Slashdot Mirror
Latest Chernobyl Motorcycle Photos
wrx writes "Elena has taken another motorcycle ride through the Chernobyl area, and has updated her site with a whole lot of new photos and text. The pictures now show several surrounding towns, the radiation level of the magic wood, and many more details inside buildings. After the dust had settled from the
original slashdot story,
Elena wrote 'who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.'"
It's disturbing to think that the town is going to be like that for 100 years.
Regardless of how many breakthroughs there have been in fission technology, I'd like to see twice as many breakthroughs in radiation cleanup before I embrace the technology.
Some of us still remember Three Mile Island.
Maybe if everyone stopped reload it to see the hit counter it wouldn't spin so fast :)
Readers keep recommending Slashdot mirror sites. But of course, that would mean (a) editors would have to read the site to know what we think, and (b) they would have to do some actual work.
Advice: on VPS providers
While the evacuated scenes of London in the film don't have the wear and tear of a few decades of desertion like Chernobyl does, it kind of gives you a representation of what it might be like to be there.
Scary stuff...What's our world coming to?
_________________________________________
nothing.can.stop.me.now
Actually, it reminded me more of "Day of the Dead," the Romero flick from the 80's.
The pictures and story she has on her site are quite simply amazing.
Being an American kid at the time of the incident, I was fairly well removed, both politically and geographically, from the disaster, but Elena's pictures serve as a reminder of just how terrible and far reaching the effects of the meltdown were. From the initial coverup to the resulting FUD pumped out by the Russian government during the aftermath, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that this event displaced tens of thousands of people, and many more are still dealing with the legacy or horrors the fallout has inflicted.
Kudos to Elena and the editors for a great human interest story.
"They swept over like Mongol-Tartars."
And so you post her to the front page. Again. That's just spiteful.
You can't buy this kind of publicity, but you are sure going to pay for it. Hopefully the bill falls on anglefire and not our friend on the bike.
The ______ Agenda
Wait a second! she is showing readings of less than 1 mR/hour. Power plant workers can work in 1 mR/hour for the entire year and not exceed NRC's strict 2 R/year limit. In otherwords, this is nothing. Parent poster doesn't know what he is talking about.
To die quietly human need to acquire a tan of 500 roentgen within 5 hours.
There are many things people do everyday that shorten your or reduce your health, mainly: Using Gasoline!
>I too agree that the USSR should be ashamed and we should be Proud Americans.
It's not like accidents don't happen in the United States, and I don't quite see where your statement is founded.... simply because another country has a disaster, does not give Americans, nor any other country in the world bragging rights. I think what should be truly done, is that we all learn from examples, so this won't happen to humanity again.
The worst nuclear incident of all time? Hiroshima?
think she'd make a great candidate for a slashdot interview.....
Sorry, I'm not trying to karma whore, but my day job relates to getting people not to be affraid of radiation, so seing this post have such high mod points is really getting to me.
But to continue the relative risk theme: visiting a meltdown dead zone is not they only way to expose yourself to radiation. There's living in a house made of brick. (Not very much, I admit, but some.) There's living in a poorly ventilated house that's over a Uranium deposit. And of course, there's sunbathing or visiting a tanning salon, which Elena's pastime look positively healthy!
wow, very poignant. It reminds us of the fragility of life.
/cry
The last few pages were difficult to view,of the preschool...
Well, plenty of people ride motorcycles around Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I'm sure.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Roentgens, the unit used in her journal, measure ionization of the air. The general conversion is that 1 Roentgen = 1 REM, the unit we use for human radiation exposure in the US.
In one transcontinental roundtrip flight, you get 6 millirem, which is equal to 6000 microroentgen. Her little counter is reading microroentgen per hour, so she can go somewhere where her counter is reading 500 and it's just like she's sitting on an airliner at 35000 feet.
Your yearly dose is about 300 millirem, so in order for her to soak that up in hours, as you claim, she'd have to sit somewhere that her counter reads 100000 or more. She's being very smart. If she were walking around without the dosimeter, she could get in trouble.
This is what she means when she says people fear what they don't understand. Once you understand the risks involved, you see her radiation exposure is much less risky than, say, smoking, or even riding motorcycles at all.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
She's riding a fast motorcycle on unswept roads in a place where nobody's going to come along to find you for a long, long time.
A few rem won't add materially to her risk.
This is the most profound and disturbing story I've ever seen here. It underscores, where words alone are hopelessly inadequate, the depraved hubris in thinking we've "tamed the atom". My kudos to the editors for choosing to post it!
As a motorcycle rider, I can tell you that the increase in safety margins she enjoys riding on empty roads is probably 1000 times greater than the increased health risk the radiation poses. That's not all that clear. Look at it this way - "cell phone chatting back seat kid swatting speeding paying no attention to anyone else cause I have the biggest SUV in town" type drivers are a much greater risk than elevated radiation levels. On a bike, she's definitely safer in the Dead Zone than in a poplulated zone.
On a side note, women who ride motorcycles (as driver not passenger) are undeniably the most alluring of all. I'm in love!
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
grammatical skills completely dwarfed by "dramatical" skills
Why don't we, as a community, set her up with some real hosting for her pics.. maybe something with moveable type and plenty of room for pictures.
Luck? TMI not being a catastrophe wasn't due to luck. It was Due to adequate containment vessel design. Whay do you call adequate engineering "luck"?
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Like Freenet?
Maybe a place of historical heritage... Fact is, it's not really suitable for people to use it for living, and won't be, for the foreseable future. But even if it was, living there would almost be like desacrating a graveyard.
Quite interesting that the author (the biker girl) confirmed what I thought all along: the place has become a heaven for wildlife. Animals don't care about shorter life expectancy, as long as they are freed from the intimidating human presence.
Sigged!
Since the powers that be at Slashdot have once again shown what inconsiderate boobs they are, as have some of the readers of Slashdot (I can't believe you bastards that reload the poor girl's page just to see how fast the hit counter goes up), I have set up a mirror at:
http://www.myownlittleserver.us/chernobyl
My bandwidth may not be free, but I have a hell of a lot more of it than she does.
I have mirrored the whole site, as far as I can tell, except for the hit counter. The children among you have shown why its not good to have a public hit counter.
You whould think that a group of people who like to preach "information should be free" would try to have a little more respect. Information may be free, but unlimited bandwidth and server space is not.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Don't forget, she is cleared for nuclear wastelands. Because she didn't post personal information to the site I won't blow her cover, but with a little due dilligence you can find out that she didn't just buy one.
And that probably is enough to keep the average people from doing what she is doing. In fact, the checkpoint is probably there exactly to stop average people from doing what she is doing. I won't want anyone going in there that didn't have a professional appreciation of the idea that where you are may be safe but four feet to your right may be death. Plus that keeps the ghost town a ghost town, and not one of those terrible run-down tourist traps.
Besides, the concept of ecological armageddon tourism is just a little... Creepy.
The ______ Agenda
just wanted to say 'thanks elena -- for being our eyes into this fascinating wasteland'.
your photo-journal is one of the most haunting things i've ever seen.
safe speed be with you.
john penner
(toronto)
Hi, you must be new here. The whole, "Hi. You must be new here" has been beaten to death. Lay off it already. This was funny once maybe twice. Now its just tiring.
The more you know, the less you understand.
I'm not so sure she's safer.
The obvious potential hazard of the radiation aside, she has mentioned riding at high speeds as well as animals on the road slowing her down.
One of the mostest important aspects of driving or riding safely is expectations. A bike racer can expect that if he follows the leader at 180mph, and is only separated from his rivals back tire by an inch or two, he is in most regards, safe. You cannot do that while riding in public.
Elena's biggest safety risk may very well be "the unexpected".
The girl in the article mentioned among other things not having any cellular coverage there.
Since Chernobyl was permanently evacuated long before public cellular networks became prevalent in Easter Europe, no cellular towers were ever placed in that area.
The parent has a point: she's alone, quite a distance away from civilization in a desolate region, with no means of communication with the outside world. Comtemplating all of this, it is a bit scary indeed.
It might be a good idea to bring along a satellite phone next time, just in case.
She's a very brave young lady to undertake such an adventure! She sure has my respect.
"Oooh, does that mean we get to kick some puffy white mad zionist butt?"
I understand the joke you were trying to make, but it doesn't exactly make sense - dyeing is what you do with fabrics. Dieing actually has to do with metalwork: "To cut, form, or stamp with or as if with a die". Clearly the poster was referring to the chances of joining a metal shop.
Or possibly it's a gambling reference - which might be more apt for riding around Chernobyl...
this is amazing, and a perfect example of what the net is really about.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
It's an apt description of us anyways, no matter what the "most correct" word is. We have rampaged across the 'net leaving destruction in our wake. No where is safe: we shall decend upon you unexpectedly, pillage your music and movies, delight in your women, and rampage off to new conquests faster than the attention span of a child.... Our hordes shall be feared throughout the net!! Or at least by servers everywhere.....
It is no different than "War on Terrorism", "Axis of Evil", "They hate our freedom", and the other recent absurdities. Trust me, the USA is becoming just as much a socialist state as the USSR was.
So because we have space shuttles blowing up and the Russian Soyuz rockets don't explode, should we be ashamed?
This is fascinating, but admit it, folks, half the reason you enjoy this website is that the girl's cute and has just a touch of geekiness.
Mod parent up.
I would hope, however, that the admins at Angelfire would have waived the bandwidth limitations for this particular user. If they have any human decency that is... what she has to say, and what she's doing, should be viewable by everyone, regardless of b/w limitations or not. I'd mirror it myself (have a complete local copy) but I'm out of webspace...
Some things are just too damned important...
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
The USSR had their government to cover things up and we've our share of businesses that let profit get ahead of the well being of their neighbors and the environment. A simple and easily approached example might be to watch the movie Erin Brockovich. Not all wide spread disasters were (and will be) of a nuclear nature.
That's one of the coolest, neatest, most awe inpsiring things I've ever seen on Slashdot. I'm not sure why exactly, but it is :-)
-psy
Chernobyl is the Hiroshima that keeps on giving. Hiroshima's been rebuilt. People live there; it's safe. Chernobyl is still hot...
Touche` My knowledge of Russian is absolutely zip, and in fairness, I should never have mentioned it.
The story was in the pictures, which really have no "native" language. Very humbling pictures.
Cheers, Gene
More importantly, we should come together as a species and help one another, ofcourse it would only happen on a show like Star Trek, but it's wishful thinking for the better.
I too agree that the USSR should be ashamed and we should be Proud Americans.
Yes, when the world comes to an end, I too want everyone to remember the numerous toxic waste sites, polluted rivers, and massive deforestation of United States of America. I too want to stand proud of all the positive things my country has done for our enviroment.
Come on, you can't blame the entire USSR for that accident, though their government did downplay the damage of the event in the typical Russian way. If anyone should be ashamed it's probably the idiots inside the plant that cause the disaster to take place. I'm sure they new full well what could happen if they did what they did, but they went ahead and did it anyway. Now all that's left is an area frozen in time.
The world is full of small risks. Deal with it. You can't escape radiation -- you need it to live! (Unless you're an abyssal sea-dweller, of course.) But you probably run less risk from every-day radiation then you do from driving 10 MPH over the speed limit on your way home from work!
This was funny once maybe twice. Now its just tiring.
Hi, you must be new here.
As a long-time rider, I can assure you that any bike rider's biggest safety risk is _ALWAYS_ the unexpected. This is just as true in racing (what happens when the lead bike blows a gasket?) as it is in street riding.
;)
Although Elena's site focuses more on the result than the process, I get the impression that she is an experienced rider, and thus cannot fail to be aware of that.
There ARE only two kinds of motorcycle riders, after all -- those that have had accidents, and those that will. (And the two are NOT mutually exclusive, what's worse.
But one doesn't ride a motorcycle because one is concerned about one's safety among all else, either....
(I echo an earlier poster's sentiments about the appeal of women who ride!)
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
Elena -
:-)
Thank you for your wonderfull photography, and a great website detailing your trips into the "Dead Zone". I hope to one day create/capture half the number of compelling photos as you already have in your life.
And please forgive us Mongol-Tartars Slashdot readers for making your hit counter spin like crazy.
Having a couple Russian female friends, I have to say that they talk just like you read there. Only the female Russian accent is truely beautiful, to bad we were all married, and not to each other...that accent is such a turn on!
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
I made that same mistake on the original story, and got flamed royally for it. My karma went from Excellent to Neutral in a day, and a moderation or two since sent me negative. ;)
He who laughs last is stuck in a time dilation bubble.
In Capitalist America, the Russian Babe rides YOU!
For a fee... of course...
Or possibly for a green card?
Uh, the USSR idiot
The US bombed the Japanese, and then helped clean and study the sites afterward. The USSR evacuated the whole area and just left it. Granted, the pollution from Chernobyl is far larget than what is left over from a nuke airburst.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
Let's just hope no-one does anything stupid and evil that makes us abandon another city in this way...
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
If that's uranium slag, wouldn't it expose the film, preventing the picture from being taken?
May we never see th
Yes, but at great personal cost to her health. Nobody else would go there; she says so herself. These are *one of a kind*.
Fuck just waiving bandwidth restrictions, I'd give her a medal.
I'm amazing. You aren't. SUCK IT
And it should be noted that it was actually the staff of the westernmost, northernmost nuclear power plant (Forsmark) that noticed the increased radiation levels. As in: "We have a leak!". The whole emergency plan for evacuation/containment was put into motion before the operators could figure out that something was 'funny'; "If we have a leak, then why is the radiation levels higher outside the plant than inside?"
It was more or less only bad luck that we got any fallout at all. There was a weather system that moved west during the day and settled over the norther parts where it started to precipicate. The prevaling winds are westerly so chances are we otherwise wouldn't have learned about this incident at all save for several days later when the satellite photos could have provided confirmation.
Sweden now has a nation wide radiation detection system integrated with the weather station network. We never thought we'd have to have one before...
Stefan Axelsson
One thing that strikes me - this area is a sort of Soviet-era time-capsule - some things are left as they were on the day of evacuation. When the radiation dies down, someone will buy it up and turn it into a theme park..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
I found Elena's site (the first time round) 2 days before it hit Slashdot on another popular website. If there's another group out there that can cause mass slashdotting of sites, and bring some of the worst minds I've seen on the net, it's them.
That's not to say we're not creeping her out, but there are other mass communities as well.
How tasteless.. and offensive.
The blame for Chernobyl lies squarely on the Soviet empire; a cruel and heartless regime that destroyed the lives of millions of people.
Anyone with a USSR flag, or a picture of Stalin or thinks Communism is cool can receive one free ass whipping from me.
Andrew
Ukrainian-Canadian
What an absolutely offensive comment. If you have any guts, try making similar comments towards a visible minority and we'll see how funny people think you are. Andrew, a Ukrainian-Canadian.
Would be nice to see this published in a book.
Maybe Oreilly would want to publish their first
coffee table book.
You misspelled "victorious limited strategic nuclear bombing campaign."
The real war crimes were the firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden.
Not to mention Nanking and Manila...
Anyone that didnt say "holy shit" and gained a new perspecitive on life is either a moron that is incapable of comprehending what they are looking at or a sick individual.
... "It really was as bad as I feared it was."
sorry, but those photos gave me the intense creeps for the past 2 hours and has reminded me that things are not bad at all here in the USA.... at least my child's school is not equipped with children's gas masks.
I feel that every american shoudl be required to view that entire website, and high school classes need to take a week to discuss what happened there.
I remember when it happened, and it's unbelieveable how this one person's website has brough back all those fears I had as a kid then returned and compounded with the realization that
Makes Our three mile island look like a simple fart.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Even without ozone depletion, sun exposure is something you have to be careful about. People get the chills at the thought of visiting Chernobyl, but think a nice "healthy" tan is no problem. Wrong!
Socialist? You mean authoritarian police state.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine ...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It's kind of misleading to talk about Hiroshima and Chernobyl as though they were the same.
And yet the night before their surrender, many of the soldiers attempted to stop word of the surrender from getting out and even attempted to kidnap the emporer. The only reason why they did not succeed, which would have meant either more atomic bombs (I believe 3 or 5 more would be dropped, including one on Tokyo) or an invasion that was estimated at a million dead Allies and at least three million dead (mostly civilians) Japanese, was that an air raid by B-29s on Tokyo allowed some wise and honorable Japanese men to hide the recorded announcement from the soldiers attempting the coup.
IMO although it was unfortunate that those hundred(s) of thousands of Japanese people had to die, it was far better than over a million Allied soldiers and an estimated 3 million dead Japanese, though that number probably would approach 10 million within a year or two after the war finally ended. Also dropping the two atomic bombs then was much better than waiting, because that was all the nuclear material the United States had at the time, and had they waited they might have instead dropped even more (as was at least one plan to end the war in the Pacific).
I didn't spend all that time playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.