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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?
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).
Reading through her pages years back, I remember somewhere she said that she was stopped at the entrance and being told no bikes allowed. Then she referred about her connections and also gave an indication of bribing them. And she was allowed in.
If anyone has still doubt on how easy it is to bribe the Russian guards, please google for a few news coverage on the Chechen rebels and school incidence this year. The most top wanted rebel claimed he bribed his way all through Russia up to Mosko and only stoped when his 30,000 dollars were exhausted.
She had been telling from day one that tourists do visit this place in bus. And the only people that denied she was permitted in with her bike are the guards at Cheronobyle.
I trust Elina and her story more than I trust these guards. At least, she was offered a lot of money after her fame (for hosting her site), she declined. She even hated her new found fame. She didn't have anything to gain. Compare it with the gains and losses of the guards and decide.
The good news is that its not only the USA administration that lies.