MoldovAnn

After my second visit to the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, I didn’t think I would go again. But when I received an email announcing the first Radiation Reconnaissance Mission, organized by Pripyat.com and guided by Sergey Mirnyi, I couldn’t pass up this unique opportunity.

We started the day early, our group of about 20 leaving Kyiv at 8:00 am. During the ride north to the Exclusion Zone, we received folders with maps of the Zone and a notepad, as well as Terra-P dosimeters produced by the Ukrainian company ECOTEST.

These simple dosimeters (labeled “for everyday use” on the packaging) measure gamma radiation, and include a Geiger counter to measure beta radiation. Gamma, however, is the more serious and dangerous of those two types, though, and it was what most concerned us during our mission.

The device measures in millisieverts (mSv), with .30 mSv being the standard acceptable norm in Ukraine. Interestingly, one guide informed us that the standard acceptable norm in the US is about twice as high as in Ukraine, and even higher in some European countries. The Soviet Union, and later Ukraine, took a very conservative approach when setting acceptable norms for radiation levels. Many places we visited during this trip were well below even the conservative Ukrainian standards.

Our first stop of the day was a couple kilometers outside the Exclusion Zone, at the site of a base camp set up in May 1986.

One of our guides, Oleh Veklenko, described the day they arrived and set up this camp, on May 3, 1986. The brigade of about 3000 men first went to a location about 18 kilometers from the nuclear power station, only to discover that the radiation levels were extremely high there. They were moved to this site farther away, arriving about 3:00 pm at the large grassy field. Within an hour, the onslaught of 3000 soldiers stirred up so much dust that the air was filled with the sandy clouds. At dinner that evening, Oleh recalled eating his porridge in which he could feel the sand. He wondered what danger they were consuming.

There was a tent camp on the site for the first year, after which brick buildings were constructed. The camp was in use for at least three more years, until it was abandoned sometime in 1990.

Sergey first returned to the camp site in 2001, and at that time its remains were clearly visible from the road. In the last 6 years, though, the trees have grown significantly, and the site is no longer visible from the road.

Once inside the Exclusion Zone, our first stop was at the sign designating the border for the Chornobyl raiyon (like a county in the U.S.). Radiation measured at .12 mSv.

Our next stop was at a former vehicle decontamination point.

Sergey described the route a team would follow after a reconnaissance mission, going through the first checkpoint and washing. If the vehicle was still “dirty”, it was washed again. If still dirty, it was sent to the vehicle graveyard. In practice, though, Sergey said they often found ways around the decontamination check. He describes one such occasion in his collection of short stories, Worse than Radiation. My dosimeter measured a gamma level of .24 mSv.

We stopped next at the village Zalesye, located southwest of the town of Chornobyl.

I had readings from .16 mSv to .27 mSv, both below Ukrainian norms. I always feel a bit uncomfortable walking through abandoned villages, looking in the windows and yards of someone’s home. It doesn’t feel right to me to be a voyeur into someone’s home. And when I checked the radiation level and found this village was well within the conservative Ukrainian standards, I was so sad. Sad for all that people lost, all that trauma they suffered. I looked at Sergey, showing him the .16 mSv reading, and he said “I know. For what did they do all this?”

From Zalesya, we bypassed the town of Chornobyl and stopped just north of it at the one remaining working decontamination point in the Exclusion Zone. It seemed more like a scrap metal collection point.

Collecting scrap metal has become a profitable industry within the Exclusion Zone.

At the next stop, near the buried village of Kopachi, we all received a special protective suit, including booties to cover our shoes, gloves, and face masks.

It seemed a bit extreme, and Sergey himself said he thought it was ridiculous. But the rules are the rules, and since we were going off the paved roads, Chernobylinterinform, the agency managing visits to the Zone, required us all to put on this get-up.

Unfortunately, pictures speak louder than words, and I knew the pictures of our group in these crazy outfits would leave a stronger impression on those who read my blog than anything I could write attempting to dispel myths about the Zone. The pictures are pretty cool, though, I have to admit, and it was fun to feel like we were doing something exotic and even risky, even though we weren’t.

Several villages were completely razed and buried underground in the months following the accident, such as Kopachi. Here, our group stands on a mound under which is buried a Kopachi house.

My dosimeter read .24 mSv at the top of the mound. A few yards away, I measured .50 mSv.

We proceeded on and stopped next at the edge of the so-called “Red Forest.” The name was given in the weeks after the accident when the pine needles turned red as the trees died from extreme radiation exposure.

The forest that now stands on that area is all new growth since 1986. Although there are no more “red” trees, the name Red Forest has stuck.

Sergey told us that during their radiation reconnaissance missions in 1986, if they saw the signature red trees they didn’t even bother to take readings in that area - they knew it was over 1 roentgen/hour (.11 Sieverts/hour). The readings today measure 2000 times lower than in 1986.

We made a few more stops at various points along the edge of the Red Forest, and at the so-called “Torch”, the sign at the entrance to the territory of the Chornobyl Atomic Energy Station.

We stopped outside the 4th reactor, at the infamous visitors parking lot.

We were supposed to go over by the administrative building, near the cooling pond and the Chornobyl monument, but as we drove up we saw the delegation of the Minister of Emergencies, who was at the site preparing for the upcoming visit of the President and Prime Minister, who signed a contract for construction of a new shelter object over the destroyed reactor on Monday. So we headed instead over to Pripyat, stopping first at another buried village, Chistohalovka.

This is all that remains of the village, the World War II monument that stood in the center of the village.

There was a new sign just inside the gate at Pripyat (at least I hadn’t seen it on my previous visits).

Rough translation:

Attention Pripyat visitors!
For your complete safety we ask that you follow these guidelines in the town:
1. You are in a zone of increased ionizing radiation. Try to refrain from using alcohol or food products on the streets of the town.
2. A large number of buildings in the town are in emergency condition, there have already been incidents of structural failure. Therefore we highly recommend that you do not enter into buildings, even if you do not see any external damage or warning signs.

Do not forget that you are on the territory where one of the worst ecological catastrophes in human history occurred. Out of respect for the deeds of those who gave their health and lives in the fight with the consequences of the accident, as well as those who lived in this town, we earnestly request that you do not destoy Pripyat for souvenirs and do not litter on the streets - there are no municipal services in the town that could clean up.

Respectfully,
The administration of the internet project PRIPYAT.com
WWW.PRIYPAT.COM - site of the town Pripyat

We went to some places in Pripyat that I hadn’t seen before. One was the police station.

Bill in the holding cell.

Visiting the jail gave me a whole new appreciation for this amazing evacuation that took place in under 4 hours in Pripyat. Granted, it happened about 36 hours later than it should have, but still, to evacuate 45,000+ people in a matter of hours is amazing. Include in that number the prisoners and hospital patients - it’s incredible to think about moving those people in a safe and proper fashion.

In one jail cell was a huge pile on the floor of the prison records - hundreds of index cards with the information about people who were arrested.

I regret that I didn’t take a picture of the whole pile. We picked some up at random, reading aloud the crimes and fines. Most of them were for alcohol offenses - making samogon (home-brew liquor), driving while intoxicated, or my favorite “crossing the street with difficulty.” In 1986, Gorbachev’s prohibition policies were in full force.

Behind the police station was some kind of vehicle graveyard, which includes an old reconnaissance vehicle like the one Sergey said he used in 1986.

There were 7 such vehicles in his group, but the identification numbers are missing from this one, and so he can’t tell if it’s the one he himself used.

Next we walked past a really interesting and unique tree - half regular pine, half blue spruce.

It’s bizarre, and of course one’s first reaction is that it must be some kind of mutation. But no, it’s nothing as exotic as that. In fact, it was (and still is) a common practice to graft a more expensive blue spruce onto a less expensive regular pine, which was a more economical way to decorate a town with lovely blue spruces. This tree was just such a graft, only no one has tended or pruned it it over 21 years, and thus both parts of the tree have grown healthily and abundantly.

One of our last stops was at a seemingly innocuous little building with a small parking lot. We took measurements at two different places approaching a strange-looking hunk of metal, both of which were relatively low. On the actual piece of machinery, though, everyone’s dosimeters went berserk.

Openings on the side of the machine were just large enough to put a hand through, and we recorded the highest radiation measurements of the day inside the object.

One person had a measurement of over 80 mSv. I didn’t leave my hand in long enough for the dosimeter to reach that extremely dangerous level. Sergey’s guess is that this was some kind of earth-digging machine, which would explain the high contamination on the inside of the machine, if it was used to excavate highly contaminated soil. It was a good lesson about the dangers of radiation, and the impossibility of judging safety and danger. You really need special equipment, and you really have to check every few centimeters.

We ended our day at the Chernobylinterinform offices in the town of Chornobyl, where we had a de-briefing and reviewed our mapped radiation measurements. Sergey showed us the hand-drawn map he made in 1986 for his reconnaissance missions.

The official maps of the territory were classified and thus the reconnaissance teams were not allowed to take them with them on their missions. Sergey also told how they had no paper; soldiers themselves bought school notepads and divided up the blank pages so as to be able to record their measurements.

Sergey talked for a bit more about their experiences on reconnaissance missions in 1986. The highest measurement recorded in that year was 10 roentgen/hour (or about 1.2 Sv/hour). Our highest recording on this day was 85 millisieverts/hour, thousands of times lower than 21 years ago. “Hundreds of thousands of liquidators did not work for nothing,” Sergey commented. There efforts truly had remarkable results.

The day was long and exhausting (we returned to Kyiv about 9:00 pm), but very interesting and extremely educational. Pripyat.com is a fantastic organization doing really great things in and for the Exclusion Zone. Their newest project is a proposal to make the town of Pripyat into a kind of reserve - if not a nature reserve, maybe an urban reserve?

More photos from the day trip are here.