and even though their ignorance may leave them exposed to potential health hazards, they're hardly dangerous to anyone but themselves.

Every year there are an unknown number of illegal visits to the Zone, and we find the most hints of this in the relatively easily accessible Pripyat in form of litter, graffiti, vandalism, stolen items and other signs of disrespect and ignorance.Very recently, it came to my awareness that there is an unofficial grouping of people (number unknown) who refer to themselves as "Real Stalkers". They are known to illegally visit the Zone,  where they "often break Ukrainian law". Scavenging and "experimenting" with what items of interest they may find, are other parts of their activity. Having recently been (involuntarily) briefed by such a person, I was given the impression that this subculture is something popular, that might even be growing.

These masks didn't get there by themselves.

When running a blind hunt for treasures, you're likely to destroy things on your way, and anyone who have been in the Zone, can see the damage done by scavengers as such. I have previously stated that 

"the essential "looting" happened long before the first outsiders entered the ghost town"

meaning that inhabitants of Pripyat would return  to their homes after the distaster, to retrieve items of affection and other belongings important to them. But these people are not those responsible for trashing public buildings, stealing Soviet era "trophies" or spreading the radioactive contents of laboratory boxes, just to mention a few things, and it's logical? Why would you return to your abandoned home, the place where your heart once was, and perhaps forever will be, to destroy your own memories? Of course all this is the work of vandalizing scavengers and unfortunately, there seem to be no way to keep them out of the Zone.


This, added to the other changes; the previously mentioned removal of metal from various places in the Zone; the possibility of disassembling the Duga-3 array, and so on, of course including the natural decay of structures, means that it's just a matter of time before these part of the Zone will be close to completely emptied and destroyed. There are people who are of the opinion that the town of Pripyat should gain the status of a city-museum, hoping that such a status would protect and preserve what's left of the town, but the question is: Would it really work? Obviously a 30 kilometers exclusion zone doesn't stop intruders from breaking in, so what use would another law be of? This is a big problem to which we cannot yet see a solution, but if nothing changes, the Zone will be doomed, due to the human lack of respect and inability to keep their hands to themselves.

The Complexity of Chernobyl; the Zounds of the Zone

Trying to perform research about Chernobyl on a deeper level is not as easy as it might appear, especially not once you have been in the Zone.

Already before I left Sweden for Ukraine and Chernobyl, I experienced certain difficulties in finding the information and answers to my questions that I needed and required to add to the full picture. The first problem was finding out correct data about the average levels of radiation in different parts of the Zone. I had been told that the levels were "almost normal", but why should I believe that? I risked appearing like an anxious idiot, and still wonder how the request of correct information can be mistaken for such a thing. When finally finding some relatively up-to-date numbers, I could only sneer at the previous statement of "almost normal" readings. 

I have learnt that some people tend to follow the trend of mistaking "not lethal" for "almost normal". A one time tourist joining in for a day-trip on a bus  ride arranged by a Kiev hotel may get away with that kind of arrogance, but for those who feel the call to return more than once, greater measures of caution and respect are recommended to be taken. - The radiation isn't only in the air - it's everywhere. 

When I finally entered the Zone, I pretty soon got to see for myself that the levels of radiation naturally vary, depending on where you are, but I also realized the danger of getting used to the numbers displayed on the geiger counter. Us Swedes are great with radiation, inventing measures for Roentgen, Sieverts and so on ,and living in Sweden,  I also receive about 1000 - 4000 μSv/year. The average dose for a person  living in Australia or the U.S is between 1500 - 3000 μSv a year. Compare this with the geiger counter giving you readings of  2, 5 or 14 μSv/hour, you may realize it's not lethal, but it's far from healthy in the long run. The point is that there are no constant numbers, and you should watch out where you're going, rather than believe the numbers someone have published, or for that matter get blinded by the geiger counter, because you will get used to it. Stay aware.

During the expedition, I lost count of how many times I faced contraditions to what I thought I knew by asking "But I thought/heard that..." -The official statements are for the public and for the journalists to provide to the public, but in the Zone, you get to see another view of it all; that's it's by far not so much under control as the public statements want you to believe, and when understanding that the 90 percents of the iceberg are there, you quickly realize that you can only imagine 10 percents of it all.

"Ukraine has finally received enough money to proceed working on the New Safe Confinement (NSC)"

"They keep running into problems. Whilst working, they can suddenly run into heavily radioactive obstacles, and how to remove it raise new problems."

 "Moving the NSC into place will cause vibrations that will stir up radioactive dust. In itself it's a hazard."

 Then what to believe? -We're facing a problem larger than most people imagine, and the controversies outside, contra inside the Zone, doesn't make anything easier: Whilst some are optimistic about the NSC, believing that during the 100 years it's supposed to last, we will have developed the technology to get rid of the radioactive dust of the Sarcophagus, constantly acumulating, into safe storage, others are against the disassemblance of the broken chimney of Reactor 4, as it in their opinion would destroy the monument of the disaster.

The above mentioned are more or less public matters. Let's move in closer to the Zone. Let's go past Reactor 4 and into Pripyat and its surroundings. Let's re-enter the Jupiter factory, where they once produced tape recorders, and other electronic gear.

When entering the Jupiter factory, I was told it was perfectly safe, but only a few weeks after I had returned to Sweden I was warned about this place:

"Do not go into those places without wearing at least a respiratory mask."

"The water is highly radioactive"

 We have only pieces of information contradicting each other all the time, and that's a reason good enough for anyone interested enough to go there and see with own eyes rather than believe what other people say. Everyone have a different view on this, and focus on different things, but the only way to find out, is to find out by yourselves. I want the entire truth, but still - dont believe everything you read here, because I might be wrong. 

Concerning the Zone only one thing is certain - radiation.. 

 

Chernobyl in popular culture - Part II

Music from the Zone.

I've spent only a short time researching in what other ways Chernobyl may have influenced contemporary popular culture, but thanks to some allies, I have found out a lot more that I'd be able to just on my own, and that kind of defines this entire project: I want you to participate; to write to be about what you know that I don't know and together we may reach a point of mutual exchange. Thus, I thank everyone who has contributed and who will.

Now, we can understand how people visit the Zone for the sake of taking epic and dramatic photos, and we understand those who want to make other graphic works based on the site and what happened and the remains, and even those who write stories based on Chernobyl (we'll return to that subject in a future post), but music? How can you make music based on such a theme?

Stating the obvious, music is art, just like photography, painting, graphics, writing and so on, and there  is a fair amount of bands that have made songs based on the Chernobyl disaster, and let's start out lightly:

This Ukrainian group is called Skryabin (Скрябін). They are from the west of Ukraine and founded in 1989. They known for, amongst other things, changing style several times during their carreer. This song, Chernobyl Forever, (2006) (Чорнобиль форева), is a sarcastic  tounge-in-cheek piece about Chernobyl and how the problems  still lingering are swept under the carpet. The text in the end of the video means "We want a future without Chernobyl".


For Skryabin, it was perhaps a one time statement, but there are those who've made the matters of Chernobyl into a more serious business:

Another Ukrainian group is Asfalt (Асфальт), who founded in 2006 as a more or less direct reaction to the disaster. An important part of Asfalt's theme is based on Chernobyl and they refer to their own music as gas-mask rock. Trying to describe this gas mask rock and what it really sounds like, you can say that this self-invented genre constitutes a good gathering title for a number of influences from different genres, because since the beginning of their history, Asfalt have already explored the territories of glam rock, punk, industrial/goth and even flirted with death metal. If you want to learn more about the many faces of Asfalt, I suggest you take  a look at their website (in Russian only). 

Their most famous song is doubtlessly Chernobyl Dust (Чернобыльская Пыль); the music video is based on a S.T.A.L.K.E.R theme and in 2008, the song was made a part of the soundtrack of the low budget S.T.A.L.K.E.R movie Trump Card (Козырь).

Since then, the group have participated in other S.T.A.L.K.E.R related productions, and  their latest production, the first of their two part album Chernobyl: Top Secret (Чернобыль: Совершенно секретно) is strongly influenced by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Again you can see what impact the computer games have made.


Asfalt's approach to their chosen theme is relatively close, as the group members all have some kind of personal relation to Chernobyl and the disaster. They have visited the zone; even recorded music videos there, and  in 2010 they appeared in the French-German movie Chernobyl 4Ever.

If you want to find out more about the sounds of Asfalt, albums are downloadable for free here (but beware - many links are unfortunately broken).  




Now let's go to Sweden, the very country outside the Soviet Union where the accident at the CHNPP was first discovered. Have the acciendent inspired us in any other way than to 25 years after the disaster make faulty public service whinings about raindeer and mushrooms?


During my research for this article, I accidentially happened to stumble over the three piece Strömstad based Swedish black metal/industrial group Reaktor 4. Reaktor 4 is a now four years old project, which formed under "influence of volite liqides the winter of 2007". 


What's to be said; Reaktor 4 follow along the lines of the Scandinavian black metal traditions, only their theme this far, is concerning Chernobyl rather than Satan. In 2008 they recorded their full length album Reaktor 4, and one year later it was released through the label Total Holocaust Records, containing tracks with titles like Contamination (Kontamination), Reaktor 4, and Decay (Sönderfall). Unfortunately, there's not much information about this group, but if you're curious about what they sound like, you may go to their MySpace page.


There are also a number of Chernobyl themed compilations released, for example Remember Chernobyl 1986-2011, which is a dark ambient project by various artists. The album was released in April 2011, and all benefits went to the organisation  Chernobyl Children International. 


I am sure that there are many more groups and artist to be presented as influenced by Chernobyl, but I'm forced to realize and admit that it will take me some time to find out more - thus I ask for your help: Any tips are welcome!