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. 

Those Who Are Forgotten

Now there was an absense again, this time due to me spending time in Ukraine. In Kiev to be more precise. This time I could for known reasons not visit the Zone as it's currently close to impossible to get a permission to enter. It's funny, because the moment I return to Sweden I am greeted by a message concerning that the Zone seems to be open again and there's a tourist trip areanged for January 2012. I do not know what to believe anymore. Right now it seems  that all business regarding the zone can be labeled a travesty. 

In Kiev, there are a for me still unknown number of Chernobyl memorial monuments situated in different areas of the city. I must admit that I only know of one of them, which seems to be the most recent one created but before my journey I was determined that I would pay it a visit. 

This statue of a worn out firefighter is situated at the Kruglouniversistetska no. 22. This street is a fairly anonymous stroll from the main street of Khreshatik in the centre of Kiev and a place you can be sure to find empty if you go there after 17:00 in the afternoon. As I find it in the early evening on the 15th of December, after a short walk up a long slope it's already dark as night and the street is empty. Further down this hill, stand policemen watching over the traffic, but the firefighter sits all alone. In the darkness, the sense of solitude is enhanced and I cannot stop the feeling of sadness almost overwhelming me, but still I do not go very close. Instead I keep my distance, just watching. Thinking. 

In April, previously this year, the firefighter was surrounded by flowers left there by visitors and the time was appropriate - 25 years after the disaster various acts of memorial were held in Kiev, but now the piece of rock on which he sits is clean and empty. That in itself, to me is a reminder of how easy people forget. However I did not forget that I six months ago decided to find this place and bring flowers to pay my respect for those who saved the world. This evening I have no flowers but I return in the morning, having bought one single white rose from a lady at the metro station "Universitet". In the wind and stinging rain I extract the carefully wrapped flower and place it with the firefighter. It takes a long time. Water is dripping from his ears and from my eyes and I find it difficult to leave.

Four days later I am back in Gothenburg, reading my messages. The same author stating that the Zone seems to be open again, informs me that of the last firefighter helmet, there has been a find. The heavily contaminated inlet of this helmet has been removed and left it on a bucket outside the very entrance to the Pripyat hospital. On a personal note I do not know whether to find this to be irony or just a downright mockery and disrespect. 

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.

Chernobyl in Space?

At the opening of the exhibition.

I may have mentioned this before but some time ago I was asked if I'll ever make comics about Chernobyl. My answer was no, because in the case of Chernobyl it is of my opinion that reality exceeds any form of fiction anyone could ever think up spinning off from the Chernobyl disaster and its consequenses.

However I was a few months ago invited to participate in a comics festival/exhibition in Gothenburg and immediately realized that I needed some new material - I didn't feel like I could just be satisfied by throuwing in an amout of old things - and thus I started drawing pages for my long-term science fiction project Methatron II, after a script I haven't yet written. It all ended up like a re-run of the prelude of the Chernobyl disaster. There was absolutely no thought behind it - it just happened. Or maybe it happened because I had just finished writing a scientific article concerning reactor powered spacecraft. -Who knows?

In any case, here are the pages I am refering to, and to that I will just add that it remains clear that even if I can be removed from Chernobyl, Chernobyl obviously can't be removed from me.

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. 

The Monologue of A Woman Whose Man Was Killed In the Nuclear Battle

Lyudmila Ignatenko on her wedding day.

Vasily Ignatenko was in Vladimir Pravik's group of firefighters who received the first alarm from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant 7 minutes after the second explosion in the 4th reactor. Along with Pravik and others, he was first brought to the Pripyat hospital and then to Hospital no. 6 in Moscow, where he'd soon be accompanied by his wife Lyudmila who would stay with him till he died on the 13th of May, four days after Pravik and Nikolai Kibenok.

Ignatenko's death was hard on his wife Lyudmila who at the time was also carrying their unborn child - Natasha. How could they let in a pregnant woman to the Hospital no. 6? Lyudmila lied and said that she and her husband already had two children and the nurse had replied "Then you don't need more" and granted her permission to see her husband. 

Vasily Ignatenko was highly irradiated and apart from disobeying the orders of not to kiss, hug or touch her husband, she also spent a considerable amount of time by his side. Hadn't she been pregnant, she would most likely have died, but the child absorbed most of the radiation and thus saved Lyudmila's life. The child, Natasha, however only lived for five days after being born.

Vasily Ignatenko died 25 years old.

The memories have never left Lyudmila Ignatenko and over the years she's given a number of interviews concerning her recallections of her husband and his battle against the radiation that slowly consumed his body "Every day it was like meeting a new person." she wrote in her memoirs entitled "Монолога жены пожарного, погибшего при тушении АЭС" [Monologue of the wife of a firefighter who was killed in the NPP battle] referring not to his state of mind but the decay of his body. I came across these memoirs a few months ago, but never read it fully as I was mainly looking for sources telling about the symptoms of acute radiation syndrome affecting the Chernobyl firefighters. 

As a matter of fact I had almost forgotten about Lyudmila Ignatenko when I, just a week ago, encountered the fact that the  Swedish film maker Gunnar Berghdal did not only make a movie about her life, but also asked her to tell the story as told in her memoirs. Lyudmila Ignatenko has told the same story many times before and this time she did it because a publisher needed "something fast about Chernobyl" for the 25th anniversary of the disaster. The result was the book "Ljudmila från Tjernobyl" [Lyudmila from Chernobyl] and I was very happy to come across it. Lyudmila tells her story without meddling journalists. 

For Russian readers, it shouldn't be a problem for you to find Монолога жены пожарного, погибшего при тушении АЭС, and Swedes, you may read Ljudmila från Tjernobyl [by Ordfront förlag] but what's available for the English speaking? As far as I know, her full story hasn't been published in English yet, but essential parts of it can be found in this interview

Lyudmila Ignatenko now lives in Kiev, in an area where mainly Pripyat evacuees reside.  She is 48 years old and far from healthy. Once being a pastry baker to profession, she is now a disability pensioner and just like the former liquidators of Chernobyl, she doesn't receive enough compensation to make a proper living. Thus she tries to supplement her poor income by selling bakery. This has gotten her into trouble with  the police several times as she has no permission to run a business.

After the miscarriage of Natasha, Lyudmila managed to concieve a son - Anatoly. He is now grown and helping to support his mother. 

"I am sure that he will reach somewhere in life. He has a lot of hopes and dreams."

/Lyudmila Ignatenko about her son Anatoly

Dialogue Over Six Cylinders

This time you'll get to think a bit for yourselves...

"I was looking at satellite photos again, of the Kurskaya and Smolenskaya NPP, and they both have similar looking clusters of large cylindrical "storage silos" to the mystery 6 at CNPP. On the KNPP and SNPP "silos" they appear to have some sort of earthen retention berm surrounding the cluster to hold back any possible leaking of the contents. Using the scale marker on Google Maps, the approximate diameter of the 3 different, ChNPP, KNPP, SNPP, "silos" are about 50 feet [15 m] in diameter, could be coincidence, dunno."

 These were the words of a friend who wanted to help me solve the "mystery" concerning the six cylinders. He had apparently performed extensive research concerning the construction of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and found quite a few things that I myself had failed to find. Amongst other, this most desirable map over the ChNPP:

"If you look at the schematic on the PDF link I sent you and see the bldg (ISF-1) whatever the square building is right below it and follow what I'm assuming are pipes of some sort back, they go between the "mystery 6". What ever that square building is, tried google translate and it only came out with a translation of "hzhto", it probably will tell you what the "6" were for."

To this, I replied:  

"[The size is] Probably not a coincidence as all Soviet NPPs were built after one model and by the early 80's, they all seemed to look pretty much the same so I wouldn't be surprised if 50 feet was some kind of standard. Anyway, the NPP of Ignalina in Lithuania seems to be differently constructed. I'm not sure why as I haven't read up much about that NPP yet. 

Well, google translate is retarded. The text reads "хоят" which is "khoyat" which means "ISF", so - it's a storage facility for spent fuel. "хжто" "khzhto"... I don't know this abbrevarion, but it's also a storage place.So we're obviously dealing with storage silos then..."

This photo to the right, shows the blue marked LRTP [Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment] seen on the map above. This is a facility for processing liquid nuclear waste, and it appears to have been constructed after the disaster. The ISF-1 [Spent Fuel Storage Facility] is marked in red and if you look at the map, you can see the gas pipes leading from this facility to what we now call "the 6". 

Look again at the photo of the "silos" under construction. Then study this image:

In the upper right corner, you can see the 6, partly buried in the ground. The connection to the ISF and the fact that they're mostly covered is reason to believe that they're supporting-silos for the storage of radioactive waste, and not unlikely were they highly important during the cleanup work of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. 


However, a slightly more realistic theory is that the cylinders as a matter of fact are containers for cooling water for blocks 1-4 (which didn't have cooling towers, unlike the never finished blocks 5 and 6, for which cooling towers were under construction). The blocks 1-4 were provided with cooling water through underground pipelines, so that might actually be what the pipes on the abobe map are. Stuck in curiosity, I will still probably not spend more time digging into this, as all I really need to do is finding someone who can tell me for sure. So, waste storage or water containers - we'll see.