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What Chernobyl Looks Like In 2010
An anonymous reader writes "The editor of Phoronix.com has toured Chernobyl's Zone of Alienation (the 30km zone surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant) to see what the area looks like 24 years after the world's largest nuclear disaster. Many photographs from Chernobyl in 2010 have now been published, showing off the power plant and its RBMK reactors, the town of Pripyat, the town of Chernobyl, and the Red Forest. The 24th anniversary of this deadly nuclear disaster will be on April 26."
No matter how bad for you radiation might be, living around humans is worse.
Also other identical reactors, built at the same time from the same design, like the one at Ignalina in Lithuania continued operating until the end of 2009 (not because the plant was at the end of its useful life, but because the EU didn't want Lithuania to be operating a potentially unsafe reactor any longer).
Chernobyl type reactors, despite being absolutely obsolete and horribly dangerous by 1980s nuclear standards (even if they are far more stringent than other energy standards), have been operating right up until the end of last year. (With some updated safety features learned from Chernobyl of course)
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Just as Chernobyl nature has taken back the surrounds of Pripryat, the Chernobyl stories take on mythical proportion.
Unfortunately, most people who go to Chernobyl (TFA author included) - seem to adopt this faux-investigative journalist approach, as if the entire experience is touch and go.
This is entirely not the case - and while there are many interesting elements to Chernobyl, its surrounds, and its history, the above really just isn't one of them.
For those of you who are interested - I've been. It's interesting enough. You pay 40 - 80USD, hop in a bus, drive 2 hours, and you're there. There's a quick paper check on the edge of the exclusion zone. You drive to a small village that has more kittens than people, and you're told a little about the history. You drive a little further into a larger town, and buy some Kvass and sausages, and keep going.
From there, you're back in the bus - you see a memorial on the eastern side of Reactor 4, drive to the western side, at another memorial. This is as close as you can get to the reactor (and it's where the author shot his photos from)
From here, it's a crapshoot depending who you went with. Normally, you'll get a speed-tour of Pripryat. They used to do the helicopter / heavy equipment graveyard, but that's no longer done.
Pripryat is quite interesting, but the tours are always superficial. You follow a set path, and everyone sees the same thing: The ferris wheel, the school, the swimming pool. The buildings are decayed - not due to radiation, but simple weather exposure, yet peeling-paint photos somehow always manifest into drama-heavy recants.
On my trip, I was lucky enough to slip away from the group, and get some more interesting perspectives:
http://ninjito.com/2009-09-12-PANO/qx-pano-pripyat-1.jpg
The hotel Polissia. It was quiet a pleasant day.
http://ninjito.com/2009-09-12-PANO/qx-pano-pripyat-2.jpg
Roof of said building, you can see reactor 4 in the distance to the right.
http://ninjito.com/2008-08-16/qx-pripyat-1.jpg
Rarely seen fresque honouring the cosmonauts.
Interesting things to take away from the trip are:
- There's a lot less 'fuss' than most people imagine
- There are active buildings, people in the region
- The unchecked nature growth has resulted in truly beautiful surrounds - the forests and plant life are stunning.
- Radiation is pervasive and scary. While it's obvious that you can't see, touch, or smell it, it's truly startling to stand somewhere that has slightly-higher than background radiation, take two steps to the right, and suddenly be exposed to several-hundred times background radiation.
Summary: Go and see it for yourself, but don't buy into the mythology.
One of the best parts of going to Pripryat was seeing one of the Woodpeckers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Woodpecker looming in the distance.