All the recent talk of nuclear proliferation in Iran has me thinking about Chernobyl. It's always horrified and fascinated me; an amazingly large area of countryside, towns and a city, completely evacuated within a few days - and left empty and poisoned for centuries. Now with it's 20th anniversary approaching on the 26th of April; I thought I'd see what I could find out about it. I started first with the latest edition of National Geographic. The print edition has a great article, but it isn't featured on the website, but I did find this flash movie titled "
sights and sounds of chernobyl" that gives a brief overview of what happened then and now.
I also came across "
GHOST TOWN" a website maintained by Elena, and is an amazing record of her adventures motorbiking through the Dead Zone, as it's called;
Excerpt:
This is a Belorusian Cemetery. In many villages, hasty scratches on wooden crosses are the only chronicle that remains of the rich lives that dwelled here. Many of the loved ones who prayed over them are probably here, too.
I couldn't find this village on my map, but the town cemetery tells the tale that from the early 1800's, until 1986, all of the people who lived in this village were Smirnovs.
It must be sectarian village, where brothers married sisters and all have the same last name.
I put this village on my map and named it Smirnovka. It is how we call a famous vodka. I wonder if there is a connection to the people who lived in this place and the people who make Smirnoff Vodka?
I can only guess, because there is nobody here to answer the question.
Finally, "
Nuclear Nightmares" dedicated to all the people who's lives have been fucked up by this event, and other Nuclear disasters, in and around Russia. Some of these pictures are quite terrible; the amazing reach the fallout from this accident has through time, is astonishing - I have no clear political stance at the moment on Iran developing nuclear capabilities, nor on the Western worlds nuclear dominance; It does seem clear to me however, that we're heading for alot of trouble if the people that are in charge keep running things the way they are.
5 comments:
is the fall-out (or whatever the correct term is) the same regardless of whether we're talkin nuclear plant melt down OR nuclear bomb?
on a completly un-related note, HAPPY EASTER!!
What is your favorite Candlebox album? My favorite is 1998's Happy Pills. This is when they really step out of the shadow of their peers and said. "I love you."
ladies and gentlemen: I give you Clayton!
Hi,
you know that on your webpage is a copy-righted image? About chernobil.. Look up for this:
Mayak (the image is also from the Mayak project of Greenpeace)
hmmm,
thanks for letting me know this anonymous; and about the mayak nuclear fuel processing plant; i wasn't aware of this place; nor that the photograph of the boy was associated with this the poisoning that has occuried in that area. However, i don't claim these pictures as my own and link to their orginal sources. The Nuclear Night website claims that the photograph was taken by Robert Noth, who i believe works for Greenpeace; or at least freelanced for them for this project. Nuclear Nights, is also a greenpeace related project.
I hope this clears somethings up?
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