900 years

1960-1970th has been a time of a great nuclear enthusiasm. With such slogans as- "atom is our friend".. they were building atomic plants here and there, like starling houses and then in April 26, in year 1986 a guy named Akimov pushed wrong button and launched the biggest nuclear catastrophe ... Akimov was jailed for 14 years and as it was in tradition with soviet justice, they put in prison all other people that worked on that day shift with no matter who was guilty and who was not..... In theory radiation will stay in Chernobil area for the next 48.000 years, but in reality first people must start to populate those area already in some 300- 900 years. This is when the most dangerous elements will dissapear. If government will find money to finance our science, then, I suppose there will be someway discovered to neutralise or clean up this area sooner, otherwise we will have to wait this 900 years untill radiation will evaporate by itself.

disaster in my memory

In Ukrainian language Chernobyl is a name for a grass, wormwood (absinth) This word scares holly bejesus out of people here. If I tell someone that I am heading in a "dead zone"... you know, what I hear.. In best case- "are you nuts?" My dad used to say that people afraid of a thing which they can not see, can not feel, can not smell and that kills. Dad is nuclear physicist and he also says that of all dangerous things in my life, he can only think about one, which is riding my bike on fifth or sixth gear. In any way, dad and their team work in "dead zone" for last 18 years. They doing researches from the day when nuclear disaster happened. The rest of guys in a team are microbiologists, doctors, botanists.. etc. I was 7 years old back in 1986 and in a few hours after accident happened dad sent us with sister off with the train to Grandmother. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough for us to stay away of troubles. Communists kept silence about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their stupid labor day parade and then people start learning about accident from foreign radio, from relatives of those who died and real panic began in 7-10 days after accident. Dad says, that in those first 10 days exposure to radiation was the most powerful and can not even be compared with what we have now

heading up north

Time to go for a ride. This is our road. There won't be many cars on that roads, this places having ill fame and people trying not to settle there. The farther we going, then cheaper is land, then less people and better roads.

big egg

as we passing 86th kilometer we'll see this big egg. This is where civilisation ends and where Chernobyl ride begin. Someone brought this egg from Germany. The significance of this egg is LIFE that will break through, life that will survive through radiation. Here is last place where one can get something to eat and fill bike with fuel. Choose any dirrection from here and you will see the same picture- desolated towns, dead villages, ruined farms. next page