Chernobyl 3. Some more photos from our trip through the looking glass.

So, time for a further installment from our recent trip to Chernobyl. Allow me to introduce...

 Mick Darabuka. Teacher by day, Drummer by night. That is not tea in his teacup...

 Dave Fragglehunter. It is his fault. He got us into this. This was his idea. Do not go drinking with this man. You will end up somewhere you were not planning to go...

 And this is me. Urban Spaceman, Rob to my mates. My my this 'tea' is moreish...

This is the checkpoint at the entrance to the exclusion zone. Here the Ukrainian army check your passport to make sure you are who you say you are, and check the list of people they are expecting. Watching Mick's face when two armed guards with dogs couldn't see his name on the list is a memory I will treasure for years to come...
I should add, you are not allowed to take pictures of the checkpoint or the soldiers. So I haven't. This photo is simply one which I found on the internet. Obviously...

 A new sarcophagus is being built at the moment. Hans Blix and the International Atomic Energy Authority have insisted on it. What you are looking at is the first half of the construction at the first lift. The drawing below explains. Firstly they build the blue section, then made two side sections and fixed them to the ends of the first. They then used 40 jacks to lift the arch. This will happen twice more. The arch will then stand over 110M tall. They will then push the whole structure out of the way and build another identical one. Once this is done, the two sections will be bolted together to form one huge tunnel which will then be clad. Once completed, the whole structure will be slid on concrete and steel rails, half a kilometer into position over reactor 4. This involves knocking down buildings, building roads, etc. All very difficult to do when everything around is radioactive. The work though, has to be done this way as the reactor is still far too radioactive and unstable to work near.

The construction drawings. A remarkable project, bue for completion next year. This will hopefully contain the radiation for another 100 years. So it isn't a solution, just a sticking plaster. There is no solution.

Inside Pripyat High School. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Nuclear Exclusion Zone was left unguarded for some time. Thieves and looters ransacked the place and stole anything they could sell. Hence all the fluorescent tubes have been taken from the classrooms. One would think the market for radio active light fittings would be somewhat limited.

Fragglehunter, in his Chernobyl hat. On the prowl in Pripyat High School.

 School corridor. Note - somebody has stolen the lintels from over the doorways. Be very careful if you visit, there is very little keeping some of these buildings up.

 Another inevitable chair shot.

 Performance stage and stage seating. Piano could use a tuner.

 In the biology labs.

 A science classroom, learning all about atomic structure. Sadly they know rather a lot more about it now.

 Poster for something. Suggestions welcome.

 The sort of piano I would expect to find Wile. E. Coyote under.

 I think the high school and kindergarten were the hardest places to take in.

Road safely poster from the kindergarten. Splendid artwork.

 Pripyat stadium. Shot from the football pitch. Now steadily turning into forest. Not my finest photograph. I have to confess to being tired and cold from walking all day in deep snow. This was not helped by all those cups of 'tea' I enjoyed the previous evening...

 Hiding in the trees, Pripyat bus station.

 Pripyat, being an 'Energetic City' was blessed with an Olympic standard swimming pool. The USSR did not provide a swimming pool to cities the size of Pripyat. This was one of many features in the town installed to attract their best scientists away from Moscow in favour of the Ukraine. The town was designed to be a showpiece. An example of Soviet success. I will come on to look at the living accommodation later. To say I was shocked at the space afforded to a working family under the Soviet regime would be an understatement. To realise that people relocated to here for a better life though, I can only wonder how they were living before.

 Lamp posts, decorated for the May Day parades now hide in the trees. Lenin Boulevard was the centerpiece of the town. The forest is steadily reclaiming it.