Chernobyl: Two Days in the Exclusion Zone

IN UKRAINIAN: A great star, burning like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The star's name is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died because of the waters that had turned bitter. Revelation 8:10-11 Everyone knows something about Chernobyl. Any disaster with global implications of this kind tends to leave a mark on history, but Chernobyl is different. Somehow it has struck a chord with us and has become the subject and inspiration for countless works of art and media. Video games are no exception.

In some ways, games allow us to feel a stronger connection to a place. As players we explore and get lost in fantasy worlds. One of those worlds exists. What would it be like to be in a place like that? Are media representations true to life? What could visiting familiar surroundings show me that I haven't already seen? What would I learn? I had to get there first. Chernobyl is still under military control, so anyone who wants to visit it must overcome some obstacles. Fortunately, there are many travel agencies willing to organize everything for you. I used a company called Chernobyl Tour who I met with outside of kyiv.

Once we got into the van they gave us a map and a Geiger counter. This was happening. The most important person on this bus today is, of course, our driver. His name is Vladimir. And my name is Natalya, I will be your guide. The Chernobyl

exclusion

zone

itself is divided into two parts. 10 kilometer area, the small circle, which is the area closest to the nuclear power plant and the most contaminated. And the 30 kilometer

zone

, that larger circle, is a kind of buffer between the contaminated area and normal Ukraine, the clean area. Relatively clean. Natalya then explained the reason for all the checkpoints we would encounter.

Because there is no tourism in the area. The area is still quite radioactive, some parts of the area are quite radioactive. And our visit is more of an educational visit, so it won't be tourists, it will be something between journalists and scientists. Alright, we're here at checkpoint one. I can't really film anything around here because there are soldiers and stuff. And since my camera was off during checkpoints, I subsequently missed a lot of videos of Natalya saying things like "welcome to the

exclusion

zone, gentlemen." However, he had many useful tips. Particles that are still present in different parts of the Exclusion Zone are safe for us if they are outside, but if they enter our body, that could cause problems.

So to prevent us from digesting or inhaling them, it is better to eat and drink our snacks and water on the bus. Loud and clear. Our first stop was a town called Zalissa. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little nervous. Our first encounter with the exclusion zone, up close and personal. The first building we entered was a small medical clinic. You can see from the pictures that I'm undecided. I was afraid to touch anything for fear of radioactive dust and walked cautiously in case the decaying wood gave way. DREW: Is it safe to continue walking this way?

NATALYA: Yes, but be careful. Is not safe. It's not safe, but be careful. Nothing is safe in the Exclusion Zone. This was a key moment. I simply had to recalibrate my safety threshold. This was not a museum and I was not in the United States, which would have required helmets and all kinds of cordoned off areas. Instead, most of the buildings we entered were the safe equivalent of an open construction site. Nails stuck out of the wooden beams and we often had to avoid large holes in the floor. In a way, it was liberating to not have to limit myself to exploring, but it reminded me that this place won't be around forever.

Which is a shame, because, in its own way, Chernobyl is beautiful. It's also totally different from any other place I've ever been on Earth. In terms of things I had experienced, the closest associations I could make were with virtual worlds. Physically, I had never been in an apocalyptic wasteland or wandered through an abandoned city of 50,000 people. I never had to check the ambient radiation level in real life. Gas masks are not a normal part of my daily experience. But in games we see those things all the time. By the way, The Last of Us absolutely nailed it.

The game may not be set in Chernobyl, but the post-apocalyptic details were spot on. The faded tone of everything, the way debris piles up in corners, the encroachment of nature up to and sometimes inside the exterior walls. Even the wallpaper looks perfect. It was a strange confluence to experience those things in real life. It sounds strange, but, like seeing a prehistoric skeleton in a museum, I often had to remind myself that what I was seeing was real. The apocalyptic effect was magnified the more identifiable our surroundings became. It was especially in these places that I found myself coming back to reality.

When we walked into an apartment complex, I couldn't put my finger on why it felt so strange until it hit me: It's strange to walk through a large building and feel a breeze. But the most surprising thing I felt was the feeling of invasion. Even though these ruins are over thirty years old, there are still many reminders that people actually lived here. It's not an amusement park, the kids' homework is lying on the floor, the kitchen appliances are leaning against the walls, someone actually lived in apartment 70. If you've ever been in someone else's house while That person wasn't there, you'll have a sense of what this felt like.

NATALYA: And the newspaper came out, gentlemen, on March 4, 1986. "Interview with Muammar Gaddafi, former leader of Libya." And when that reality hits you, you can't help but wonder: IS such a fantastical apocalyptic outcome? I'm standing in the middle of one! At no time was this more evident than when our Geiger counters freaked out, like when we visited a summer camp located on the edge of the cooling pond. To stop the beeping, Natalya simply increased the counter threshold from 1.0 to 3.0 microsieverts. DREW: Thank you. NATALYA: You're welcome. If we heard the alarm again, we would be at a real crisis point.

The fear of radiation was like a constant buzzing in the back of our minds. Luckily we had Natalya to tell us where it was safe to go. That being said, I'm really glad we had our own Geiger counters. You can't see or feel the radiation, so without a device to tell you “yes, this area is safe,” you would be afraid to take a step anywhere. As if, say, you were so absorbed in getting good pictures that you became separated from your group... in the middle of Chernobyl, miles from help, surrounded by invisible pockets of radiation. NATALYA: Were you looking for us?

DREW: Yeah, sorry! It was a long first day of our two-day excursion and I needed a break. When night came, I was eager to eat and get some sleep. Our hotel was located within the Chernobyl city exclusion zone. NATALYA: Drew, you can stay here, you'll be alone. DREW: Very good. NATALYA: Gentlemen, we go down at seven. We joined a few other groups in the hotel dining room for a surprisingly good meal. My group mates, two laid-back German geocachers, invited me for a drink at the hotel bar afterwards, but all I wanted was a shower and some sleep.

As you can see, I just took a shower, which I think is the most fun part of being in a hotel in Chernobyl, is that everything you do, you do in Chernobyl. So I just took a shower in Chernobyl. Just tying my shoes, in Chernobyl. Wi-Fi connection, in Chernobyl. Chernobyl also has wifi. Charging all my devices, in Chernobyl. Playing Final Fantasy VI... in Chernobyl. But all jokes aside, this has already been an incredible first half of the journey. We have seen so many things. In fact, I burned through 80% of my batteries. There is not much to do in Chernobyl city at night because there is a curfew from 9 pm.

NATALYA: Don't stay outside because if they close the doors it will be a problem for you to enter. They actually serve beer in the bar downstairs at the hotel, but I'm about to pass out from all the physical exertion today. , and I want to be fresh tomorrow. So I'm going to transfer some images and then get some sleep. Good night! I slept ten hours. Breakfast the next morning consisted of a delicious pastry, some eggs, and OHMYGODCOFFEE. However, before we left, there was one more thing I had to investigate. The television has 11 channels. In Chernobyl. NATALYA: Gentlemen, welcome back aboard.

On day 2 we get to the most important thing. And by "big" I mean... big. The DUGA is a radar station, aimed directly at the United States, intended to detect incoming missiles. It is unfathomably large. The station's interference was heard as clicks on radios around the world, to the point that it earned the nickname Russian woodpecker. However, no one knew where or what it was. The secret village around it, called Chernobyl-2, appeared on maps as a disused summer camp. The children of the Chernobyl-2 school officially graduated from the Pripyat school, since their school was not supposed to exist.

Pripyat existed. But getting there required one of the most harrowing experiences of the trip. Get out your geigers, gentlemen, because probably in three or five minutes we are going to cross with you a very interesting place called the Western Radioactive Trail. The path of the first radioactive cloud that was blown by the west wind. GEIGER CLICKING GEIGER ALARMS SOUNDING Please follow me at all times. It's very easy to get lost here. Being in the middle of a city that used to be home to 50,000 people is unsettling, but mostly it's just sad. Pripyat especially shows the characteristics of a city on the rise.

The crown jewel of the Soviet Union's nuclear energy program, it was completely self-sufficient and, by all accounts, a great place to live. It was a new city, which was only sixteen years old at the time of the accident. The average age was only 26 years. A city that looks to the future, now locked in the past. If you know a landmark in Pripyat, most likely it is this one. DREW: I really feel like I should wear a ghillie suit for this. The Ferris wheel, like the rest of the small amusement park, was scheduled to open a few

days

after the disaster occurred.

In a way, it is a metaphor for Pripyat: a hopeful construct, destined to never see its full potential. Finally it was time to see ground zero. NATALYA: And on the left we have the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. The New Safe Confinement Arch, a structure built next to the entire reactor building and then moved over it, had appeared on the horizon throughout our trip. Now it's time to see it up close. It turns out that it is very close. The radiation levels here were remarkably low for how close we were to the reactor. A testament to the good work the cleaning crews did and continue to do.

What did you have now? DRAWING: 1.0. NATALYA: One? A microsievert? So before November 12, levels here were four microsieverts per hour. DREW: Before November 12 of last year? NATALYA: Yes, before they covered the ruins with that new construction. DREW: Wow. Sure, it probably would have been better to see the shattered sarcophagus now covered by the arch, but this way we got to see the world's largest moving object, the entire ensemble put into place just a few months ago. The area around the arch is so clean that we were able to have lunch just a few hundred meters away, in the power plant canteen, where the workers who are still working on the cleanup come to eat during the day.

Again, fantastic food. Plus, that juice tasted exactly like Gushers for some reason. On the way out, we stopped at another astonishingly large structure, a cooling tower under construction. Like the Ferris wheel, the supermarket and many other parts of Pripyat, the tower was not yet finished when the accident occurred. DREW: It all feels a little bit like Jurassic Park. Where it was built but wasn't ready yet and then a disaster happened. NATALYA: Yes. Or a post-apocalyptic world. Especially those where some things remain, like kindergarten. Yes, unfortunately those are the only things left. The size of this thing was just one more on the list of incomprehensible images we had seen during our two

days

in the exclusion zone.

But it wouldn't be the last. At some points during our trip, I felt like the Exclusion Zone was still alive. At no time was this stronger than in the city of Chernobyl on May 9, Victory Day. This is the only day a year when the government allows former Chernobyl citizens and their families to return. I have no idea what this must have been like for them, but if I can get an idea of ​​how beautiful the place was, it must be very difficult for them to see it in such a state. Near the center of the city there is a set of memorials, the most impressive of which is a row of posters of eachevacuated town.

In some cases, the signs were all that remained after cleanup crews literally dismantled and buried entire villages due to high levels of radioactivity. The last thing we saw as we left the area underlined the future of the place. We were leaving the area when Vladimir suddenly stopped and stopped the van. NATALYA: Oh! Do you see them, guys? There! DREW: Where do these horses come from? NATALYA: They are originally from Mongolia. DREW: Why were they brought here? NATALYA: To experiment. Scientists wanted to check how they will get used to this environment, to the forest zone, because Mongolia is a steppe land.

And they also wanted to see how they would adapt to existing conditions of higher radiation levels. But as you can see, everything turned out not so bad. Today we have one of the largest herds of these horses in the world, the Przewalski horses. DREW: And it will probably continue that way. The authorities didn't want us to contaminate the rest of Ukraine, so at every checkpoint we passed through these amazing-looking radiation detectors and waited a disconcertingly long time for the "clean" light to come on. Clean! No rads here! NATALYA: You managed not to touch a particle. Great job.

So let's try to get out the radiation doses that you have accumulated during these two days. Thank you. So Drew, what do you have there? You have eight microsieverts there. DREW: Is that good? NATALYA: Eh, not bad. I have even more. I have ten microsieverts, so you're pretty good. Ten microsieverts – really not much – would be accumulated during two or three hours of flight aboard an airplane. Because, normally, the radiation level on board an aircraft depends on the altitude of that aircraft and varies between three microsieverts and six microsieverts. Ten microsieverts could also accumulate for probably three and a half days in kyiv.

Or if you eat 150 bananas at a time. But bananas have a natural radionuclide, potassium-40, and it is better to have potassium than cesium, which we have been stockpiling with you today. They will not glow in the dark, gentlemen, nothing will grow on them. Then you shouldn't worry about it. So eat bananas and everything will be fine. DREW: I'm glad to hear it. The departure was bittersweet, without a doubt. After just two days, I had grown fond of the place. But even before arriving at Chernobyl, I asked myself: is it right for people, tourists, to come here, to such a tragic place?

I asked Natalya what the Ukrainian perspective is on people who choose to come here. NATALYA: They are generally young, because they are fascinated by the game they were playing, the computer game. Many Exclusion Zone sites were used in that game, so they come just to take a look at those sites. But also to learn more about the disaster, to see these places where everything was happening. As part of Ukraine, as an interesting place to invite people to. And also, at the same time, invite them to Ukraine, so that they learn more about this country, about the traditions, about the situation here, above all.

I could not agree more. If we want to learn about the world, the reason, the impetus, it doesn't matter, even if it's as seemingly insignificant as “I saw it in a video game.” What matters is that we make the effort and remain open to what the world has to show us. I thought I would find a devastated and depressing city, a ripe target for cynicism about the human race. Instead, I found a beautiful and moving reminder of the fragility and perseverance of life, not to mention an impressive display of international cooperation and preservation. Everyone will see something different, but what matters is that we go and look.

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