The Urban Spaceman: Kiev

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.

A Christmas night out in Bolton. The Sweet Green Tavern, with Fragglehunter and Mick Darabuka. A few ciders and talk turns to Urbex. 'We should do a trip to somewhere, shoot the hell out of it.' Mighty big talk. Then Fragglehunter (a chap given to mighty big ideas) broaches the subject of Chernobyl. Yeah, we've all seen the pictures, heard the stories. Can you really get into the zone? Can you really get into the buildings? There are wolves and bears aren't there?... So a plan is hatched. The plan has two strings to it. Firstly we need to find out how to get there, where to stay, how to gain access. Secondly we need to convince our ladies that a trip to the worst ever man made nuclear disaster area is a good idea, particularly as the project will involve a couple of nights in Kiev, which we are reliably informed is one of the most dangerous capitol cities in the world (this I find hard to believe, given that the list includes places like Lagos, Accra, Beirut and Dublin!). But there it is. On reflection, do not worry about visiting Kiev. It is a great city. A city of contrast. On the street, people look right through you, if you nod they ignore it. Head down and keep on. Once inside a building, be it a hotel, hostel, shop, bar, whatever, those Ukrainian people open right up! They are warm and effusive, they smile a lot and are invariably pleased to see you. We had the best welcome from everyone we met! As a result we had a great trip. Thank you my Ukrainian friends.x
Bekki (above) runs the Magic Bus Hostel in Kiev. +38097-336-03-03. Located at 31 Saksaganskogo Street, Apt 3. Here you will find a warm welcome, a hot shower, tea and coffee, and a hostel full of nice folks. I can't recommend it highly enough. I am not naming the people who helped us access the Zone. There are strict rules about where visitors can go, and what they can do. We really pushed our luck, which is why we have pictures from inside buildings. This is not allowed anymore. If I know you, and you plan to go, email me and I will do what I can to help.
Sadly there is now a film called 'Chernobyl Diaries' which looks as though it was shot in Pripyat, but I am told was not. I expect that the film will cause loads of tourists to visit and push the patience of the Ukrainian authorities until the result will inevitably be a block on visiting.
I should add, before the visit I spent a lot of time researching this place and researching what happened there. To say it made grim reading doesn't begin to cover it. Let me tell you the basics, then take a look at the pics. They don't need captions as I think they speak for themselves.
At 01.24 on 26th April 1986 an experiment to test the cooling system on Chernobyl reactor number 4 failed. the failure resulted in the core of the reactor descending into an irreversible meltdown. It exploded and launched the 'lid' of the reactor (a heavy concrete and steel structure containing the high temperature water vapour vessels, transmitting super-heated steam to the turbine halls, and weighing some 2,000 tonnes) 50 metres into the air, straight through the roof of the building. It then fell back onto the reactor, on its side. 3km away the town of Pripyat, home to 50,000 people was asleep. What followed is too huge, detailed and terrible to recount here. Suffice to say, I have been humbled by the bravery of the people who gave their lives to contain the radiation. Do your homework, read the reports and visit the city if you care enough. This disaster, on nuclear terms, happened in our back yard. The land on which Pripyat stands will remain radioactive for the next 20,000 years. Today it is possible to visit for a short time. The forests turned red by the radiation are still there. The trees do not grow normally. Wolves and bears roam the streets. All are radioactive.
Finally, I must conclude that the human race should not be dabbling with nuclear power. The stakes are too high. It is in our nature to fight one another. How can we possibly commit ourselves to science that requires 20,000 years of stability to keep safe? We are a race of warmongers and terrorists. We should not be doing this. Chernobyl reactor 4 remains in a state of meltdown. It is still highly unsafe. If it blows again and contaminates the ground water, goodbye water supply to mainland Europe. Please hope and prey this never happens. Thank you for reading.
Fragglehunter and a drummer by the name of Mick Darabuka were my companions on this venture. Thank you Fragglehunter for all your work in bringing it about. Thank you Mick for your insight. I will remember this one for a lifetime! Briefly, what follows is the town centre. A hotel, supermarket, sports centre, music school and high school. The fairground was never used as it was being set up for the May Day holiday. Now the photos...

Soviet apartment blocks. There are dozens.

On 'The Bridge of Death' - 500 or so Pripyat residents flocked to this bridge for a better view. The light show they witnessed was the Cherenkov effect. It killed them all.