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A New Elena Story
SwiftBoy writes "Elena, of motorcycling through Chernobyl fame has gone riding again, this time to dig up the history of Kiev's fortifications. Interesting that after 60 years all that stuff is still there."
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about whom there was much doubt as to the veracity of her story?
Here is one of a good number of debunkings. Naughty, Naughty!
There's a 4MB panoramic image on the debunking site mentioned in the parent post: http://www.web-axis.net/~pulse/chernobyl/prypyat-p anoramic.jpg
That's one hell of a case of deja vu for those of us who just spent all day immersed in Half-Life 2.
Actually there really is stuff just lying around all over the place in Europe (probably depending on exactly where you are). I know my old landlord in Germany had a museum quality collection (I say this because he loaned it to a museum in Speyer on a couple occasions) of pre-historic artifacts and fossils sitting in the garage. This was all stuff he collected while cutting wood up in the forest. The house I lived in was over 200 years old. He also had a collection of late 19th century farming equipment and a bunch of world war one artifacts which were actually passed down through his family.
You can still find bullets, shell fragments, peices of old weapons, helmets, and various other things on the ground up around the Maginot Line and also in the countryside around Bastogne (where the Battle of the Bulge took place). Other areas, like Normandy, are more "cleaned up" but still show rather evident signs of historical events of note. Hard to take two steps without bumping your head on something historically relevant.
Of course that's without even mentioning all of the other "important" historical periods that took place around Europe. With so much history to so little square footage, it's no surprise you can hop on a motorcycle and find cool stuff all over the place.
I imagine the same amount of history is lying about the americas as well. It's just that there's far more surface area to human history that took place here. So the stuff is all piled up on itself.
BTW, my eagle project was a food and clothing drive for people living in Belarus (current country where Cherbnobyl is located). They still can't drink milk or eat meat from cows in the area or eat certain foods grown in the soil close to the accident. But people do still live there. I remember having passive radiation detectors in our classrooms in the late 80s... Although that might have been more a product of the cold war, since the military base I lived near was actually a short range nuclear(that's an assumption) missle site(this isn't).
There really are tours of the area, and she evidently went on a tour, so the pictures are real. What's fake are her claims that she rides her motorcycle alone in the radioactive zone.
riding through Chernobyl on a motorcycle would be inherently risky, dangerous, unlawful and maybe even lethal.
Are you refering to dangers from radiological contamination? The danger is real, but it's not as bad as you may think. The other reactors at the site were kept operating after the accident. It was not until December 2000 that the last was shut down.
This means that over six thousand people worked right next to the containment building, and traveled to and from the site almost every day for several years after the accident.
A few rides through town on a motorcycle would expose you to a accumulated dose many thousands of times less than what a lot of other people have voluntarily chosen to live with.
I'd guess that it would be riskier to ride a motorcycle through downtown LA than through the town section of Chernobyl. (If it were allowed to ride through Chernobyl.)
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-Percy Bysshe Shelley
1792-1822
There was a story here previously about the journalistic quality of blogs on the Internet and how they couldn't touch real journalism. I now understand what that's all about.
Bah, real journalism. Real journalists don't have any special kind of knowledge or ability to be factually accurate. They just have more oversight. But even so, imho the editorial oversight in the mainstream press is severely lacking as well because of the slow death of independent investigative journalism. Mainstream press stories get debunked all the time. As long as there is only one independent source for a story, you have to take it with a huge grain of salt, regardless of who that source is. And with most of the mainstream press being primarily a pipe for single-source organizations like the AP, it's kind of inevitable they report a lot of falsehoods as well.
Besides, despite the lack of factual veracity of that trip, it reminded people there is such a thing as chernobyl, and the region around it. That just because something is no longer in the news it's not still influencing people's lives. That's not a bad thing.
Fuck that "Running to Canada" shit. How about standing up to usurpers like Dubya in order to make life better for the people who live here? That means sticking your neck out for your principles, even if your countrymen hate you for it. They may not thank you for opposing them, but their children might.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Funny thing is that she doesn't have any need for credibility. Straight from the front page of www.kiddofspeed.com
"July 7, 2004
First let me say that I have nothing to do with this project other than donating the bandwidth to allow the world to see it. When I first saw the site, Angelfire could not handle the amount of traffic the site was receiveing. I knew my server could. Then Angelfire began plastering the site with banner ads shamelessly trying to make money off the site. This is the point at which Elena shut the site down, not because she had anything to hide.
Regardless of what is true, this site has certainly made people think more about Chernobyl and this tragic disaster.
However, this story has been there for years and has been primarily forgotten and neglected.
After "Elena" brought this story to light, everyone that claims to be an expert has come forward identifying it as a hoax or a fraud.
How ironic that although they would label her a hoax and a fraud, she was able to achieve what they could not even dream of achieving. Bringing this issue the world wide attention it deserves.
As the only email contact, I have seen each of the moving emails that were directed to "Elena."
Her words have definitely made the world think about this piece of forgotten history. I have seen every request from news agencies from around the world, each of the big names, begging for interviews.
"Elena" wanted nothing to do with these interviews.
I offered to setup a paypal donate account to create a fund for the project and local charities.
"Elena" Wanted nothing to do with it.
Did she do it for fame or notoriety or even money?
Or did she do it in order to bring attention to a forgotten region.
Read her words and decide for yourself."
PS, Stalin et al were *Russians*.
Actually, Mr. Vissarionovich was a Georgian.
Communism did not invade and conquer Russia.
Invasion? That would actually not be a totally inaccurate description.
Most of the prominent bolshevik/communist leaders were plotting their military coup d'état (a.k.a. "revolution") while they lived abroad. They also received funding, training and support from Germany, who believed that the success of these people would weaken Russia.
Help savingAmigaOS and a free PowerPC market
There seems to be a lot of anti-Elena sentiment here, mostly due to the fact that she didn't really take those pictures on a motorcycle.
Who cares? I sure don't.
Her stories, fact or fiction, are a great read, and provide a wonderful thread connecting the photographs. The photographs themselves (which certainly are real) are a great record of the past that tell a story on their own.
If someone posted a "space log" with lots of beautiful pictures of the planets, and linked the pictures together using a story about flying in a spaceship from one to the next, no-one would think the story was real, but many would still enjoy it. Elena's made-up story just happend to be a lot more down-to-earth and believable.
She mentioned at one time that she was planning on turning the Chernobyl story into a chapter of a book she was working on (I can only presume that the Serpent Wall story will be another chapter). If such a thing comes about, you can bet I'm buying it! Why pass up such a great collection of photographs and enjoyable stories?
All over Europe they still find bodies, unexploded munitions; including mustard gas from WWI; wreckage etc.
After 2 horrendous wasteful wars most of Europe has learned the futility of Nationalism.
I liked the qoute in the article "Soldiers graves are the greatest preachers for peace".
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
And that would all be fine and good up to the point where she milked the publicity for her own gain: going on the talkshow circuit, getting into magazines, trying to cut movie deals, and now trying to present her new project as some kind of documentary. She may not have presented herself as a journalist in the first place, but when she was mistaken for one, she made no attempt to correct the perception. In fact, she milked it and tried to cover up when her story was shown to be false. For that, she deserves the label "liar" and more. By not immediately admitting that the story was a fantasy, she's romanticizing dangerous and illegal activities that could lead others - more gullible than even your standard /. readers - to harm.
SharkJumper
Elana,
Thank you for another good story from your homeland. These are things that Americans (like me) never really get to see. When we read one of your stories, it humanizes you and your people far more than any history book could.
I've read your stories, and am impressed - I hope you keep up your work and that the skeptics don't stop you. In your own way, you have done more to help relations between your people and the rest of the world than your government has. After reading your stories, I feel like I know a bit more about you and your people than I ever have before. It is now easier to understand some of the things about you and your people than before - because I can see some of your roots.
As a student I studied these wars, but they were abstract. Now they are real. The numbers still astound me, probably even more now.
Thank you,
I
wasn't! It was great and it was the best history I've seen in a long time. I just now went through two-thirds of the serpent's wall blog (it is slow going---each page takes several minutes to load) and decided to check in at slashdot to see how others viewed it.
Nice. There is almost no praise for this really moving document. I don't think it's as good as the Chernobyl one, although that is partly because I was alive during Chernobyl, but not during the event this describes, but it really gives me a sense of Ukraine and I know that for many people Kiev is the center of Europe and Asia and it's worth my time to see this perspective on it.
Plus, I can't help but compare it to Iraq and the 51 casualties we suffered vs. 1000 of the enemy in Fallujah. It's moving to see the many identifying artifacts of the Germans vs. the lack of identity of the Soviets.
I visited East Germany on a school trip back in the early 1980s; yes, it was a pretty grim place. We were shown round the Buchenwald concentration camp, preserved along with many others as a warning. Yes, it was chilling. Visiting these places was, we were told, compulsory for schoolkids. West Germany is similar (relevant now that the Western bit has taken over).
Some Germans try to make out Hitler wasn't that bad. Not many. If nothing else, everyone else in Europe won't let 'em forget the truth - most especially their immediate neighbours (Austria aside). Ever heard the England football chant `Two world wars and one world cup'?
Try reading German history books - they don't shy away from the horrors. They do try to explain why people went along with it in a sympathetic fashion, mind. But that's okay: do you want an entire generation growing up thinking `My grandfather was an evil monster', or `My grandad was a poor sod caught up in this insanity, and like a lot of people he didn't do well, but one can understand why'? What will breed a healthier future nation?
Virtually all Germans were just caught up in the Nazi-driven shit. Why demonize 'em? Sure, they went along with the victimization of Jews and others. So what? It's easy to see that it would have been very hard to fight against it. Would you have done any better yourself? Are you sure? Or should the post-war settlement have been a re-run of Versaille, to punish Germany and repeat the cycle that led from WWI to WWII? Nah, bloody silly idea: the way it's turned out is very good indeed. We still need to keep an eye on the Hun, mind - Germany's full of Nazis and nationalists and even normal Germans still like doing everything the same as everyone else. But as for Germany trying to revise history so that it appears the Nazis were somehow not evil Nazi scum - nah. Only the lunatic fringe tries that on.
Declaration of faint interest: my dad's best mate (RIP) was a Jewish refugee from Hitler (who was then deported from the UK to Australia as an enemy alien - good, eh?)
Regarding the US record during WWII: the US execution of hundreds of alleged Japanese `war criminals' after kangaroo court hearings counts as a war atrocity in my book. Not a proud period. A human reaction under the circumstances; I can't summon up great indignation. But just as surely atrocious and it was official policy.
I'm sure there are other examples. But - well, that US atrocity I'm talking about. People were killed. The RAF killed lots more in just one attack on Dresden. I've seen modern Dresden. It's all new (albeit shabby and crumbling because it was Iron Curtain new). Makes you think a bit. What can one do but shrug and try to avoid a repeat performance because war is quite simply hell that all sane and civilised people wish to avoid?
`I am the war president.' G.W. Bush.