Jan
13
I was recently contacted by Matador Network to put together a photo essay that represented the eastern Ukrainian region that I’ve called home for the past two years.
Beautiful rubble of rural Ukraine was the result. And while you’ve seen many of the 20 photos here on The Borderland Chronicles, there might just be a few that’ll be new to you.
While you’re there, check out the other pieces I’ve published with Matador.
Jan
04
This fascinating short documentary by Maisie Crow explores the lives of survivors of the Chernobyl disaster and the workers still dismantling the plant today, in the city of Slavutych.
Nov
30
“Salute” Restaurant and hotel in Kiev’s Pechersk neighborhood.
Skaters ride at the foot of a monument of revolutionary hero Slava in a city park.
Flowers sit at the base of a religious icon at a church building near Kiev Pechersk Lavra.
A man practices a form of spiritual relaxation in a Kiev park.
Inside Kiev’s Zoloti Vorota (Golden Gate) Metro Station. Online travel mag BootsnAll recently named it one of the most beautiful subway station in the world.
Kiev’s main drag is Kreschatik Street. On weekend nights the road is illuminated and open only to foot traffic.
Despite a national ban on public drinking in 2010, many people continue to consume alcohol on the streets. “It’s just our culture,” a Ukrainian friend of mine explained.
Jul
26
Following my excursion to the Chernobyl exclusion zone, I put together a photo essay for Matador Travel. The photo essay, Touring Chernobyl, 25 years on, is live now.
Jul
11
The morning of June 22, my uncle and I left Kiev to partake in an excursion through the Chernobyl exclusion zone. We’d later find out that it would be the last, at least for now. But first, some background.
It was 25 years ago, on April 26, 1986, that reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, spewing radiation nine times that of Hiroshima into the air. A radiation cloud spread over much of Europe and western Russia, exposing millions of people to radiation. More than 350,000 people were evacuated from what is now the 30 kilometer exclusion zone, including some 45,000 residents of Pripyat, the city built for workers of the plant and their families.
Entering Chernobyl a quarter century later requires passing through three secured checkpoints marked with signs that read, “Stop! Forbidden zone.” Before making our way to Pripyat, we stopped in the town of Chernobyl, where a few thousand people have returned to live. There, we met our guide, a young man by the name of Misha. Misha told me he’d been working as a guide in the zone for about a year. It was later that he informed me that our tour would be the last. “I’ll be returning to Kiev with you,” he said.
Pripyat was eerie. With people out of the picture, nature has taken over. It looks post-apocalyptic. If the world ended tomorrow, a couple decades from now I’m sure most of the world would look the same, trees growing inside buildings and up from roads, vines hanging over rooftops, a deafening silence. Free to roam about for 45 minutes, I headed first to the school building. Inside I found discarded furniture, course books and attendance books, gas masks and children’s dolls. The paint on the walls was mostly peeled off, and many of the windows were broken out. I got lost for a few minutes and couldn’t find my way out. I remember standing in a hallway and hearing only the sound of a drip and nothing more.
Next I went to the swimming pool, which was housed in an adjacent building. I checked that out and strolled around snapping photos for a few minutes, then I explored some of the darkened rooms of the building. Books, posters and other items were littered across the floors, tables were turned over and chairs broken into pieces.
We then made our way to the amusement park. Set to open on May 1, 1986, as part of the town’s May Day celebration, the park never opened. A ferris wheel called the big dipper, bumper cars and a rotating swing ride now sit rusted and overgrown.
A short walk from there, located in the town’s main square, is the former palace of culture (community center), a restaurant and a hotel. The windows of the palace of culture are all broken out and trees now grow in the sills.
Less than two kilometers from the Pripyat town center sits the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. On that fateful night 25 years ago, residents came to the small overpass on the northwest side of the plant to view the fire. Most of those who did died not long thereafter from acute radiation sickness. When we arrived at the plant things were in a much calmer state. A concrete barricade with barbed wire now surrounds the plant. When we finally got the chance to view reactor No. 4 I was shocked by the condition of the sarcophagus built to contain the radioactive material. Moisture stains were prevalent, and cracks and holes were even visible. Work began last year on the New Safe Confinement meant to contain the reactor for the next 100 years. The cost is in the billions of dollars, and it’s expected to be completed by 2013.
After a brief lunch we set off for a ride through the town of Chernobyl, eventually making our way past the security checkpoints and out of the exclusion zone. The trip to Chernobyl was certainly the most intriguing day of my month-long holiday. If you would have told me 18 months ago that I’d be standing 100 meters from the place where the world’s worst nuclear disaster occurred I wouldn’t have believed you. My uncle and I spoke about our trip there for days to come, in awe, I think, of what we saw. Only in hindsight could I really grasp the magnitude of the event. I had to let my experience sink in. Now that it has, I feel lucky that during my life I’ve not been directly affected by such a catastrophe, and great sympathy for those who have.
Note: You can view more photos from my Chernobyl excursion here.
May
18
Student and community volunteers, as well as myself and members from our newly formed NGO, Green Grass, got together last Sunday morning to clean the banks of Artemovsk’s North Pond. The event was the first for Green Grass, but – we hope – not the last.
In all, about 35 people attended the cleaning event. With gloves and trash bags provided by Remondis, an Artemovsk waste company, volunteers worked for nearly four hours to pick up discarded glass, plastic and more.
Local media came out to cover the event. One news outlet, Donbass Gazette, published a short piece this week about our efforts at the lake.
Translated excerpt from the story:
Youth group Donetsk – that’s us! and public organization GreenGrass, long associated with city residents to share creative and unusual flash mobs, attracted concerned and socially active girls and guys. And about two dozen activists, as well as Peace Corps volunteers from the United States and Italy, working in the city, all Sunday morning were at the lake.
“Ukraine is a beautiful country. But I see a lot of garbage. People generally understand the problem, but, unfortunately, still do not feel the motivation for action. I am pleased that young people have come here today to make sure a small piece of nature is cleaner and prettier. I am pleased to take part in such events in America and in Ukraine,” said volunteer Chris Miller.
You can find the story (with photo) in its original form at the Donbass Gazette website.
Apr
13
A few weeks back I was invited to join a group comprised of volunteers from Italy, Germany and France, journalists from an online news publication in Donetsk and Ukrainian environmental activists on an excursion through the factory town of Konstantinovka. The excursion was led by Vladimir Beresin, a well-known environmentalist in this part of Ukraine and director of Bakhmat Environmental and Cultural Center. ”The Wonders and Horrors of Donbass,” the title Beresin’s given the ecotour, took us from mayonnaise-packet-laden trash heaps on the edge of town to dilapidated Soviet-era factory buildings to currently operating plants. The idea of the excursion was to highlight the environmental impacts of the USSR industrialization process and see perhaps the most polluted area of Donetska Oblast.
In a nutshell, Konstantinovka was once home to some of the most successful factories in all of the Soviet Union. Heavy metals and glass were its specialty. I wrote about Konstantinovka after visiting for a weekend back in January (Ruins of communism, Jan. 16). Then, much of the ground remained covered in snow, the trash heaps hidden below pristine white drifts. But with spring here and the snow gone, the rubble of the collapsed communist society is now exposed.
The tour is something Beresin would like to fine-tune and offer tourists who will potentially visit the area next year during the European Championships. With Donetsk’s Donbass Arena hosting football matches, cities like Konstantinovka and Artemovsk, with its winery and salt mines, are preparing themselves – and hoping – for a small boost in tourism.
But to get people to Konstantinovka will be difficult. It’s not the cultural center of the oblast, nor is it the quaint city that Artemovsk is, lined with rose bushes and cafes. It’s those with a interests in industry, politics and fallen empires who are most likely to visit. Hopefully there’ll be a few football fans that also fit into those categories.
Ecotourists.
A tractor works to consolidate a trash heap, a makeshift city dump of sorts, which lies just 200 meters from a neighborhood on the edge of the Konstantinovka.
"Lenin's idea is immortal" is scrawled across the ruins of a factory building in Konstantinovka.