ME and Ophelia

A STOMACH CHURNING WALK
Through the deadly silence of Chernobyl

"PRIPYAT ghost town (1970-1986) - MY CHERNOBYL RIDES" is the first website that has stunned me speechless and moved me to tears. Every adult and school child around the world ought to read the 17-page site. Existing and future generations need to understand why every effort - at any cost - must be made to ensure that "it" (or anything like it caused by weapons of mass destruction) never happens again.

Here is an excerpt, written in broken English, by the site's Russian author (a female biker on a big kawasaki zzr 1100 cc sport touring motorcycle, aka ZX-11, whose father is a nuclear physicist):

"All photos on this site either my photos or from my dad archives. Also I got a few photos by e-mail from someone who work in Chernobyl.

They call it a city where time stands still. Maybe it is because clocks in this town don't show real time, they are showing radiation level. In any way, 81,6 microroengen per hour isn't bad for this place. Few years ago level has been two times more of that and in a May of 1986 it was hundreds of times more then that.

Losses. Who can calculate the amount of people that died of radiation? No one, even approximately. Some tell about 400.000 dead, other about half million. Dad says that those figures rised very high and so far death rate is 80.000-120.000 but it will be more because people will die within next 50-70 years. However, it is easier to count material losses. For a country that just got independence it is catastrophe.

A new beginning. People had to leave everything, from photos of their grandparents to cars. Their clothes, cash and passports has been changed by state authorities. This is incredible, people lived, had homes, country houses, garages, motorcyles, cars, money, friends and relatives, people had their life, each in own niche and then in a matter of hours this world fall in pieces and everything goes to dogs and after few hours trip with some army vehicle one stands under some shower, washing away radiation and then step in a new life, naked with no home, no friends, no money, no past and with very doubtful future.

End of Journey. Someone appreciated Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata."

[Source: with thanks to Tom Watson MP]
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March 8th - Postscript:

Update re the website "PRIPYAT ghost town (1970-1986) - MY CHERNOBYL RIDES beginning of a story about town where one can ride fast, with no stoplights, no police, no danger to hit some cage or some dog..":

Apologies - link above [www.angelfire.com/extreme4/kiddofspeed] has broken. Thanks to collision detection via Abstract Dynamics, I've just discovered why. Apparently, the site is undergoing construction with more photos. Hope to re-post, when site is due back in May.

March 9th - Update:

The link to a mirror website is in my post dated March 9, 2004.