Chernobyl Visit

Gents:

Thanks to some strange connections (mainly through some European car buddies that are into Urban Exploration and Adventure Travel... Iraq, North Korea, etc) I was able to score one of the first legal invites for a multi-day stay in the Chernobyl Nuclear Exclusion Zone, staying in the zone at the workers' hotel and getting up close and personal with the zone and the abandoned city of Prypiat, it in itself educational on many fronts.

Prypiat was a carefully planned Soviet "city of the future" established in 1970 for their best and brightest young scientists and their families. what the Soviets saw as the utopian vision of what a post modern city should look like in itself was highly educational... as well as seeing what 25 years of looting and neglect will do to even modern structures.

Before anyone asks "why?" .... I was a double major... nuclear engineering and political science... with my initial post grad work in Soviet politics. Chernobyl happened while I was in school (pretty much ending any thoughts of a career in civilain nuclear engineering) while the USSR fell apart soon after, rendering all of my specialization pretty much obsolete. ;-) So throw in my like of post-apocalyptic movies and you have the perfect long weekend... even if it was half the way around the world.

I've opened up my Facebook photos to everyone (you do have to be FB registered). I think this link works: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150189841187030.300401.697842029#!/photos.php?id=697842029

For those of you not on FB I'm also stashing pix in an open Flicker account, but without my comments (which I don't have time to add twice) they'll pretty much be out of context for you. http://www.flickr.com/photos/23171305@N07/sets/

Bill

Geeez..I hadn't realized that it's been a thousand years already...

That may be the coolest Facebook post ever. Well done, sir—I salute you.

Content is currently unavailable. Facebook doesn't want to let me see.

Me either.

That's pretty awesome. What an incredibly fascinating opportunity!

If you're into post apocalyptic video games, pick up STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl, which is set entirely in an alternate-reality version of the exclusion zone. Their model of Pripyat is supposed to be fairly accurate. It would be interesting to see how close it is to the real thing.

I LOVE urban exploration like this. You have a beer on me waiting, should you show up in Minneapolis.

EastCoastMojo wrote: Content is currently unavailable. Facebook doesn't want to let me see.

Me three. I hope the link comes back soon, because I really want to see it. Thanks for posting.

Intriguing. Did you happen to have a Geiger counter with you?

My father's parents' parents emigrated with their children from Russia in advance of the revolution. Even so, I have little inclination to visit there. Glad you enjoyed the experience.

Very cool!

I see that you guys had Geiger counters, dosimeters, etc. What other precautions were taken? I noticed no tyvek, no respirators, etc., so just curious if you had no protection, went through decon when you left the area, or what?

Great flicker photos!

FB link doesn't work for me either......if you don't mind, what's your name on FB? (so I can search for you and view the photos w/comments).

It doesn't work for me either.

Glad you guys are enjoying it; I thought this crowd might. FB name is Bill Elliott (in Urbana, MD)

Sorry, no idea why FB isn't working. No one else seems to be having issues.

Background rad here was typically lower than what we measured in the London Luton airport (not that the guys from Luton were very happy about that)... it was only the hot spots that were really dangerous and between our guide and the geiger counters we were pretty careful there. Even the "warm" places were typically less than what you get on an airplane at 30k feet.

There were a couple of things (like the claw) so hot they were almost like an x-ray machine left on, butmost of the really heavily still contaninated items were well off limits. But even standing 100m from the core itself... likely one of the most radioactive sources on the planet, radation was again similar to that in a plane. I wouldn't want to sleep there, but no worries with a visit.

I did not wear a dosimeter; i would be curious what my total load was... but I bet it's in the range of a chest x-ray or two. And likely a lot of that from the bright sun... in the Navy we routinely got higher doses in port with the reactor down than at sea with it running full blast.

Long sleeves, long pants, solid shoes... really all that's needed if you're going to behave sensibly. Normal precaution against ingestion by not eating drinking smoking in the open air inside the 10km zone (and being extra careful surface contamination if drinking water inside the van... all that's allowed). Not a place for kids ...

As to the respirators you have a good point there...the absestos dust that was everywhere was likely more of a hazard than the radiation. Broken glass was alos terrible... next time I'll wear boots (as did many of the non-newbies to the Zone)

Exiting the zone we (and all of the clothing worn into the zone) were tested more than once with decontamination available if needed. We all came out clean despite bending a lot of the rules... but always being aware of the situation we were in.

Kiev blew me away, too. Almost a western town, easy transportation system, but with Cairo type prices. And the highest percentage of the most beautiful women in the world. It was almost unnatural... they were that astoundingly attractive!

Posting pix tomorrow of Kiev and the huge WW2 museum/park. Definitely plan to return to Kiev at some point for a week or so... but really need to at least learn the alphabet so I don't starve! ;-)

Mmmmmmm...Soviet concrete.

Thats probably the same mix they poured in the reactor there.......

Which is collapsing. You note all the scaffolding over R4 that wasn't there 6 months ago? They've determined that the core/framework (over which the concret was poured) is rapidly disintergrating and the whole structure will collapse in a short time. They are building another cap and support to keep the core sealed in. The iconic cooling tower is being dismantled as well.

wcelliot wrote: Glad you guys are enjoying it; I thought this crowd might. FB name is Bill Elliott (in Urbana, MD) Sorry, no idea why FB isn't working. No one else seems to be having issues. Background rad here was typically lower than what we measured in the London Luton airport (not that the guys from Luton were very happy about that)... it was only the hot spots that were really dangerous and between our guide and the geiger counters we were pretty careful there. Even the "warm" places were typically less than what you get on an airplane at 30k feet. There were a couple of things (like the claw) so hot they were almost like an x-ray machine left on, butmost of the really heavily still contaninated items were well off limits. But even standing 100m from the core itself... likely one of the most radioactive sources on the planet, radation was again similar to that in a plane. I wouldn't want to sleep there, but no worries with a visit. I did not wear a dosimeter; i would be curious what my total load was... but I bet it's in the range of a chest x-ray or two. And likely a lot of that from the bright sun... in the Navy we routinely got higher doses in port with the reactor down than at sea with it running full blast. Long sleeves, long pants, solid shoes... really all that's needed if you're going to behave sensibly. Normal precaution against ingestion by not eating drinking smoking in the open air inside the 10km zone (and being extra careful surface contamination if drinking water inside the van... all that's allowed). Not a place for kids ... As to the respirators you have a good point there...the absestos dust that was everywhere was likely more of a hazard than the radiation. Broken glass was alos terrible... next time I'll wear boots (as did many of the non-newbies to the Zone) Exiting the zone we (and all of the clothing worn into the zone) were tested more than once with decontamination available if needed. We all came out clean despite bending a lot of the rules... but always being aware of the situation we were in.

Cool. The eating/drinking precautions seem reasonable. I'd have been a little concerned about internal contamination via inhalation, but in an open environment like that, I suppose that anything that wanted to be airborne was probably long since dispersed.

I think it'd be hard to top the modeling of Pripyat over what they did in COD 4. Even though I thought everything looked way deteriorated to have been set so close to the accident, I think it's a pretty accurate representation of what it looks like now.

It still amazes me the scope of what happened in Chernobyl. Makes you wonder if the Japan ordeal was down played at all....

No FB here, so I dug through the flickr stuff.

VERY cool pics. The train stuff was really neat.

Quite a trip...

At least that site is pretty hard for bored American teens to trash.

So, which site are your friends a member of? I hear there were some people from the site I'm a member of from the mid-Atlantic that went over there recently. Were you perhaps with them? VERY small world if so.

The facebook link won't work for me either, I'm really glad you posted this though, I have been dying to visit Chernobyl for quite a while now. Do they still allow people to do motorcycle tours through there?

Do you have any tips for setting up a trip there?

http://www.tourkiev.com/chernobyltour/

The motorcycle ride was a setup. The girl that did it was on a tour and took pictures. Still doesn't make it a bad story, just a work of fiction to tie the pictures together.

Chernobyl is one place that I'll have to go without my wife. I really want to go badly, but she'd rather spend another week at Disney.

Wow, fascinating photos! I missed the commentary too but I just spent like an hour looking through the Flickr set. Thanks for posting those up Bill!

There was only one other Yank on this trip (a Trabbie guy from the west coast). There isn't a site per se that I'm connected with; it's more being in constant conversation with Trabbie and Tatra owners that looped me in.

There does seem to be a site that a lot of the guys are connected through (UK based and does adventure travel around the world) but I don't know what that is. I'll ask.

Defintely a small world though as one of the guys on the trip I had met and done business with over a decade ago but had since not spoken to. And I'd say of the guys I didn't know... that I had common acquantances with half of them (beyond the obvious common links on the trip). Pretty good for them being UK based.

My FB link always works for me when going in through a second account; not sure why the issues. But you can always look for my profile using wcelliot_yahoo at fnader dot com

Tips for setting up a tour there? You need someone that has a relationship directly with zone management (not some tour group) and has done tours before. A couple of the guys in my group had been 3 and 4 times and that gives us a lot of "standing".

Also, you want the two day tour which gives you about 12 hours total actual touring time in the 10km zone (plus hours of life within the 30km zone which is almost as fascinating)

The single day tour is mostly a "drive by" 4 hour event that IMO is certainly not worth the time or effort to get there.

The group is potentially planning an autumn event... and serriously planning a March 2012 even (which I am likely going to go on... with my wife even considering it) Drop me a PM if you'd like more info as it becomes available.