A Post-Apocalyptic Terrain For Real

Most all of us have seen movies about the world after nuclear war. Some, like The Day After can be chillingly realistic; many others are just cheesy. But there is a post-nuclear landscape right here, right now. It's around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

Elena is a motor-bike enthusiast who travels the closed roads in the "dead zone" around Chernobyl. She takes a lot of pictures and gives some commentary.

As I pass through the check point, I feel that I have entered an unreal world. In the dead zone, the silence of the villages, roads, and woods seem to tell something at me....something that I strain to hear....something that attracts and repels me both at the same time. It is divinely eerie - like stepping into that Salvador Dali painting with the dripping clocks.

These are radioactive technics as far as the eye can see. They are a type of army truck. Most of these vehicles were full of troops on that day.

She travels into the city proper, her radiation dosimeter always out, and tours the abandoned homes and buildings. The city was literally emptied overnight and the rusting, degrading, collapsing ruins speak volumes. These real pictures become more evocative and haunting than any film.

This town might be an attractive place for tourists. Some tourists companies have been trying to arrange tours in this town, but the first group of tourists found the silence unnerving and downright SPOOKY. And it is. They charged 1200 hryvnas for a 2 hour excursion and after some 15 minutes, they wanted to flee to the outside world. The silence here is deafening.

Go, view, read.