Category Archives: Chernobyl

Kathy Ryan, of the Chernobyl Children’s Project International (CCPI) opened my eyes to the lasting legacy of Chernobyl. Many children are being born every day with genetic defects in the areas around Chernobyl. This is also the area that has … Continue reading →

Click on image for 100  new pictures of Chernobyl.

There are all sorts of people ranting about Elena’s fabled motorcycle tour of Chernobyl. Actually, it was an elaborate flight of fancy, but if extreme tourism is your strong point, you can dispel the rumors and see the region for yourself.

Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? Just you, a driver and a guide, touring Pripyat and the radioactive ruins for the reasonable sum of $193 per day.

You can take the same tour that Elena took when she published her fanciful account of visiting Chernobyl on a motorcycle.

By the way, if you hadn’t heard that her account was "highly imaginative", you can pick up the latest twist on the story on this thread.

Instead of ranting like those who were upset by Elena’s elaborate deception, you can follow in the tracks of Tony Brown, who has taken the Chernobyl tour with guide Rimma Kiselitsa and has written a brief account here.

Tony states, "By the way, it’s not exactly a tour group – it was myself, my driver (in the fearsome Soviet Lada car) and Rimma. That’s it. It’s a private tour, not exactly a Greyhound tour of Chernobyl.."

Details of the tour that he took can be found at the SAM Travel site. You can book your own tours if you’re interested. SAM Travel advertises, Chernobyl tour – visit the site of the worst environmental disaster in history.
(Just the ticket for the tourist who has seen everything else!)

Here is an abbreviated itinerary:

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Chernobyl has been the subjects of repeated exposes and cover-ups ever since the explosion occurred in 1986. It will not be laid to rest until the entire story is completely known.

That may not happen in our time, but the internet and weblogs are an irresistible combination of forces that brings that day ever closer.

In earlier posts I have touched upon the earliest cover-ups by the Russians, the UN, and others who sought to make the incident fade from view. More open communications might have prevented the accident in the first place, and would have certainly saved thousands of lives in the period immediately afterwards. Enough time has passed so the all details of the story need to be known so this never happens again.

Early last year, a young motorcyclist named Elena took an extraordinary series of photographs of the area around Chernobyl and brought the world’s attention back upon this dimly remembered nuclear accident. The haunting images of abandoned schoolrooms and children’s toys stood in stark contrast to miles of empty roads with grass growing through cracks in the pavement and herds of wild horses.

Her photo essay is so powerful that it more than made up for any mistakes she made in initially claiming she made the entire tour on a motorcycle. She apparently toured Prypyat on a commercially available guided tour. The important fact is that she was there and took photos which have galvanized world interest in an event which many hoped the world would forget. She has revisited the area again and continues to update her site. It is well worth revisiting.

GHOST TOWN – Chernobyl Pictures – Elena’s Motorcyle Ride through Chernobyl.

UPDATE:  Now you can tour Chernobyl and write your own story.

In the interest of shedding more light on this complex story, I found a series of 394 photographs of Chernobyl, on a site which documents the various Chernobyl initiatives in more detail. Here is a quick summary:

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Like Milli Vanilli, and so many others pretending to be what they weren’t, Elena, the Chernobyl motorcyclist, may have lessened the credibility she earned through her arresting Chernobyl photojournal.

UPDATE: I feel that Elena damaged herself more than she realized, in her attempt to sensationalize her Chernobyl photos. I wrote this post, "Faking It?" as a cautionary note to anyone else who might like to learn from someone else’s mistakes.

I see this as a sort of Greek tragedy. Someone has a valid message to deliver to the world, and in the process adds untruth to the message. The end result is the social destruction (discrediting) of the messenger.

Her photos captured the results of an extraordinary event and her down-to-earth language underscored the seriousness of the disaster. There is such power in the truth that an unvarnished account of what she saw and what she felt would stand on its own merits for many years.

Her efforts to dress up some of the photos and to heighten the adventure by pretense made it into a travesty like those Hollywood productions where the leading lady can’t sing, can’t dance, and is only present for close-ups. When the truth is discovered, all involved lose credibility, regardless of the subject matter.

UPDATE:  Now you can tour Chernobyl and write your own story.

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