Two days on a motorcycle in the Chernobyl zone
LJ user zapret-no writes: I decided to go to the Chernobyl zone just now. Since I was accustomed to travel on a motorcycle, legal bus tours did not attract me at all. Other paths to the Zone are closed, but, as Socrates used to say, "the wise do not need a law, he has a mind." Armed with this dictum and without telling anyone anything (so as not to sow doubt in my wisdom), I gathered up the arrest and moved north.
1. The farther, the wilder the edges became. Increasingly sticking up the ruins of faded grass. At the last refueling on the highway, I stopped to fill a full tank, because then the civilization ended. The sullen inhabitants of a nameless shabby gas station resembled the Rednecks from "Easy Rider".
By the middle of the day I approached the border of the Zone. Referring to the map, I turned into the forest and sealed it with secret paths. The primer led out into the field, rested against barbed wire, and forked, bending around the Zone. Feeling the dense rows of thorns, I moved along the border. Sometimes there were gaps for pedestrians, but there was no place to squeeze a motorcycle. Vigilantly looking for patrols, I drove a mile after a mile. Finally got a successful dig, covered with carelessly twisted wire. Hiding a motorcycle in the bushes, I began to unravel the hinges. The distant hum attracted my attention. Far in the field, a car was raising a plume of dust, and it moved straight at me. Crouching, I ran over to the motorcycle. The noise was getting louder, closer, and suddenly a brake creaked right next to it, and everything calmed down. Blood pounded in my ears. Slammed the door. “Go to surrender, or enjoy the last seconds of freedom?” I wondered. The steps of the stranger rustled in the sand.
The door slammed again. Starter buzzed, the engine roared, and the sound began to move away. In the wide gap between the trees drove the old "Niva". If the man behind the wheel turned his head, he would see me crouching behind a motorcycle. When the noise of the car died down, I exhaled. My time has not come yet.
I unraveled the remaining turns of the wire, led the motorcycle to the perimeter, dived under the thorn and jumped out on that side.
2. Inside the Zone and the sky turned out to be bluer, and the grass is richer - as in Tarkovsky's "Stalker". Ten meters behind the fence, the forest began. Judging by the map, the road should have gone in this place deep into the Zone. And indeed - among the trees was a moss-ruled track. I taped a radiometer to the steering wheel with tape and plunged into the thicket.
3. The forest was completely unfriendly. The footprints of the road quickly resolved and I found myself in the deaf jungle littered with felled trees. I crawled from log to log in first gear, circling large fallen trunks, fell a couple of times. Referring to the map, I burst right through the thicket to the nearest village. My plan was simple: the remains of the roads were to remain there, by them I would drive to the next village, and so on. Indeed, I first jumped onto a sandy clearing, then onto a real forest road, and merrily rushed forward. On the way there were still fallen trees, but I jumped over them or went around on the move. Along the road stretched a series of rotten stobov power lines, the radiation background was below Kiev.
The forest parted, and I was in the village. Crooked huts and thinned fences rose from the undergrowth. The ruin reigned inside the houses - even the wooden floors were torn down and broken. Already dusk, it was time to look for a place to sleep. Overnight in a dreary haunted house did not attract, so I went further.
Driving along the track, I saw in front of a huge boar. The boar lifted the snout from the ground and stared fiercely and bewildered. “Now he has to get scared and run away,” I thought. The boar was in no hurry. "Stop. Maybe I should get scared and run away? ”I doubted. The boar turned around and skipped away more often. Relieved.
I also plunged into the forest, pulled a hammock, had a snack and began to pack. An incredible amount of stars shone through the mesh top of the hammock - I saw so much only in childhood, and then in the planetarium. Meteors often sparkled ... And only bad thoughts distracted from this beautiful picture: I heard that there are a lot of wolves in the Zone. Imagination painted a picture: I peacefully snot in a hammock, and gray shadows are closing around the ring silently, and I can only hear saliva dripping from the smelly mouths ... With these thoughts I fell asleep.
4.
5.
6. Fire ponds are often found in the Zone. The background next to them in 2 is twice the allowable rate - the radiometer shows 0,6 microsieverts per hour. 10 meters to the side - and the background is already normal.
7.
8. Early in the morning I went farther inland. One after another, I passed several abandoned villages. Silence, deaf thickets, open doors, piles of logs and broken bricks. It was like in the films about the world after a nuclear war, only without far-fetched mutants and cannibals - just nature, erasing human traces.
9. Nature made itself felt very directly - more and more often it was necessary to go around huge piles of moose droppings. On the outskirts of one of the villages I scared off the elk itself - a large carcass ran through the thickets.
The farther from the border, the more intact were the houses that escaped the hands of marauders. There is a difference between abandoned houses, in which, after having removed everything necessary, they simply ceased to live, and houses havetily abandoned, as here, in the Zone. Whole glass glitters in the frames, furniture stands in the houses, things hang on hooks. And the most terrible - photos. On the floor, on the walls, in the frames, in the albums - everywhere scattered pictures. Goosebumps came through when I imagined people running in such a hurry that even this was left behind.
I moved on to the ten-kilometer zone.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20. They say people live in the Zone. I have not seen one, although it may be. But not in the ten-kilometer zone - the zone of unconditional resettlement. Once she was fenced and guarded. Now there are only fallen down pillars, a rusty thorn on the ground and empty concrete checkpoint cabins.
21. At the entrance to the border of the ten-kilometer zone, I saw huge gratings of the abandoned “Chernobyl-2 ″ radar station billowing over the forest. I was going around the forest in the field, and I felt very uncomfortable in the open space - as if someone was watching very closely and writing in a notebook. Therefore, I am relieved and turned into a thicket along the nearest glade. The path went away from the radar, and my gas tank pretty much easier, so I, reluctantly, refused to search for detours to “Chernobyl - 2 ″, and drove where the road led.
The clearing led to fresh asphalt. Not far away was a concrete fence with a thorn neatly wound on top, and behind it - a large area with a complex of buildings. I cautiously approached. According to the map, the “Vector” object, an enterprise for the processing of radioactive waste, was listed at this location. The lanterns, the track strip, the forest was cut down a few tens of meters around the fence - I didn’t want to become a hero, so I turned quietly and disappeared between the trees.
Avoiding the asphalt road, I moved on. A wide, covered with free-flowing sand was leading between dense spruce walls until a yellow armored carrier appeared on the opening glade - I arrived at the burial ground of contaminated equipment.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27. Complex "Vector"
28. I dismounted and went between the rusty hulks. From time to time, an ominous creak made us wince - bent steel sheets hovered in the wind and open doors on hardened hinges.
29. The bulk of the equipment neatly stood on a concrete picket fence, but chaos reigned around the fence. Defeated trucks, fire trucks, armored personnel carriers lay wedged into each other, like the victims of the last decisive battle. The drivers seemed to be trying to pull away in full before they dropped the equipment. Demolished poles, busts crushed by the belly of armored personnel carriers, buses scrambling trucks over a pile of scrap metal - this gave a distant echo of the unhealthy daring fun of people who are already in a drum.
The radiometer clicked too often - the background passed over the 1 microsievert. I didn’t want to linger here for a long time, so I climbed under the thorn at a pace and ran into the streets between the equipment.
After taking pictures of outlandish mechanisms, I returned to the motorcycle. Something was wrong, there was a vague alarm. The key was sticking in the lock - it turns out that I left the ignition on, and the headlight ate the battery without a trace. Starter button snapped powerlessly.
The skewed door of a nearby truck creaked ominously in the wind.
30.
31. Alien spaceships were rusting in a common pile.
32. Chernobyl mutants tried to keep in armored chambers, wrapped with barbed wire. Everything was useless ...
33.
34.
35.
36. The dashboard is not lit, the starter is not working. I wiped a cold sweat. Fortunately, I have a kickstarter. Unfortunately, you get a hell of a motorcycle. Until that day, I managed to start with a kick only once, and then - the bike was very hot, just drowned out. I pushed the kickstarter lever, and proceeded. The technology is to perch on a motorcycle and kick a kick with all the dope, all body weight. Half an hour later, when I began to get tired and despair, the engine suddenly roared. Relieved.
37. I moved to the border of the Zone, away from the place where I had entered it. The path lay through overgrown roads, barely noticeable trails under power lines, abandoned villages and holiday villages. Debris of fallen trees had to go around right through the forest. In fact, there are a network of relatively well-maintained roads in the Zone - they connect Chernobyl and Pripyat with border checkpoints. Movement on these tracks cannot be called lively, but there is a chance to get caught, so I diligently avoided them.
Many hours of crawling on impassable jungle convince of the greatness of nature. If humanity suddenly disappears, in 20 years its traces can be found not without difficulty.
Judging by the map, I was approaching a checkpoint located in an abandoned village within the Zone. I drove around the village in the outlying streets, jumped onto the track and turned around. A red-and-white barrier was visible far behind. Grinning happily, I gave gas and rushed forward — only a few kilometers to the border.
At the very exit, a barricade of scrap iron barred the way. It was possible to leave, it was necessary only to scatter the rubble of rusty wire. I set to work, calmly and measuredly. I was absolutely sure that all danger was over, and nothing threatened me.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43. I picked up an armful of rusty wire that blocked the exit from the Zone, and saw a man in camouflage in front of me. “Christ is resurrected!” Said the border guard, and put his bike on the asphalt. It was Easter. Relaxing, I forgot that the border with Belarus is organized around the perimeter of the Zone, so that inside the Zone is guarded by the police, and outside - by the army.
I squinted at the gun at the border guard's belt and imagined a picture for myself: I ride a motorcycle, a border guard follows me on a bicycle, and the bullets are whistling. Having imagined this, I decided to surrender and began a true story: “I was driving, I was riding, I was enjoying nature ... I myself don’t know how I got here, a ridiculous accident.” I convinced the border guard - he called the cops with the most sincere regret.
It was getting dark. From the depths of the Zone, a policeman hovered on a scooter The young lieutenant immediately began to build a tough guy. He shouted at me, shouted at the border guard, searched my things. At the sight of a DSLR with three lenses, the lieutenant made a joyful whoop. “You are a journalist!” I honestly admitted that I did not, but I was not convinced. The lieutenant threatened me with harsh penalties, promised to call the SBU and shook his head. “You chose the wrong goal for the article, oh, it would be better for you not to be a journalist!” He lamented about my fate. There were no souvenirs from the zone in my belongings, I didn’t have a journalist's license either, so 3 did not threaten me for looting and reporting - only 400 hryvnia administrative penalty.
The lieutenant sat behind me as a passenger, and we went to the checkpoint, past which I so famously slipped. Began to draw up an administrative protocol, talk. “On patrol, it happens that packs of wolves are visible on 40 heads!”, The lieutenant scared me. When he began to recall “But in the winter they took a group of stalkers in camouflage suits ...”, I finally relaxed. This is such a game for them - the “stalkers” run away, the police catch and everyone has fun.
I was handed a paper about my violation, showed a straight road, and I drove into the night. At the next checkpoint, I shook the paper, and explained that I was already caught and branded. In the morning 4 I was in Kiev.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
1. The farther, the wilder the edges became. Increasingly sticking up the ruins of faded grass. At the last refueling on the highway, I stopped to fill a full tank, because then the civilization ended. The sullen inhabitants of a nameless shabby gas station resembled the Rednecks from "Easy Rider".
By the middle of the day I approached the border of the Zone. Referring to the map, I turned into the forest and sealed it with secret paths. The primer led out into the field, rested against barbed wire, and forked, bending around the Zone. Feeling the dense rows of thorns, I moved along the border. Sometimes there were gaps for pedestrians, but there was no place to squeeze a motorcycle. Vigilantly looking for patrols, I drove a mile after a mile. Finally got a successful dig, covered with carelessly twisted wire. Hiding a motorcycle in the bushes, I began to unravel the hinges. The distant hum attracted my attention. Far in the field, a car was raising a plume of dust, and it moved straight at me. Crouching, I ran over to the motorcycle. The noise was getting louder, closer, and suddenly a brake creaked right next to it, and everything calmed down. Blood pounded in my ears. Slammed the door. “Go to surrender, or enjoy the last seconds of freedom?” I wondered. The steps of the stranger rustled in the sand.
The door slammed again. Starter buzzed, the engine roared, and the sound began to move away. In the wide gap between the trees drove the old "Niva". If the man behind the wheel turned his head, he would see me crouching behind a motorcycle. When the noise of the car died down, I exhaled. My time has not come yet.
I unraveled the remaining turns of the wire, led the motorcycle to the perimeter, dived under the thorn and jumped out on that side.
2. Inside the Zone and the sky turned out to be bluer, and the grass is richer - as in Tarkovsky's "Stalker". Ten meters behind the fence, the forest began. Judging by the map, the road should have gone in this place deep into the Zone. And indeed - among the trees was a moss-ruled track. I taped a radiometer to the steering wheel with tape and plunged into the thicket.
3. The forest was completely unfriendly. The footprints of the road quickly resolved and I found myself in the deaf jungle littered with felled trees. I crawled from log to log in first gear, circling large fallen trunks, fell a couple of times. Referring to the map, I burst right through the thicket to the nearest village. My plan was simple: the remains of the roads were to remain there, by them I would drive to the next village, and so on. Indeed, I first jumped onto a sandy clearing, then onto a real forest road, and merrily rushed forward. On the way there were still fallen trees, but I jumped over them or went around on the move. Along the road stretched a series of rotten stobov power lines, the radiation background was below Kiev.
The forest parted, and I was in the village. Crooked huts and thinned fences rose from the undergrowth. The ruin reigned inside the houses - even the wooden floors were torn down and broken. Already dusk, it was time to look for a place to sleep. Overnight in a dreary haunted house did not attract, so I went further.
Driving along the track, I saw in front of a huge boar. The boar lifted the snout from the ground and stared fiercely and bewildered. “Now he has to get scared and run away,” I thought. The boar was in no hurry. "Stop. Maybe I should get scared and run away? ”I doubted. The boar turned around and skipped away more often. Relieved.
I also plunged into the forest, pulled a hammock, had a snack and began to pack. An incredible amount of stars shone through the mesh top of the hammock - I saw so much only in childhood, and then in the planetarium. Meteors often sparkled ... And only bad thoughts distracted from this beautiful picture: I heard that there are a lot of wolves in the Zone. Imagination painted a picture: I peacefully snot in a hammock, and gray shadows are closing around the ring silently, and I can only hear saliva dripping from the smelly mouths ... With these thoughts I fell asleep.
4.
5.
6. Fire ponds are often found in the Zone. The background next to them in 2 is twice the allowable rate - the radiometer shows 0,6 microsieverts per hour. 10 meters to the side - and the background is already normal.
7.
8. Early in the morning I went farther inland. One after another, I passed several abandoned villages. Silence, deaf thickets, open doors, piles of logs and broken bricks. It was like in the films about the world after a nuclear war, only without far-fetched mutants and cannibals - just nature, erasing human traces.
9. Nature made itself felt very directly - more and more often it was necessary to go around huge piles of moose droppings. On the outskirts of one of the villages I scared off the elk itself - a large carcass ran through the thickets.
The farther from the border, the more intact were the houses that escaped the hands of marauders. There is a difference between abandoned houses, in which, after having removed everything necessary, they simply ceased to live, and houses havetily abandoned, as here, in the Zone. Whole glass glitters in the frames, furniture stands in the houses, things hang on hooks. And the most terrible - photos. On the floor, on the walls, in the frames, in the albums - everywhere scattered pictures. Goosebumps came through when I imagined people running in such a hurry that even this was left behind.
I moved on to the ten-kilometer zone.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20. They say people live in the Zone. I have not seen one, although it may be. But not in the ten-kilometer zone - the zone of unconditional resettlement. Once she was fenced and guarded. Now there are only fallen down pillars, a rusty thorn on the ground and empty concrete checkpoint cabins.
21. At the entrance to the border of the ten-kilometer zone, I saw huge gratings of the abandoned “Chernobyl-2 ″ radar station billowing over the forest. I was going around the forest in the field, and I felt very uncomfortable in the open space - as if someone was watching very closely and writing in a notebook. Therefore, I am relieved and turned into a thicket along the nearest glade. The path went away from the radar, and my gas tank pretty much easier, so I, reluctantly, refused to search for detours to “Chernobyl - 2 ″, and drove where the road led.
The clearing led to fresh asphalt. Not far away was a concrete fence with a thorn neatly wound on top, and behind it - a large area with a complex of buildings. I cautiously approached. According to the map, the “Vector” object, an enterprise for the processing of radioactive waste, was listed at this location. The lanterns, the track strip, the forest was cut down a few tens of meters around the fence - I didn’t want to become a hero, so I turned quietly and disappeared between the trees.
Avoiding the asphalt road, I moved on. A wide, covered with free-flowing sand was leading between dense spruce walls until a yellow armored carrier appeared on the opening glade - I arrived at the burial ground of contaminated equipment.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27. Complex "Vector"
28. I dismounted and went between the rusty hulks. From time to time, an ominous creak made us wince - bent steel sheets hovered in the wind and open doors on hardened hinges.
29. The bulk of the equipment neatly stood on a concrete picket fence, but chaos reigned around the fence. Defeated trucks, fire trucks, armored personnel carriers lay wedged into each other, like the victims of the last decisive battle. The drivers seemed to be trying to pull away in full before they dropped the equipment. Demolished poles, busts crushed by the belly of armored personnel carriers, buses scrambling trucks over a pile of scrap metal - this gave a distant echo of the unhealthy daring fun of people who are already in a drum.
The radiometer clicked too often - the background passed over the 1 microsievert. I didn’t want to linger here for a long time, so I climbed under the thorn at a pace and ran into the streets between the equipment.
After taking pictures of outlandish mechanisms, I returned to the motorcycle. Something was wrong, there was a vague alarm. The key was sticking in the lock - it turns out that I left the ignition on, and the headlight ate the battery without a trace. Starter button snapped powerlessly.
The skewed door of a nearby truck creaked ominously in the wind.
30.
31. Alien spaceships were rusting in a common pile.
32. Chernobyl mutants tried to keep in armored chambers, wrapped with barbed wire. Everything was useless ...
33.
34.
35.
36. The dashboard is not lit, the starter is not working. I wiped a cold sweat. Fortunately, I have a kickstarter. Unfortunately, you get a hell of a motorcycle. Until that day, I managed to start with a kick only once, and then - the bike was very hot, just drowned out. I pushed the kickstarter lever, and proceeded. The technology is to perch on a motorcycle and kick a kick with all the dope, all body weight. Half an hour later, when I began to get tired and despair, the engine suddenly roared. Relieved.
37. I moved to the border of the Zone, away from the place where I had entered it. The path lay through overgrown roads, barely noticeable trails under power lines, abandoned villages and holiday villages. Debris of fallen trees had to go around right through the forest. In fact, there are a network of relatively well-maintained roads in the Zone - they connect Chernobyl and Pripyat with border checkpoints. Movement on these tracks cannot be called lively, but there is a chance to get caught, so I diligently avoided them.
Many hours of crawling on impassable jungle convince of the greatness of nature. If humanity suddenly disappears, in 20 years its traces can be found not without difficulty.
Judging by the map, I was approaching a checkpoint located in an abandoned village within the Zone. I drove around the village in the outlying streets, jumped onto the track and turned around. A red-and-white barrier was visible far behind. Grinning happily, I gave gas and rushed forward — only a few kilometers to the border.
At the very exit, a barricade of scrap iron barred the way. It was possible to leave, it was necessary only to scatter the rubble of rusty wire. I set to work, calmly and measuredly. I was absolutely sure that all danger was over, and nothing threatened me.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43. I picked up an armful of rusty wire that blocked the exit from the Zone, and saw a man in camouflage in front of me. “Christ is resurrected!” Said the border guard, and put his bike on the asphalt. It was Easter. Relaxing, I forgot that the border with Belarus is organized around the perimeter of the Zone, so that inside the Zone is guarded by the police, and outside - by the army.
I squinted at the gun at the border guard's belt and imagined a picture for myself: I ride a motorcycle, a border guard follows me on a bicycle, and the bullets are whistling. Having imagined this, I decided to surrender and began a true story: “I was driving, I was riding, I was enjoying nature ... I myself don’t know how I got here, a ridiculous accident.” I convinced the border guard - he called the cops with the most sincere regret.
It was getting dark. From the depths of the Zone, a policeman hovered on a scooter The young lieutenant immediately began to build a tough guy. He shouted at me, shouted at the border guard, searched my things. At the sight of a DSLR with three lenses, the lieutenant made a joyful whoop. “You are a journalist!” I honestly admitted that I did not, but I was not convinced. The lieutenant threatened me with harsh penalties, promised to call the SBU and shook his head. “You chose the wrong goal for the article, oh, it would be better for you not to be a journalist!” He lamented about my fate. There were no souvenirs from the zone in my belongings, I didn’t have a journalist's license either, so 3 did not threaten me for looting and reporting - only 400 hryvnia administrative penalty.
The lieutenant sat behind me as a passenger, and we went to the checkpoint, past which I so famously slipped. Began to draw up an administrative protocol, talk. “On patrol, it happens that packs of wolves are visible on 40 heads!”, The lieutenant scared me. When he began to recall “But in the winter they took a group of stalkers in camouflage suits ...”, I finally relaxed. This is such a game for them - the “stalkers” run away, the police catch and everyone has fun.
I was handed a paper about my violation, showed a straight road, and I drove into the night. At the next checkpoint, I shook the paper, and explained that I was already caught and branded. In the morning 4 I was in Kiev.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
Information