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Confessions of a Chatroom Freak #2
13 November 2006, 11:54:10 | Biffo
++ CHAT SESSION BEGINS ++
Loopylisa21f: Hello NewkyB.
NewkyB: who am I ????
Loopylisa21f: Why, don’t you know? Have you lost your memory, and are suffering from ambrosia?
NewkyB: ur just meant to guess my name – go on
Loopylisa21f: Is it F.Bongo?
NewkyB: wtf?!
Loopylisa21f: You know – like the cartoon character.
NewkyB: hmmm
Loopylisa21f: F.Bongo? Remember the song?
NewkyB: no remind me
Loopylisa21f: “It’s Mr F.Bongo, He’s singing the songo, It goes a-like this, A trongo-a-trongo-a-trongo-a-trongo-bah’k-la-k’ah-lkkkk.” And the opening titles have him driving around in a little car, dispensing pellets out of a slit in his knees.
NewkyB: oh ok sounds erm … great
Loopylisa21f: I used to watch it when I was little.
Loopylisa21f: When I was even more little than I am now.
NewkyB: i dont remember it at all
Loopylisa21f: Do you have a funny real name? I went to school with a boy called Brutus Proust. As if that isn’t awful enough in itself, his father was a notorious alcoholic, and once stripped off in front of the PTA.
LoopyLisa21f: And there was another boy called Peter N. Aus, and so the rumour went round that what really happened was that Brutus stripped off in front of Petey A. Do you see?
NewkyB: lol
NewkyB: im from camden
Loopylisa21f: Is that where they have the Smorten Centre?
NewkyB: what the fuck is smorten center?
Loopylisa21f: I’m not sure. A friend of mine goes there. The way he describes it, it’s like a big dome covered in moss, and inside they play musical notes on a big, chrome Cossack that sticks out of an electrical appliance of some sort.
LoopyLisa21f: Inexplicably, this appliance has a face drawn on it in crayon.
NewkyB: so tell me something …
NewkyB: ur job ???
Loopylisa21f: I’m a newly qualified teacher.
NewkyB: oh ok
NewkyB: thats a shame really
Loopylisa21f: Why is that a shame?
NewkyB: because unless ur unlike all teachers ive ever met….
NewkyB: you will be a real nightmare
Loopylisa21f: I don’t always want to be a teacher. One day I’d like to be the first person to circumnavigate the globe on a gust.
Loopylisa21f: What are the teachers you’ve met like?
NewkyB: well they have no clue how to dress…..
NewkyB: they cant seem to listen ….
Loopylisa21f: Whatever.
NewkyB: they cant read or write but ….
NewkyB: u may be the exception
Loopylisa21f: You’ll be glad to hear that I know how to dress at least. In fact, I recently customised my entire wardrobe, replacing all buttons, zips and buckles – and cuffs, and material – with Velcro. I also replaced all the seams with caulk, and the pockets with hefty clumps of sod.
NewkyB: ur different but id geussed that already
NewkyB: i teach too
NewkyB: but not in schools
Loopylisa21f: Really? What/where/how do you teach?
NewkyB: flying
NewkyB: have done for 8yrs
Loopylisa21f: Wow! I didn’t think that flying was physically possible! Is it true what they say, that the way to learn is jump off a building with a parachute…
Loopylisa21f: And then do it again, but using a slightly smaller parachute?
NewkyB: lol
NewkyB: yep
Loopylisa21f: And then you repeat this step four score and twenty times, and on the penultimate jump you use a child’s blazer instead of a parachute, and on the final jump you go back to the original parachute size, only this time there’s a bird trapped under the canopy?
NewkyB: then no chute at all is what u meant
NewkyB: im a failed airline pilot :((
NewkyB: tooo lazy i am
Loopylisa21f: Really? What happened?
NewkyB: just didnt try hard enough
NewkyB: so i teach others so they can become airline pilots
Loopylisa21f: That’s kind of ironic. And also a coincidence, because my cousin is a failed airline steward.
NewkyB: oh a steward i couldnt do that
Loopylisa21f: He had a nervous breakdown on his third flight. During the meal he served up bowls of hot water with pegs in, and pinched a rabbi’s shoulder so hard that the rabbi’s hat and shoes flew off with a honk!
NewkyB: sounds like my ex gfs dinners everynite
Loopylisa21f: What did she do?
NewkyB: stabbed me with a kitchen knife
NewkyB: oh….
NewkyB: u mean job
Loopylisa21f: Why did she do the stabbing?
NewkyB: she just went nuts 1 day when i got home
Loopylisa21f: What had you done to upset her? You must’ve done something. I get pretty hacked off when Craig puts cushions in my bath.
NewkyB: did nothing just enquired y she was so drunk at 4.30 wed afternoon
Loopylisa21f: I guess it was because she’d been drinking.
NewkyB: u think so i did wonder
NewkyB: i still have the scar to remind me of the nut
NewkyB: had a 40cm slash and a deep stab wound in the fucking back
Loopylisa21f: Goodness me!
Loopylisa21f: She got you twice?
Loopylisa21f: I knew someone who got stabbed with one of those “party razzer” things that you blow, and it elongates, and there’s a whimsical feather on the end. You know those things? Actually, when I say “stabbed” I mean “slapped around the face”, and when I say “party razzer” I mean “draught excluder”.
NewkyB: still its ok i forgive her
Loopylisa21f: Really? Are you a Christian? Those guys will forgive anything. Even if you let off a little parp in church.
NewkyB: no no no not Christian
NewkyB: but i know u ladies are under a lot of pressure
Loopylisa21f: Some of us are. Especially those of us who live in a hyperbaric chamber.
Loopylisa21f: My mother was under a lot of pressure.
NewkyB: go on explain …..
Loopylisa21f: She was under so much pressure her eyebrows fell off!
NewkyB: thats a bit shit
Loopylisa21f: It was. Especially because she was one of the top three eyebrow models in the UK, circa about 1986.
NewkyB: right so never ever make eyebrow jokes i get that
Loopylisa21f: Not to her. Not that she’d be able to hear you anymore anyway. You see, when her eyebrows fell off there was a strong sea breeze, and they blew into her ears.
NewkyB: lol!
Loopylisa21f: I’m joking, of course. The reason she wouldn’t be able to hear you is because she died from malnutrition in a toilet about three years ago.
NewkyB: oh my god im going to cry in a minute
Loopylisa21f: Why? Have you barked your shin?
NewkyB: not quite but your full of sad stories
NewkyB: cheer me up now please
Loopylisa21f: Ok. Do I know any jokes?
NewkyB: no cos ur a teacher
Loopylisa21f: Do you know any jokes?
NewkyB: i do but im waiting to hear one from you
Loopylisa21f: Ok.
Loopylisa21f: Question: Why does Superman wear his underpants outside his trousers?
NewkyB: dunno
LoopyLisa21f: Answer: Because he’s a pervert!
NewkyB: that joke was so bad it was funny
NewkyB: see what i mean about teachers jokes
Loopylisa21f: Well, that’s a pupil’s joke. I have no jokes of my own.
Loopylisa21f: Why are you so down on teachers anyway, love? Are you scarred by an experience with a teacher? Did one perhaps hold you down during double maths and roundly thwack your pudding with a protractor?
NewkyB: im not down on all teachers
NewkyB: just most
NewkyB: but i think u may be alright
NewkyB: wasnt everyone scarred by school?
Loopylisa21f: I wasn’t. Not that I remember.
Loopylisa21f: No wait – I was.
NewkyB: go on
Loopylisa21f: I’ve just remembered. My science teacher hit me in the mouth with a Bunsen burner.
NewkyB: ffs
NewkyB: see
NewkyB: thats not good
Loopylisa21f: No. It wasn’t really. However, when I say “science teacher” I mean “school caretaker”, and when I say “hit me” I mean “heard me”, and when I say “in the mouth” I mean “swear”, and when I say “with a Bunsen burner” I mean “behind the poplar trees with Gemma Privnette”.
NewkyB: i saw my teacher cut his finger off in wood work
NewkyB: now i hate saws
Loopylisa21f: Why did he do that?
NewkyB: erm i geuss he didnt mean to
Loopylisa21f: Whereabouts did he cut it? Above or below the knuckle?
NewkyB: just below it was awful
Loopylisa21f: I bet he was literally “hopping mad”!!!
NewkyB: yep
Loopylisa21f: What sort of saw was it?
NewkyB: you know y=those big electric ones that only the teacher could use because the pupils might cut their fingers off
Loopylisa21f: Wasn’t he wearing a protective helmet?
NewkyB: how would that help?
NewkyB: look you restored my faith in teachers but im going to go do some work take care
Loopylisa21f: Ok. Well, I’m sorry.
NewkyB: sorry for ?
Loopylisa21f: I’ve upset you somehow.
NewkyB: no not yet
Loopylisa21f: Ok. Well, that’s good. I hope you enjoy your work! Are you off to fly a plane?
Loopylisa21f: Hey – I’ve just thought of something!
NewkyB: ?
Loopylisa21f: There are two types of planes – aeroplanes, and the sorts of planes you get in woodwork, and a third sort of plane: Salisbury Plain. And a fourth sort of plane: plain-flavour crisps. Thus there is a link between the beginning and the end of our conversation!!!!!!!!!! See now? See??!
NewkyB: what link?
Loopylisa21f: I dunno. Some sort of link. I really don’t know.
NewkyB: hmm i didnt notice that must mean ur much smarter than me
NewkyB: im off to wash a plane not fly it sadly
Loopylisa21f: Do you have a plane on your driveway? I have a plastic toad and some Lego on my driveway. The kid from next door threw it at me from her bedroom window. I threw some of the Lego back, but missed, and one of the pieces ended up in my nostril.
NewkyB: i dont have a driveway remember im from camden we dont have driveways here
NewkyB: anyway im going now or il just sit here all afternoon bye
Loopylisa21f: Goodbye, dear. Enjoy your “planes”!
Confessions of a Chat Room Freak #1
13 November 2006, 11:54:10 | Biffo
++ CHAT SESSION BEGINS ++
Loopylisa21f: Hello, dear. Who are you please?
LuvHerts: Ian
LuvHerts: just saying hello
Loopylisa21f: Yes. Hello, dear. Now tell me: how are you?
LuvHerts: talented and handsome thanks
LuvHerts: but also single and desperate
LuvHerts: lol
Loopylisa21f: I’m sorry to hear that news. I’m so sorry that “it” literally “hurts” my “face”.
LuvHerts: it was just an attempt at humour
Loopylisa21f: Was it? Humour?!? I absolutely LOVE humour!
Loopylisa21f: I especially love the sound of laughter. Unless that laugher ends in tears, or if it’s sarcastic laughter, or cruel laughter, like when some cruel guy is laughing to himself because he thinks it’s funny to mash up a cat.
LuvHerts: ok
Loopylisa21f: I know someone who once laughed until he was sick. It was an awful scene, Ian. You see, he “barfed” all over an insurance claim form. And here’s the rub: it was a form for claiming on a vomit-stained pouffe!
LuvHerts: ok lol tell me about yourself
Loopylisa21f: Well, I would do that, but I don’t know exactly what it is that you want to know.
LuvHerts: your likes and dislikes
Loopylisa21f: This is going to sound a bit whacked-out, but I really like the unicycle I got for Christmas.
Loopylisa21f: And here’s the rub: though I like my unicycle, I dislike my father’s tricycle. Sometimes he just sits on it in the corner of the room, parping on his cornet!
LoopyLisa21f: Sometimes I think he likes that ruddy trike more than he likes me and Craig. He wrote on the fridge that he did, so I suppose he must. So, y’know… never mind!
Loopylisa21f: Anyway, dear – tell me the sort of things you enjoy.
LuvHerts: chat, music, games, swapping movies
LuvHerts: meeting new people
Loopylisa21f: I literally LOVE the movies!
Loopylisa21f: Have you seen The Pilot and the Passenger?
LuvHerts: no is it good?
Loopylisa21f: Yes. It’s about a pilot and a passenger. I don’t really remember what happened in it though.
Loopylisa21f: I think at the start it begins with an inciting incident, which serves as a catalyst for the remainder of the movie.
LuvHerts: I have clearly caught you in a patronising vein
Loopylisa21f: I’m not being patronising. What makes you think I’m being like that? That’s actually really quite upsetting that you think that. I hate that you think I’m being patronising. That’s literally beyond comprehension.
LuvHerts: I can sense your devastation
LuvHerts: how can I atone for my assumption?
Loopylisa21f: You could apologise.
LuvHerts: I am sorry that you feel so
Loopylisa21f: Shall we start again?
LuvHerts: why not
LuvHerts: I have all the oscar nominated movies on dvd
Loopylisa21f: All of them? How is that even possible? There isn’t a house built that could hold them all! I reckon the only building on earth which could possibly hold that many DVDs is Balmoral. But half of that is already stuffed to the rafters with Bisto and Cif.
LuvHerts: I have contacts
LuvHerts: we swap dvds
Loopylisa21f: Are they contacts in the movie business? Or are you referring to your contact lenses? Do you see? I cracked a funny. I’m laughing so hard here that I’ve literally burst an eardrum, and have blood issuing from the corners of my mouth.
LuvHerts: I have some Bafta screeners
LuvHerts: I have King Kong
Loopylisa21f: Wow. I loved King Kong. I especially loved the bit in the middle with King Kong in it, and that bit at the end where all the words come up, and that bit at the start where they advertised some vodka.
LuvHerts: mine is from a negative, cut privately
LoopyLisa21f: Is that legal?
LuvHerts: nope
LuvHerts: do you agree with all laws Lisa?
LuvHerts: that would be unloopy would it not?
Loopylisa21f: I agree with most laws. I actually don’t think laws are tough enough. I think criminals should be put in prison regardless of whether or not they’ve committed a crime.
LoopyLisa21f: Also, I think the punishment should fit the crime. Say if someone has stolen some bread, I reckon they should be made to open a bakery, and then have all their bread stolen, so that they know what it feels like.
LuvHerts: I do not consider myself a criminal, just a student of film
LuvHerts: you’ve never seen a bootleg dvd?
Loopylisa21f: I did once, but I didn’t like it. There were these people doing things to animals.
Loopylisa21f: There was a scary man wearing a mask inside-out, and he pushed a pig up a vent, and bunged up the vent with gloves. And then another man blocked up a cow’s minge with tissue paper.
LuvHerts: were they at McDonalds?
Loopylisa21f: No. It was on a DVD. My dad showed it to me for my 14th birthday.
LuvHerts: if you really are a movie fan I can send my lists
Loopylisa21f: Yes please. Would you like to see my list?
LuvHerts: sigh, go on
Loopylisa21f: 1. Harrison Ford.
2. Gregory Peck.
3. Mars.
4. M/A/R/R/S
5. Solar power.
6. Cern.
LuvHerts: but no movies there
Loopylisa21f: Oh. What? Oh. I don’t know what I’m doing then.
Loopylisa21f: What is your favourite movie?
LuvHerts: too many
LuvHerts: what is that a list of then?
Loopylisa21f: I’m not sure. It’s just a general list of things.
LuvHerts: one always needs lists
Loopylisa21f: I guess so. Normally I only make lists of things I need to buy. For example:
1. Courgettes
2. Snails. etc.
LuvHerts: you like to cook?
Loopylisa21f: Yes. Yes, I do.
LuvHerts: or train snails with courgettes?
LoopyLisa21f: What are courgettes anyway?
LoopyLisa21f: My dad has always said they were actually dog eye stems, but I’ve doubted that for some time now.
LoopyLisa21f: Hello? Ian? Ian, have you gone?
LoopyLisa21f: Ian?
13 November 2006, 11:53:30 | Biffo
In some ways we’re all standing in the shadow of Chernobyl. On the afternoon of Friday 26th May 2006 I was doing just that in the most literal sense possible.
SARPHAGUS
“No photographs“, coughed our guide, as I began to take photographs of the entrance to the Chernobyl plant from the van window.
Built in 1970, the Chernobyl station consisted of four reactors. Though poorly maintained, and staffed by inexperienced workers, the plant produced 10% of Ukraine’s total energy. Two further reactors were in the process of being built at the time of the accident. They now stand abandonded, cranes left as they were, too radioactive to dismantle.
As with so much of our tour around the exclusion zone, the Chernobyl power plant was not what we had expected. Well maintained flower beds, freshly mowed verges, and pockmark-free tarmac led the way to the No.4 reactor. At least that was every bit as monolithic and iconic as you’d expect, even if it did look a bit like a building site.
Despite his previous assertation that there were to be “no photographs“, our guide allowed us to stand on a zebra crossing and take pictures of the reactor sarcophagus. However, he did add: “You must stay on this line, and take photographs in one direction only.”
Stamp. Cough. Stamp.
Not that it mattered much to some of us; my dad and Sebastian’s cameras mysteriously stopped working while we were at the reactor, and didn’t come back on until we were out of the zone.
For about half an hour we stood just 100 metres from the reactor, waiting for a film crew to finish in the visitors centre. Plant workers came and went. The sun shone. Surreally, a heavily pregnant dog walked around. The fact the geiger counter was reading 1,000 roentgens barely bothered us now. After what had happened in Pripyat, if the radiation was going to do any damage, that damage had already been done.
It was difficult to feel any sort of emotion. Before going I’d expected to be profoundly overwhelmed. But the guide was robotic, and seemingly devoid of emotion. Once inside the visitors centre we were given a talk on the current state of the plant – illustrated using an impressive scale model that I wouldn’t mind having at home – that was clinical and to the point. There was no talk of the human cost, just the financial cost to the donor nations who are paying to keep the plant safe.
Indeed, flags of donor countries hung from the wall – the only one we didn’t see was Russia’s (our host, Linda, stumbled over this fact when my dad asked why).
We were told about the internal structure of the sarcophagus, and the so-called ‘elephant’s foot’ – a solid lump of molten radioactive material, two hundred metres across, and weighing hundreds of tons. In the years immediately following the disaster, Soviet scientists attempted to extract samples from it by shooting at it with Kalashnikovs.
Linda pointed out the gaps in the sarcophagus, and indicated where work was being undertaken to reduce the probability of collapse. She talked at length about the next stage of the project – construction of a new ‘shelter object’, and the largest, moveable man-made structure ever built. Land would be cleared at the site, and the structure slid into place on rails. It’s estimated to cost in the region of £600 million, and construction is due to begin after shelter stablisation is completed later this year.
Chernobyl will remain radioactive for at least 100,000 years. Relatively speaking, any stabilisation work, and shelter construction, can only be temporary solutions to the problem.
THE DAY AFTER
It was only the day after that the enormity of where I’d been really sunk in. It was a similar feeling to the time I was mugged in Amsterdam. During the mugging I’d been uncommonly bullish, and stood up to our tiny Moroccan assailants, despite the knife to my stomach. Only afterwards did I panic, my knees giving out on the jog back to the hotel.
The same thing happened to me the day after Chernobyl; flashbacks to those radiation read-outs, that eternal wait in Pripyat, the sarcophagus looming above us, the momentary blip of fear as we were checked for radiation on the way back through the checkpoint…
So why did I go? What did I get out of it? I don’t know, to be honest. Driving along a tree-lined street yesterday I had a brief Pripyat flashback, a sudden fear of nature taking over, but whether I’ve learned lessons about the world, or any sort of po-faced, self-obsessed truth about myself… I’m really not sure. Which is just as well, because – oh, the shock! – Chernobyl’s not really about me.
The deaths still go on. Kids in Belarus and Ukraine will continue to be born deformed. And more immediate, easier to understand catastrophes will grab the headlines. Even having been there, I find the scale of the disaster difficult to comprehend – perhaps more so than before.
You can throw as many statistics, and roentgens, and shelter objects at it as you like – but it’s detail on a human level that’s easier to understand.
There is a very excellent book called Voices From Chernobyl – one of only a few written about the disaster – that is big on the kind of small detail that I can get my head around.
In the introduction to the book there is a passage that I find chilling in its matter-of-factness:
“The Zone of Exclusion, as the Soviets termed the land within thirty kilometers of the Chernobyl power plant, evacuated of humans, was still filled with household pets. But the dogs and cats had absorbed heavy doses of radiation in their fur, and were liable, presumably, to wander out of the Zone. The hunters had to go in and shoot them all.”
13 November 2006, 11:53:30 | Biffo
FATAL FAIRGROUND ATTRACTION
Nobody has ever ridden the rides in Pripyat’s ‘First of May Fairground’. It was due to open a few days after the accident, but fate intervened.
The van was waiting in the middle of the fairground, the most open space I’d yet seen in the city. All that’s left of its attractions are a bumper car ride, a swingboat, a merry-go-round, and Pripyat’s famous ferris wheel – probably its most photographed landmark.
I started taking photographs of the bumper cars, and the guide shouted at me to come away. He placed the geiger counter at the ground where I’d been standing: nearly 1,000 roentgens – the highest we’d seen so far. He walked to a patch of moss a few feet away, and held the geiger counter above it. The reading climbed above 2,000 – 200 times the natural background radiation at home.
“We must leave,” said the guide, more than a hint of anxiety in his voice. “Because it has rained, and the sun has come out, the radiation is rising many times. It is not safe to be here .”
No shit, stampy-boy.
By this point my dad and Sebastian had turned up – though Sebastian had already wandered away again.
My dad and I lingered by the van, while Maxim gunned the engine, clearly eager to get away. But the rest of our party had not yet returned. The guide started pacing, checking the geiger counter every few seconds. Neither he nor Maxim spoke, but from the glances they kept exchanging it was pretty obvious they wanted to get going.
Maxim started hitting the horn; long blasts lasting upwards of 20 seconds. They echoed across the fairground, but still there was no sign of the others.
He hit the horn again and again – and finally, Sebastian answered its call. He’d found a kids’ playground that he’d wanted to take pictures of. We were told to get in the van, and – to our surprise – it drove off without us even having time to close the door. The South African, Croatian, and Belarussian/American weren’t with us. Were we about to go without them?
Maxim stopped at a junction, and started hitting the horn again.
Still no sign of them. By now my anxiety levels were off the chart. I’ve no idea whether my dad or Seb felt the same way, but our guide and Maxim were less than calm. We sat at that junction in the shadow of Soviet tower blocks for minute after drawn-out minute, the horn intermittently blaring, all of us swatting away the mosquitos, the geiger counter beeping… It was as surreal a moment as I’ve ever experienced.
Finally, the Croatian guy turned up, and waited with us.
And waited, and waited.
Maxim continued to hit the horn – practically punching it by now. And then, at last, we saw the other two, ambling along the street in front of us. We would’ve left then, but the Croatian guy had disappeared again. I’ve rarely wanted to strangle anyone more.
We left anyway, and I’m almost certain that, if we hadn’t passed him on the way out of the city, Maxim and the guide would’ve gladly left him behind.
I would’ve done.
13 November 2006, 11:53:30 | Biffo
A couple of years back I stumbled upon a site called Kid of Speed. It told the story of one brave girl’s motorcycle ride through a radioactive desert. The photos on her site portrayed the exclusion zone as a dead place. Grey skies, and skeletal trees. Grass like straw. But it was the pictures of Pripyat that really chilled me.
Unfortunately, Kid of Speed was debunked a while ago. She no more rode through the exclusion zone on a motorbike than I did – you’re simply not allowed in unescorted. She took the exact same tour I did, but dressed up her photos with props – gas masks, and kids’ toys that she’d brought along for maximum nightmarish effect.
CHERNOBYL HOPSCOTCH
Pripyat was not – as you’d expect – a scary place. Not at first anyway. The central square was a wide open space, and the high-rise buildings were kept far apart from one another. Good town planning. Plus it’s difficult to feel threatened when you know you’re alone. In some respects I’d rarely felt safer. In others, I knew that radiation was all around me.
Heeding warnings I’d read in books and on websites – no thanks to our guide, who I noticed had taken to stamping his feet every few minutes (presumably to shake off radioactive dust) – I hopscotched across the square, taking care not to step on any moss. Moss, like fungus, is a sponge for radiation.
Before we’d set out I’d asked Sergei whether there had been any accidents on these tours. “In five years of doing them we had no accidents,” he said. “Then a few months ago someone set off the alarms when he was being checked at the border, and they had to wash him down. He must have stepped in something.”
I had no desire to step in anything.
The van drove off, and within a few minutes I was completely alone. I could see the others making a b-line for the big building in the centre of town – my dad picking his way through the overgrown bushes, the guide seemingly off on his own adventure. I stayed on my own. I found a boarded up shop – the only secured building I saw the whole time I was in Pripyat. Someone had chalked a lit candle on the door.
Up until about 1996 Pripyat was a time capsule of the Soviet era. Then it started to get looted and vandalised. Now anything that was remotely valuable has been taken away – even the toilet seats. Best of luck to whoever uses those.
Buildings still sport the Hammer and Sickle, and there’s no evidence of the commercialism that covers every spare surface of Kiev. A few buildings may have been store fronts, but it was difficult to tell.
Within a decade or so Pripyat will have begun crumbling to the ground. Already it’s too dangerous to climb to the tops of the buildings, now being undermined by moss and roots. There are even trees growing up through stonework. Nature lived here now.
Within another 20 years Pripyat will be all but consumed – like the modern equivalent of those Aztec temples you see in films. Within 300 years the radiation will have died away to start making human activity safe again, but by then the city will have ceased to exist.
I made my way up crumbling stone steps, trying hard not to even brush against the foliage. It was difficult not to – it was everywhere. I entered buildings, and tried take it all in. I should have felt something other than I did, but it was so surreal that it was impossible to believe people had ever lived there. I wasn’t even particularly moved when I found a storage room full of props and decorations for the May Day parade – portraits of local dignitaries, and Soviet propaganda. Stalagtites had begun to form from the ceilings of some buildings.
When I was little my mother had been caretaker of a church opposite our house (the church where I’d been Christened, in fact). It eventually closed down, but my mother had remained caretaker – even as it remained empty for years afterwards. Soon enough – just like Pripyat – the grounds had become overgrown, and my friends and I had taken to playing in them.
One day I got picked up by the police, and dragged off the the local police station for breaking into the neighbouring vicarage. My somewhat hopeless alibi had been that my mother was caretaker so I couldn’t have possible been breaking the law. Walking around Pripyat made me feel like that eight year-old playing hide and seek in the overgrown grounds of that church, and playing games in the empty rooms of the vicarage.
It wasn’t until I came home and looked at photos of Pripyat as it had been – all landscaped flower beds, and pretty ponds, the streets full of people and cars, and I recognised the places – that it hit me. In fact, it hit me hard.
And it was only when we reached the fairground that things started to get properly scary.
13 November 2006, 11:53:30 | Biffo
The only sign that things were a little different on the morning of Saturday April 26th 1986 was the smoke on the horizon, wrapping the power plant in a hazy shroud. Only as the day wore on did people start to suspect that something significant had occurred; rumours started to spread, fuelled by the occasional armoured personal carrier rumbling past. Then there were the uniformed troops in gas masks checking vehicles tyres, the streets being washed with detergent, radio chatter relating to “hundreds being hospitalised“…
Yet it was only at 10am the next morning – Sunday – that the people of Pripyat were officially informed what had happened at the reactor. Even then, the scale of the disaster was played down. They were told that the town was being evacuated, but that they would be allowed to return within a few days. At 2pm, more than 1,000 buses arrived in Pripyat. Within four hours all 50,000 residents had been removed.
They never came back.
THIS TOWN…
As we reached Pripyat the clouds evaporated, and the sun came out.
All the photos I’ve seen of the city were taken in winter. In those photographs the town looks haunted, dead, and – there’s that phrase again – post-apocalyptic. This was not the Pripyat we encounted.
13 November 2006, 11:53:30 | Biffo
THE RED FOREST
Chernobyl reactor No. 4 had disappeared from view as we reached the checkpoint to the 10km zone. I’d expected something different from the 30km zone checkpoint, but it looked pretty much the same. The same DANGER signs, the same squat, rundown buildings. Even the border guards looked the same.
And yet it wasn’t the same; the samosels aren’t permitted to live in the 10km zone. Frankly, after what we experienced next I could see why: I can’t imagine them surviving for long.
We had checked the radiation levels back in Chernobyl town. The guide had switched on his geiger counter, and – initially – the numbers had hovered around 11 . “It’s nothing,” he’d said. Strictly speaking, 11 microroentgens isn’t nothing. It’s a couple of points above the 8 or 9 microroentgens in my house back home (according to my eBay-sourced, Ukrainian-made dosimeter anyway).
Kiev has – apparently – a background radiation level of between 12 and 13. The guide’s geiger counter reading started to rise almost the minute he’d said “Nothing”. It eventually settled somewhere in the 20s. He had switched it off without further comment.
13 November 2006, 11:53:29 | Biffo
A fine sentiment, but they deserve better than this tacky, oversized lump of tourist tat, seen only by around 7,000 people like myself every year. People curious – or stupid – enough to take one of these tours. And chuckling, excitable Belgian TV crews.
THE VILLAGE PEOPLE
We clambered back into the van, and left the town of Chernobyl. Our guide and I – both with the misfortune to be sitting on the side of the bus favoured inexplicably by the bugs – spent much of the next 5 minutes flattening mosquitos against the windows. So irritated was I by their presence (not to mention keen for the irritatation not to become irradiation from an exclusion zone insect bite), that I barely registered as our van drove over a rusting bridge, and we took a right turn onto a small country road.
I’d been expecting our next stop to be at the checkpoint for the 10km exclusion zone, but our guide got out, and lifted a red-and-white barrier by hand. The road beyond was pock-marked and narrow, wet with a recent rain. After a few minutes we pulled off the tarmac, and onto what appeared to be a country trail rarely bothered by vehicles. We stopped beside a shed. Except it wasn’t a shed; it was home to one of the zone’s 350 or so permanent human residents.
Maria told us that she was rarely lonely. There was much work to keep her busy. Plus, she had friends in the village, and her grandson – who lives in Kiev – came to visit only the week before, helping her chop wood, and tend her patch of land.
Before we left, the other members of our party began taking pictures. I felt a bit uncomfortable about this. I’d obviously wanted a record of having been there, but hadn’t wanted to start snapping away – not without permission anyway – but Maria didn’t seem to mind. As she stood there, blinking before the glare of our flashbulbs, I remarked that she looked like a film star.
Except that film stars are fake, and at the risk of sounding melodramatic, Maria was probably the most real person I’ve ever met. Certainly the most humbling.
13 November 2006, 11:53:29 | Biffo
We’d driven much of the way in silence – save for the Belurussian technogeek occasionally droning on to the stuttering South African about his cameras and laptops and websites – but now even that stopped. We had no geiger counter with us, but almost immediately we passed a red and yellow radiation sign at the side of the road. We’d see these throughout our trip, and they marked the site of buried villages. Occasionally, through the trees, we’d see more concrete evidence of these villages; empty cottages and farm buildings, not even boarded up – just left, empty. At points telegraph poles trailed fallen wires on the ground.
To be honest, I think most of us found this part of the trip to be a disappointment, and I began to question my motives for being there. Like most people, the words “radioactive exclusion zone” make me think of the future war bits of Terminator 2. Of blighted wastelands populated by giant, mutant rats and cockroaches. In fact, the zone’s rodent population trailed off, then stabilised, following a brief spike in the 12 months after 1986’s evacation.
There are no Chernobyl mutants living in the exclusion zone – save for the wasps, which display more variety in their patterns than their non-irradiated cousins. And the most likely reason there are no Chernobyl mutants is because mutants do not survive in the wild. Unlike, tragically, the numerous Ukrainian and Belarussian orphanges.
Though trees were – in places – strangely gnarled, we were driving through a lush forest, and for the most part roads were well maintained. Even the traffic seemed to pick up, as we passed a number of buses, full of government employees heading in the opposite direction.
He led us inside the dimly-lit building, and into a drab room where the lino was crinkled, and the walls were decorated with maps and photographs. After a brief wait, while we all used the toilet – I don’t know about the others, but I had to pause before washing my hands in Chernobyl water – he proceeded to give us a briefing. Well, I say a briefing, it was more just him pointing at the pictures and maps using a big stick.
“This is where we are now – Chernobyl town. Here is the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Here are villages. Here. And here. We will be visiting this village here. This is a photograph of a cow. It is a dead cow. Here is another photograph of another thing. This thing is not a cow. It is another thing. “
Following this ‘briefing’ – which, we noted – contained nothing approaching safety guidelines, let alone paperwork absolving the Ukrainian government of responsibility should we absorb a fatal overdose of radiation, we ate lunch. Four courses of bread, meat, and borscht, washed down with mineral water and milk-free tea. Apparently it had been shipped in from outside the zone, but you couldn’t help but wonder. We ate mostly in silence.
When the time came to leave, the girl who served our food – the only person we saw in Chernobyl who was not dressed in camouflage gear – wished us good luck.
13 November 2006, 11:53:29 | Biffo
But Kiev is not representative of the rest of Ukraine, and not everyone appreciates the tsunami of consumerism.
SERGEI’S THE GUY
Sergei was a fascinating well of inadvertent information. When asked whether the situation in Ukraine had improved since 2004’s Orange Revolution, he answered: “The current president is a good president, but a president for the future. What this country needs now is a dictator who can sort out the corruption.”
You can’t imagine very many countries where citizens would prefer the jackbooted grip of dictatorship to the relative freedom democracy offers. Apart from perhaps Iraq.
We asked whether Sergei considers nuclear power to be safe. He responded “Nuclear power is a loaded gun.” When we asked whether the rest of Ukraine feels the same way since the Chernobyl accident, he shrugged, and said: “People do not know a lot about it.”
You’d have thought that having 2,500 sq km of radioactive land within your borders would be something you’d be aware of, but the Chernobyl disaster happened 20 years ago, when Soviet authorities controlled the flow of information to its people. It was two weeks before they admitted to the rest of the world what had happened, by which time a radiactive cloud was floating around the globe.
MAXIM-UM CAR-NAGE
On the morning of our Chernobyl tour Sergei had a warning about our driver: “You must be careful. Your driver, Maxim, does not understand humour. A few weeks ago he was taking a Belgian film crew into the exclusion zone, and they were laughing in the back, saying ‘We are going to have fun at Chernobyl’. Maxim rang ahead to the border guards and told them, and the guards did not want to let the Belgians into the zone.”
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is about two hours drive north of Kiev. Maxim – who did not speak a word of English – would be driving us to the town of Chernobyl, a short way from the site of the reactor, where we would meet our guide.
“You may have read about a guide called Rimma,” Sergei said to me. Indeed I had. In most of the reports you read about excursions into the Chernobyl zone it’s Rimma who leads people around.
“Rimma died earlier this year,” said Sergei blandly, perhaps not realising that this information was less than reassuring.
As well as Maxim and our guide, our group was made up of six people. There was me, my dad, my friend Sebastian, and three others; a young Croatian boy who didn’t say a great deal, a large South African with a stutter that made communication near impossible (or at the least frustrating and embarassing), and a Belarussian technogeek who had lived in the US for 15 years, and was hoping to publish a book of photographs from his trip (this slightly undermined his later assertion that he was self-funding the trip to provide publicity for a Chernobyl children’s charity).
Maxim was typical of the many drivers we encountered during our stay in Ukraine. He had little regard for things like driving on the correct side of the road, but in a country where road markings are optional – and where it’s often difficult to tell where the pavement stops and the road begins – you can’t really blame him.
Clearly, had we attempted to introduce him to British motoring regulations he’d have probably accused us of witchcraft, and tried to burn us at the stake (a taxi driver later mocked me for putting on my seatbelt: “What’s the matter – bad insurance?“). The further north we got the worse the roads became, and the worse the roads became, the more Maxim swerved from lane to lane – often into the path of oncoming traffic – in order to avoid potholes. All this in a van that clanked like the Tinman in a tumble dryer, and without the comforting embrace of seatbelts.
We stopped in a small village about halfway on the road to the first Chernobyl checkpoint . Though it was a far cry from Kiev – horse drawn ploughs, chickens and dogs wandering around looking for food, people thumbing lifts, cars that looked held together with Sellotape – the people were typical Ukrainians.
The roads and pavements may have been little more than dirt tracks, but the men all wore suits and smart shoes, and the women were either Baboushkas, or bleached blonde glamour models. We speculated at which point Ukrainian women chose to ditch the miniskirts and heels in favour of headscarves and wellington boots.
Our unscheduled stop was so that Maxim could buy a socket wrench. A sensible precaution given that none of us really wanted to lose a wheel, and be stranded in a radiactive exclusion zone.
We set off again, and within minutes traffic thinned to a trickle, and then disappeared altogether. We were on the road to Chernobyl.
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