Living in Chernobyl (Pic heavy)

[UrbanX]

Absolutely stunning report UX.

Brilliant that you:

1. Provided a storyline prior to each picture (it felt like we were alongside you in the explore).
2. Provided a deeper explore option to your site for those that needed to get in deeper (like me)
3. Even gave links to video, long enough to get a view of what it was like (liked the early road shot where all you hear was white noise)

This is what DP was made for. Superb. Where did the last 2 hours go?

Cheers for the detailed feedback! Glad you enjoyed it, I shall try for more like these

Great story and pics.must have been fantastic to visit the area.A once in a lifetime experience.

I keep telling myself it's a once in a lifetime experience, then I keep going back!

I'm still not 100% on the zone situation. Most guides are hoping for it to re-open Mid-September...

 

[King Al]

Thats the best write up I've ever seen UrbanX! I've enjoyed everyone of your reports from that amazing place

 

[Scaramanger]

You could well have worked wonders for the russian tourism trade...

 

[krela]

You could well have worked wonders for the russian tourism trade...

I doubt it, but I'm sure the Ukrainian tourism trade is quite happy.

 

[Incognito]

great report and top notch pics. I could read reports from here all day long.

 

[Collingwood]

Best Report i've ever read, spot on mate.

 

[Mondeo_Lad]

Wow!

No disrespect to all the fantastic reports I always enjoy reading on this site, but this....this is literally in another world.

Mesmerising.

 

[UrbanX]

Wow cheers for all of the positive comments!

I spoke to someone today that managed a 'tourist' 4 hour visit to the zone this week
He recieved an email from his tour company saying that his trip was cancelled as the zone was closed as of 22.06.11. He'd already booked his flights and hotels either side, so decided to try calling another tour company. They booked him up, and off he went, no mention of the ban what so ever.

Weird. But it seems the zone is still accessable.
I'm planning my next extended visit already, and once again it will be quite different

 

[Big Bill]

Amazing!

A brilliant insite to somewhere, where 99% will never venture!

Read your report a couple of times and it just gets better!

 

[Madaxe]

Incredible. This fascinates me.
Well done UrbanX. Spent ages looking at your pictures and reading your visit accounts. Can't get enough of them. Come to the conclusion that I need to experience this place for myself.
I think I best start saving.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[UrbanX]

Incredible. This fascinates me.
Well done UrbanX. Spent ages looking at your pictures and reading your visit accounts. Can't get enough of them. Come to the conclusion that I need to experience this place for myself.
I think I best start saving.

Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for reading it, I know its long!
It is an obsession. When i was finally granted thi visit, I thought solidly for weeks on whether to re visit the zone, exposing my body to chernobyls radiation for longer than even the workers are permitted.
I have been offered another visit, I replied within the minute. I really dont know how much longer it will be available to visitors.

 

[Pincheck]

yeh nice pictures mate , shows the height of human stupidity and you wonder where it will end hopefull better than this and poor people who have had to drift back because they have nowhere else to go !

 

[UrbanX]

yeh nice pictures mate , shows the height of human stupidity and you wonder where it will end hopefull better than this and poor people who have had to drift back because they have nowhere else to go !

As most people know there are people who live in the zone, technically illigally, but no one bothers them.

I would love to meet them with a translator, and hear their story. And if they allowed photograph them while they spoke.

I was offered this oppertunity on this trip...towever I was with a group on this visit, all male, and we made the mature decision that it might be a bit intimidating all decending upon their home with our DSLRs asking them questions, so sensitivelt decided against it.

Maybe next time...

 

[zed67]

That is one place I am going to see and your photos are excellent.

 

[0xygen]

Fantastic report - what more can I say!? Thanks for sharing this and I hope to one day make it there myself!

-0xy

 

[zed67]

Why so many 20's ?

With that you could buy a small nuke..... Tho Kiev girls can be expensive, I guess !

 

[zed67]

Seriously, I want to know why you had to have all those 20's

Medical insurance ?

 

[UrbanX]

Travel insurance phone call was a funny one I must admit!
You've got to remember I was there for a long time. I essentially booked 16 'normal' Chernobyl day trips back to back...

 

[krisan]

WOW that has to be the most intense, fascinating and emotional report i have ever read. brilliant pictures too.

 

[BassBooster]

First off, your pictures are amazing, thank you so much for going there and sharing your amazing experience.

I find it incredible to think that the authorities go through an in-depth history check of you and make you 'sign your life away' before letting you in Pripyat and Chernobyl. That's some serious security, and I suppose a way to safeguard them from trouble if you suffer any adverse effects from being contaminated by radiation. In other words, you enter at your own risk. Wow!

What's also incredible is that Pripyat is a large city full of buildings which are now abandoned due to radiation, and nobody is allowed in them. What I'm curious to know is: How long are these buildings and the ground they stand on expected to be dangerously radioactive?

Has the government not looked into ways of possibly 'cleansing' the area. What makes me ask this, is that it seems very counter-productive and uneconomically viable to leave large ares of land such as this, uninhabited indefinately.

Are these buildings not allowed to be demolished? It seems like this whole area is destined to remain as it was before the disaster, and will never be modified or modernised. This is amazing, a dream come true for me, that a whole city can stay like this while elsewhere on Earth cities are changing all the time. I hope it continues to stay like that also, I'm staggered to think that these buildings still have furniture and past resident's possessions still inside. If you was allowed to go in them, it would be like walking through a timewarp, just incredible.

So, does the government never intend doing anything with the area?