MoldovAnn

Dad and I had the opportunity to take a one-day excursion to the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone on June 19. We saw many of the same places I had visited during my first visit last year, but we stopped at a couple spots I hadn’t been to before. Overall, the visit wasn’t nearly as exciting or impressive as my first trip, and I have to wonder why some people go back again and again. I mean, it was still interesting, and I suppose if you visit different places and meet different people it would be even more interesting, but to revisit most of the same spots wasn’t so overwhelming.

One new stop for me was the famous amusement park, scheduled to be opened for the May Day celebrations just a few days after the accident.

I made this fun little video there. We were standing on asphalt, and a few meters away was a patch of moss. Moss LOVES radiation and absorbs it like crazy and this little patch created a heck of a hot spot.

A few meters away it was back to low readings.

We also stopped at a kindergarten. That was a sad spot, I thought.

Everyone starting clicking away with their cameras when we came across this on the floor.

I thought it was put there specifically for tourists, but our guide reminded us that in 1986 the Cold War was in full force and all schools regularly had various security drills, including drills for chemical attacks. One such drill took place just a few days before the accident. Unfortunately, none of those drills were put into practice for the first 36 hours after the accident.

The tour always includes a stop at the information center, in the shadow of the fourth reactor.

I didn’t listen to the official presentation much this time, since I heard it all last year. Instead, I spent more time looking at the pictures and displays around the room. Something that really caught my eye were some photos from inside the destroyed reactor building. I don’t remember if they were there or not last year, but this year I quickly noticed them as I’ve done so much reading about Chornobyl since my first visit. In particular, I was really excited to see a photo of the so-called “Elephant’s Foot”, a big hunk of gunk. I’d read about it in several different books but couldn’t quite grasp what it actually looked like. It, and several other hunks of gunk, are made up of melted fuel with whatever other material got caught up with it when it cooled and re-solidified. Since I’ll never see the actual “Elephant’s Foot” with my own eyes, I was pretty excited to see this photo of it.

Here are my photos, and here are Dad’s photos.